[speaker001:] Well, I, I've been, uh, I have probably had more time than you have to think about this subject,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] so I'll tell you, is it a serious problem? Yes, I do
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] believe it's a serious problem.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. [faintly]
[speaker001:] However, there are solutions to it.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And foremost, uh, where we compare w-, that we are now doing fifty percent of our, uh, people are voting. Uh, we're probably making a comparison against, uh, some European and, uh, and, uh, uh, s-s-say, newer republics that, uh,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. [child crying]
[speaker001:] that have very high percentages.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Uh, so, uh, one of the reasons, uh, that, uh, o-, one of the reasons that we could get, uh, one of the reasons that it is lower in the United States is that mostly we hold it on Tuesdays. God knows why we hold it on Tuesdays. And then we further
[speaker002:] What...
[speaker001:] complicate it by saying, you know, we will keep the polls open until eight o'clock.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] Most people, uh, a great number of people now work at various, at different jobs that, if a third of the people are shift workers, they won't be able to get to the, to the polls in any case. If they, uh, have to work late into the evening and not get up. My solution
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] to that is that we hold it on Sundays. As do probably sixty to seventy percent of the European countries now.
[speaker002:] Oh, really, they hold it on the weekends?
[speaker001:] They hold it on the week-, no they hold it on a, either a
[speaker002:] Sunday.
[speaker001:] Saturday or a Sunday,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] or at least a day when, when, uh, a great number of people are not working.
[speaker002:] Huh.
[speaker001:] I-, in America that is not true because a, a great number of people work on Sundays.
[speaker002:] Well, uh...
[speaker001:] Bu-, but that is one of my solutions. Uh...
[speaker002:] I, I know here in Dallas that they have just instituted in the last couple of years, a, uh, a real long period of time that you can absentee vote before the elections. And they, I do not think they have seen a really high
[speaker001:] Have you absentee
[speaker002:] improvement.
[speaker001:] voted in, in
[speaker002:] No.
[speaker001:] in Texas?
[speaker002:] No, I always vote.
[speaker001:] Well, I have absentee voted in, uh, New Hampshire, and it is a fairly, fairly complicated process where you have to go
[speaker002:] Oh, really. [child talking]
[speaker001:] pick up the ballot. I do not say that it is that complicated, but part of the process also is that you must register, preregister at some particular point. New Hampshire is fairly easy but other states
[speaker002:] Huh.
[speaker001:] you have to register every couple of years. And, uh...
[speaker002:] To absentee vote specifically?
[speaker001:] Well, to vote, to vote, to just vote.
[speaker002:] Oh.
[speaker001:] So registrations are perhaps a, a problem also. And we're the mobile, mobile society, uh,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] People are always mo-, you know, one out of every seven people moves every year. [LAUGHTER] Uh, th-, that is almost a fourteen percent turnover every,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. [faintly]
[speaker001:] you know, if you compound that, that, uh, eh- eh, th-, i-, if it is difficult to register to vote, that would remove your eligibility to vote. [sounds like speaker is chewing something]
[speaker002:] But [throat clearing] I do not think it is difficult enough to prevent people who are motivated in the first place,
[speaker001:] Well.
[speaker002:] who, or, who are not just motivated who really believe that their, they, their voice is heard. I mean, and the people that I have talked to...
[speaker001:] Well maybe that is another factor, the motivational factor. The motivational factor is probably...
[speaker002:] Right. I think that is the biggest one.
[speaker001:] I...
[speaker002:] That's the biggest problem. I...
[speaker001:] Well, that's diminished by, w-we have noticed this in particular. I, I'm just read two books, one of them is WHOSE STARS AND STRIPES NOW?
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] THE, uh, TRIVIAL PURSUIT OF THE PRESIDENCY IN NINETEEN EIGHTY-EIGHT.
[speaker002:] Oh, really?
