This is China! BLOG

The New American Way: When Capitalism Trumps Democracy

I voted a couple days ago. I’ll be in New York City on Election Day (November 7) here in the States, so I thought I’d take advantage of the polls being open a week early at the local civic center in Evanston (Illinois), and at the astounding fact that the polling station was within walking distance of my home.

I was looking forward to the experience, especially since in China you have to be Chinese and live in a small village to have the opportunity to vote. (Yes, China has a grass-roots form of democracy in the countryside, rudimentary in form and substance, but democratic nonetheless.)

I was surprised how crowded the actual polling station in Evanston was with proactive voters. Pretty much a middle-class group, all seemed quite eager to vote.

Several aspects of the voting process surprised me: civil servants helped us with our paperwork; the one volunteer there was not in his eighties and frightened by the voting-machine technology; and the machines were an absolute mess.

The civil servants that helped the crowd of voters were all women, professional and courteous. I gave them high marks afterward on the voter satisfaction form. The one volunteer who helped was a man, white-haired, though he seemed in his mid-forties, thick bottle-bottom eyeglasses holding up the rim of his train engineer cap. He was efficient in processing upcoming voters and patient in explaining the new voting machines.

The first thing he said when a small clutch of us gathered around him was, “oh, let me put that [card] in the machine. The machine jams very easily and then takes five minutes to bring back online.”

I was genuinely shocked by what he said. The voting machine is the embodiment of Democracy. Individuals around the world have literally fought and died for the vote. And here it had been turned into just another sale; the Big One. Like a toaster or blender that breaks down every once in a while. I bet the maker of the voting machines was laughing all the way to the bank.

The white-haired volunteer went on to explain how the touch-screen worked: touch here, don’t touch there, this is how you can review your vote. If you press in this place you won’t be able to view your results. And press here to view a printout of your selections. Print out?

After I had “thrown out the bums” through the wonders of touch-screen technology, I was again shocked when I pressed the button to register my votes and a VERY long strip of paper whirred into view at the right of the machine, in shadow, guarded by plexiglass. The paper must have been a meter long by the time it printed and was deposited I have no idea where inside the machine.

Not only did the machine waste a huge amount of paper, but the amount of ink the machines will use on Election Day will be indefensible. And just you wait, those printers will jam - so let’s consider the amount of time it will take to find the jam and fix it, then reload the paper. Or, in a best-case, smoothest running scenario, the delays caused at polling stations when workers have to unload the printed election results, load new paper and ink cartridges in the machines. I heard on National Public Radio last week the average age of the volunteers that have historically tended the polls is 72 - SEVENTY TWO! Be patient with your grandmother while she bends over your voting machine to wrench out the jammed voter-card, tear out the paper that has jammed the printer, and secreted away the reams and reams of voter results.

The machines and the voting process as they have been automated (at least in Illinois) are a disgrace. And in states like Ohio that have been “close calls” in the past, the new technology will only further obscure results that are not clear cut. I do believe governments’ investment in un-user friendly technology like this do not serve the People, but do enrich those with the connections into state and local governments to facilitate sales of garbage taxpayers are picking up the tab for.

For those who would say Democracy in America is broken; I would say look only to the results of our own greed, home grown, true blue. Can’t blame the Chinese for that one.

Sometimes, Made in America is an embarrassing bit of branding.

William Dodson
Chicago, USA