Some thoughts on... Counting on Votes

Elections have been a hallmark of the US democracy for over two centuries.  Yet as we head into the November election, the nation is facing a novel set of challenges to voting due to Covid-19.  The pandemic is throwing obstacles to the election process in various ways: 

·      It is harder to conduct voter drives in person to help people register

·      It is harder for people to physically show up at a voting area increasing the need for mail-in ballots

·      It is harder to count ballots in a timely manner as there may be delays in mail delivery and mail receipt

 

Underlying all these new difficulties, is an old problem – there is disagreement on who should be allowed to vote.   If asked people generally agree that every citizen should have the right to vote, nonetheless local, state and federal authorities have created barriers to voting in the past few years in order to exclude certain populations.  These restrictions are:

 

1.     Population Disenfranchisement occurs when officials use precise legislative measures to prevent certain populations from voting.  Examples include:

·      Local governments removing polling booths especially amongst underprivileged African-American communities.

·      States, like North Dakota, implementing laws denying Native American population registration because individuals on reservations do not have a street address.

·      In Florida a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to ~1.4 million ex-Felons was recently restricted in the 11^th Circuit Court as lawmakers insisted that individuals had to pay all financial court fees before being allowed to vote (essentially a poll tax).  These felons are predominantly people of color. 

·      Gerrymandering at the Federal government level which redraws district lines to benefit certain parties has been used by both parties.  A recent supreme court ruling on this effectively recused courts from ruling on egregious examples and placed the power at state legislative levels to make revisions based on the 2020 census.

 

2.     Voter ID Restrictions prevent citizens from voting if they do not have the correct set of government issued identifications.  They are broad legislative measures, which predominantly impact poorer and rural citizens who do not have the time, financial resource or physical ability to acquire the documents.  The ACLU estimates that about 21 million US citizens may be affected by these restrictions.

 

3.     Finally, Voter Purging laws remove registered voters from the voting lists because of inactivity in recent years.  Governor Brian Kemp effectively used this tool from 2012-2018 in Georgia by removing about 1.4 million voters and helping him win the governorship over Stacey Abrams.

 

As we all think of ways to help the elections this year, here are a few things that I am doing.

 

1.     Talking to people I interact with at work or personally and make sure they are aware on how to register to vote.  I am also talking to individuals who I infrequently interact with, e.g. housekeepers, trainers.  If they need help and have on-line access, I send them these links to walk them through the process: IWillVote.com or Vote.gov

 

2.     Depending on party affiliation, you can find sites that encourage voter outreach.  I signed up with Vote Forwardto send letters to individual voters.  

 

3.     On election day, I have signed up to work at my polling station in Suffolk County.  Go to your county election site to find out how to do this.   If you live in New York City you can use this site.

 

Finally, if you or someone you know is facing registration or voter suppression, here’s a guide on what to do.  You can also call 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español) to ask for help.

 

As we race towards the climax of our current drama in November, let’s hope that all citizens have a voice on the composition of our leadership.

 

Please do forward any interesting articles you are reading.

Some thoughts on... Starting Act Two

At the beginning of Act Five of Shakepeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is washing her hands of imaginary blood to clear her conscious, given the people she has murdered in the previous acts.  “Out, out damn spot” she furiously cries as she walks in her sleep.  As we begin our second act of the Covid-19 pandemic, I began to think which others leaders have blood on their hands?

Gustav Freytag described the classic five act structure as an upside-down “V”.  Act 1 is the introduction of the drama with tension beginning to rise in Act 2.  The third act contains a climax or turning point, after which there is a return to normalcy in Act 4, and finally a resolution in the final act.

Writing the ongoing story of our drama, we ended Act 1 with the end of home quarantine and an opening of the economy.  The surge in cases across the southern states prognosticated the beginning of Act 2 with a rise in tension as several states consider lockdown again in order to stem the upward trajectory. Historically, the flu virus kills abut 30,000 – 40,000 per year in the United States according to the CDC.  The estimates for the US, as stated by Fox News, are that 140,000 people already have died from the disease in the past five months.

The rise in infections could have been better contained.  

At the State level, several governors’ negligence and refusal to institute basic health measures to protect their populations has led to spikes in cases.

• Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona initially avoided mandating wearing masks in public and also prevented local municipalities from instituting their own policies.  He eventually reversed his decision given the rise in cases.
• Governor Greg Abbott of Texas in May allowed several businesses including restaurants, gyms, and bars a to reopen with reduced capacity and banned cities from arresting people that violated virus regulations.   By the end of June he had to pause reopening given the surge in cases. 
• Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida kept beaches opened in the Spring and claimed that Florida had won the battle back against the virus in April/ May; only to be faced with over 10,000 new cases a day by mid-July.
• Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed an executive order banning local city councils and counties from mandating that people have to wear a mask when in public, and filed a law suit to prevent Atlanta’s mayor from doing so.

These governors may simply be acting in their own political self-interest rather than the general public interest.  But, their negligence to institute basic public health measures for their states seems hard to justify.  In addition, their push to prevent local governments from instituting policies seems pure hubris. 

The defunding and erosion of the public health system in the US has occurred for a decade now, leading to a frail support framework.  By delaying Federal guidelines, the Administration has effectively delegated management of the virus to State governors.  Unfortunately, the actions of these State officials along with the relative inaction of the Executive Office means that they all have blood on their hands for the negligence that they have demonstrated.  

The climax (Act Three) of our collective play may be coming in November.  Let’s hope that we have a voice to reflect how we think leadership has been handling the crisis.

Please do forward any interesting articles you are reading.

Some thoughts on... Fiddling with Fire

From 5^th grade, I remember a history lesson about Emperor Nero playing his beloved fiddle while the Great Fire of Romeburned through the country in 64 CE.  I recall thinking to myself why would anyone not want to help if their nation was burning?

 

In my Principles of Economics class, we discuss a basic trade-off in economic decision-making – between efficiency and equity.  Efficiency is when all goods are allocated to their most valuable use minimizing waste. An efficient allocation could be where one individual holds all the wealth of a country and everyone else has a dollar.  Open markets are very good at creating an efficient outcome.  Equity (different from equality) is a concept of fairness.  Society, via government, has the responsibility to sometimes re-allocate an efficient outcome to create more equity. 

 

The basic social contract of western democracies, especially in the US, inherently incorporates both efficiency and equity.  If individuals work and study hard, they can pull themselves up to the upper-echelons of society.  Hard-working individuals will prosper and everyone should have a shot at the American Dream.

 

Since the 1980’s, policies have tilted economic rules towards greater efficiency – for example deregulating industries, lowering trade barriers – creating greater wealth so that more people could achieve the dream.  Through global movements of products and finance, we now manufacture shirts cheaper in Bangladesh, gather rare- Earth minerals from Sierra Leone and make investments in Mongolia.  As a global society we now are the richest we have ever been, but this has come at three major costs.

 

First, Thomas Piketty has described how income inequity in capitalist democracies has increased over the past half century and is reaching levels similar to the 1800’s in France and England. Comparable to historic periods, the people not benefiting from global progress are asking that the social contract be re-written indicating this level of income inequity as unsustainable.

 

Second, different from past eras, even those who have benefited from the systemic inequity, are unhappy as well.  Although beneficiaries of the system have merited their earnings according to the social contract, they are also working harder in terms of brute hours than the middle class on average, and are receiving most of their income by working. This is in stark contrast to the elites of bygone eras who were part of the “leisure class” and gathered more of their income as inheritance. Daniel Markovits at Yale has called this a meritocracy trap. 

 

Finally, even though the nation overall is wealthier, it is harder to move from becoming poor to rich.  The American Dream is becoming unattainable in the US.   As several economic studies indicate the US is 27^th in the world for social mobility, the US is at the lowest level of social mobility for the past 150 years, and children’s chances of earning more than their parents has been declining.

The social contract that we have carefully constructed over 250 years is being consumed by inequity, while Covid-19 and unemployment are feeding the flames. 

 

Even if Federal leadership may ignore the blaze, what is our personal responsibility in putting out the fire?  I am a) rethinking what companies to support – do I really need to save $5 by buying products produced more cheaply b) which non-profit organizations I am supporting, and c) which candidates we are endorsing.  Mala’s colleagues at the IMF collected these free or low-cost resources describing how to discuss inequity with children.

 

To address this situation of inequity, leadership matters.  When we allow the social contract to be burned – we lose tolerance, forgiveness, charity, community.  But even more important we may actually lose the democracy the contract is built on.

 

Please do forward any interesting articles you are reading.