Legalized bribery

It’s not enough that our elected officials currently work under a system in which their votes appear tied to the money they raise from contributors.

Or that many of the poeple who end up working for local, county and state agencies are the same people who fund our campaigns.

Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan wants to extend this system of legalized bribery to voters.

The New York Times described the legislation this way:

Under a bill introduced this week by two Democratic legislators, everyone who votes in New Jersey would be eligible to win more than $1 million in a lottery drawing after an election.

There could be other rewards as well, like even more money or something else valuable.

To make voting even more alluring, anyone who votes in both a primary and the general election would have two chances of winning. Voters could conceivably get even more than two shots a year, depending on whether school board, municipal and fire district elections, which are often held on separate dates,
would also count.

There is no doubt that turnout could be better. As the Times points out:

Turnout has been steadily declining in the state, as it has elsewhere, with a record-low 48.5 percent of registered voters actually voting in the 2005 race for governor between Jon S. Corzine and Douglas R. Forrester.

But turning the polls into a massive lottery game? Is this what we’ve come to, a need to bribe the state’s residents to turn out at the polls? And is the best way to get an apathetic — some might say disaffected — electorate to reinsert themselves in the democratic process to turn it into a new Power Ball game?

“People say, ‘Oh gee, it’s trivializing the voting,’ ” Mr. Diegnan said. “I say just the opposite. Anything we can do to call attention and get people to vote, we should consider it. My purpose is really to bring some excitement to it.”

Excitement? Sometimes I wonder if politicians actually listen to themselves speak.

It’s not that the proposal trivializes voting — it does — but that it also trivializes the notion of civic participation and democracy itself. Democracy isn’t supposed to be about the big cash payoff (corporate donors excepted). The payoff is supposed to be an efficiently functioning government that has the people’s interest at heart. If residents of the state are not concerned enough about the people who sit on school boards, municipal governing bodies or county freeholder boards, who serve in the Legislature or as governor, then that is their prerogative.

If Mr. Diegnan were truly interested in boosting voter turnout, he’d recommend an array of other reforms, including holding elections on multiple days, moving Election Day to the weekend, allowing secure e-voting, etc.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet