There are many things I know nothing about and do not purport to. There are many things I do not care about and do not claim to. And there are millions of things I do not understand but care to. Among the latter category is the California re-call election of Governor Gray Davis, the 9th Circuit’s recent ruling and what this means in a democratic nation.
America prides itself on democracy. In hearing about the California re-call election, the supporters, the opposition and now the ruling by the court, I have begun to question my understanding of democracy. So I went to the best source, the dictionary, and looked it up. According to the Oxford English dictionary online democratic is defined as “of the nature of, or characterized by, democracy; advocating or upholding democracy.” The obvious next step was to find the definition of democracy. Democracy is defined as “government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them. In modern use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege.”
The last portion of the definition confirmed what I had always been told is true about America: that everyone has an equal voice and say in government.
If we are the democratic union we say we are and if California is still part of our union. Then it would seem that the decision reached by the 9th Circuit Court should be upheld.
According to an article in USA Today “Yesterday the court ruled that California’s planned use of punch-card ballots, the same kind used in the contested 2000 presidential election, would disenfranchise thousands of Californians. “The judges said that using inaccurate punch-card machines in at least six of California’s 58 counties – the actual number is seven – denies those voters equal protection of the law by discriminating on the basis of “geographic residence.”
If the whole point of democracy is to let everyone’s voice be heard and have an equal chance of being heard, then the election must be postponed until this is the case.
How much more proof do we need that punch card ballots are unreliable? Three years ago our entire nation literally hung in the balance because thousands of ballots were inaccurate and could not be counted. We may be inclined to blame this on the stupid people who did not punch them all the way through, the stupid people who contested the election, or the stupid people who could not count the ballots all the way, but either way the system showed itself to be unreliable.
The focus of this debate should not be centered on party lines. It should be about the right of the people in a democratic nation to participate in the political process. Something we find so important that our president has requested $87 billion additional dollars to finance our efforts to bring democracy to Iraq. Many people are in favor of honoring that request despite of our own economic crises in America because we believe so strongly in democracy that it should be brought to every nation at any cost.
In allowing the re-call election but not allowing the voters in seven counties to use updated machines it purports that some people’s rights to get what they want supercede the rights of others to do the same. I disagree. The most beautiful and miserable aspect of democracy is that it is supposed to give every citizen in a nation an equal voice in government. This leaves those who opposed Governor Gray Davis and wish for him to be removed free to feel that way. It also means that those who take their time and participate in the democratic process and exercise their right to vote (something we often criticize each other for failing to do) should be recognized and respected for doing so.
If we assert ourselves as the international model for a free and democratic society shouldn’t we be the first to understand that democracy takes time and costs money? So the 1.6 million people who signed the petition to re-call the election should have their voices and request heard and so should the 44 percent of Californians who live in the counties with the outdated voting machines.