Voting American Style

Election Day for the presidency, many US senate seats, a posse of House reps, state and local offices is two days from today.

Early voting line/Miami
(photo from The New York Times)

In a number of states, early voting has commenced. Not surprisingly, Florida's early voting is already controversial. Officials of Florida's Republican governor says the early voting process is operating smoothly. That's true if your standard of a well-run process is a seven-hour wait for the opportunity to vote, as some south Floridians have experienced, according to a Miami Herald report.

In New Jersey, where I live, early voting became something of a necessity for many people whose lives were disrupted by the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Voters could go to the county seat and cast a ballot. The obvious problem is that the Garden State is experiencing gasoline rationing and many people are afraid to drive in this fuel-challenged situation. In fairness, New Jersey's GOP governor Chris Christie is trying to do the right thing for voters, something Florida governor Rick Scott's administration cannot honestly claim.

Sign on Milwaukee's East Side,
October 2012
(photo by Tim Hoey)

What's striking in this presidential election is the rendering of the electoral garment into two roughly equal pieces. My wife and I were recently in Wisconsin, a so-called "battleground" state. Really, the Badger State was the 2012 election's version of the Spanish Civil War, courtesy of the election of Scott Walker to the governor's office, his subsequent evisceration of public workers' collective bargaining rights, and a failed recall vote. Walker's victory in the recall balloting has not diminished the electoral fervor this fall. Wisconsin is home to the GOP's vice presidential candidate, borders Barack Obama's home base of Chicago, and has a very tight US senate race that features an openly lesbian candidate.

In Wisconsin, my wife and I saw an astonishing number of intense TV political commercials. We expected that. What we were unprepared for was a parade of billboards that mostly featured pro-Romney messages or strongly anti-Obama messages. Nothing seemed very sacred, least of all the politicized churches, the majority of which felt comfortable embracing the GOP message.

Billboards paid for by venture capitalists
Stephen and Nancy Einhorn.
They also contributed $50,000 to
Scott Walker's election as Wisconsin governor.

Last night, we attended a small dinner party a short drive from our home. One of the hosts was an Italian-born painter. The Italian voting system is quite different from the American version, in that Italians have to travel to the town or city of their birth in order to vote. The entire country is literally on the move during the Italian election period. I asked the painter if he could envision Americans mirroring the Italian voting procedure. He laughed and simply said, "Basta, Tim."

If we could only say that for our own country's very screwed up political process.