[speaker001:] It's a fairly decent book. I mean
[speaker002:] Huh. [faintly]
[speaker001:] it's, uh, it's preceded by, uh, several other books by these guys. Uh, WAKE ME UP WHEN IT'S OVER was about the eighty-four elections. And I forget what [LAUGHTER] the other books were,
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] but any case, uh, i-i-it is, uh, uh, the mar-, uh, uh, th-, th-, there was, uh, BLUE SMOKE AND MIRRORS was the one in eighty-two. Uh, they, these guys, uh, have taken the place of Theodore White on reporting elections. In any case, they say that, uh, there's a definite trend, uh, well, you know, toward candidates using negative voting. It is the only way that you can use television effectively.
[speaker002:] I don't understand that. Why do, uh, is that just because they have such a low opinion of the public? And the public's, uh,
[speaker001:] No, the public
[speaker002:] gullibility?
[speaker001:] would rather hear something negative about the other guy th-, uh, than, than a positive factor. And y-, and, you know, to if you, if you go on the attack, i-, and put some sensational thing before the public, as Mike Dukakis learned in the last campaign, and it is not refuted, people will, you know, uh, believe it. If you don't refute it, as he didn't, there must be some truth
[speaker002:] Well, he did refute it.
[speaker001:] to the matter, see.
[speaker002:] He, he refuted it, it just was not effective enough to...
[speaker001:] [sounds like speaker took a bite of something crunchy] Well, he didn't refute it til the last two weeks of the campaign. He didn't believe anybody would believe that. And indeed his trend started upward.
[speaker002:] Well that see, I, I didn't believe anybody would believe that either. I, I, I guess I
[speaker001:] Well, they do.
[speaker002:] have a hard time coming to terms with the, the fact that the American public really was, you know, so...
[speaker001:] Well, don't give too much credit to the American public for their motivational ability.
[speaker002:] [sigh]
[speaker001:] And, and, and it...
[speaker002:] Well, then how can a democracy work then?
[speaker001:] Well, it, uh, well, I don't know.
[speaker002:] How, how can it work?
[speaker001:] Is it working? I mean that's, that's the question. I guess the question also is that we discovered, is that they don't throw rascals out. Everybody seems
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] disappointed, but they don't throw the rascal out, their own rascal.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] Uh, my, my solution to, to part of this is, is to, to make it a-a-an, an economic incentive for people to vote. That sounds rather crass, I think, because
[speaker002:] What? [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] then, then you are saying, well, uh, {D y-y-you
[speaker002:] [sigh]
[speaker001:] know }, y-, in-, y-y, it could be c-, convoluted in many ways where people would actually, uh, by paying them, I mean, you know, you would take a certain amount off their income tax or property tax or whatever.
[speaker002:] Huh.
[speaker001:] But th-, it would be very difficult to administer because I am sure that any time money and votes are involved, [LAUGHTER] it just, the whole thing
[speaker002:] Well,
[speaker001:] just stinks.
[speaker002:] how about, how about the reverse of that? When I have heard about England's elections, they are allowed to run for what, a total of six or eight weeks. Even for the higher offices in the, in the land. What if we totally took money out of the camp-, eh, ma-, just severely limited the campaigns so money wasn't so much of an issue? I feel like, if,
[speaker001:] [clink]
[speaker002:] if we did that people would have a lot higher confidence that their vote was counting rather than their contributions would count.
[speaker001:] Yeah, but the idea is to get the individual to the polls, a-a-and we have to make it as easy as possible for him to get to the polls.
[speaker002:] I don't, I don't care how easy it is for them, I do not think they are going to because they do no think that their, that anybody listens to their vote. They think whoever has the b-. They really think that the packs, you know, no matter what you're promised during a campaign, and these days we are promised hardly anything of substance.
[speaker001:] Oh, you mean the special interest groups?
[speaker002:] Right. And, eh, and, eh, y-, no matter what a, a, candidate promises during the campaign, i-, which isn't very much, specif-, any, th-, they do not promise anything specific these days. But whatever you are promised, they just, they just reverse themselves depending on who pays them what once they get into office. I mean, I think that's the...
[speaker001:] Well, read my lips. And, and, and no new taxes and yet Bush did that. But I mean, but
[speaker002:] Yeah. Yeah. [sigh]
[speaker001:] but he's excused from that. Generally, people, I've read polls now where they've excused him because there was a, a definite necessity to balance the budget.
[speaker002:] Well, then why did he say that during his campaign?
[speaker001:] Oh, he, he he gave it, he did
[speaker002:] Then he, it was totally irr-...
[speaker001:] he did, he promised the best he could. And he is the president and he should, he should address those problems and if there needs to be a change in a period of time. Wh-, what was so funny about it is that, I guess, that it happened so rapidly, you know. He knew it. He actually knew it. And being
[speaker002:] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker001:] associated with government, he should be held up to the light for that. And maybe
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] he will.
[speaker002:] Yeah. Well... [sigh]
[speaker001:] But I think it is, er-r-r, I mean,
[speaker002:] [sigh]
[speaker001:] I think you, you still have a view that the American voter is different from other voters. And he is motivated because we happen to be the cradle of liberty and all that. I think voters are motivated, uh...
[speaker002:] What about, what about voters in the other countries that you were talking about? Like in the European countries where they have higher turnouts? And, well, the newer democracies because it's going to be totally different, but
[speaker001:] Well, I don't know if they have higher turnouts
[speaker002:] You do not think so?
[speaker001:] overall. I don't think England has, I think England has about a seventy percent, sixty-five percent turn out.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] I think that we just discovered in this, in, in the Indian elections is th-, one of the greatest
[speaker002:] Oh.
[speaker001:] greatest and massive things in, in the world. Uh, just, it was, got vi-, more violent every year.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] They went down almost fifty percent in this election before they blew up
[speaker002:] Oh, really?
[speaker001:] Ghandi. But,
[speaker002:] [sigh]
[speaker001:] simply because people were so
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] concerned about their inability that to, that their vote does not count any way.
[speaker002:] Huh.
[speaker001:] And the corruption of politics in, in, in that s-s-situation there. But th-, but, you know, everything is relative to when, uh, eh, w-w-, you know, we had higher turnouts because at that time we cur-, talk about the turnout relative to the eligible voter, right?
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I mean is, but, but before these enormous, before this Voting Rights Act, what we had was a, a great deal of our population, uh, mainly the blacks in the south and the
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Hispanics were precluded by,
[speaker002:] Oh.
[speaker001:] by, uh, voting laws, uh, from reg-, from their eligibility to register. Now everybody is available.
[speaker002:] Oh.
[speaker001:] So, if you really computed it, they probably when we said we had a seventy percent turnout in nineteen fifty, we really only had a fifty percent turnout because all the eligible
[speaker002:] Oh, I see, because, right.
[speaker001:] voters
[speaker002:] Weren't qual-,
[speaker001:] you know, the-, it was skewed
[speaker002:] dis-, were disqualified.
[speaker001:] by the eligible voters being less than the total population of...
[speaker002:] But isn't that, isn't that kind of a blanket racist kind of thing to say the blacks and Hispanics and other minorities just don't vote? Or is that just the, the truth?
[speaker001:] No, I think the high-, there's a higher percentage in, in certain black areas of voters. I don't know about Hispanics, you know. I just,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I, I mean I haven't studied the statistics well enough to, I mean, I think in this sort of
[speaker002:] Well...
[speaker001:] conversation we can only do our own reaction.
[speaker002:] Right, right. But you know that just made me think of something that happened down here in Dallas last year. They have this huge fight going over redistricting here.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And at one point they di-, they took another vote on it, and they, uh, the minorities could not get enough of a vote out to, to pass their plan. And this is something that had been going on for months. It was on the news every night. They, and they have had lawsuits over it. I mean, it was r-, it was a major issue, and there still wasn't enough minority vote to get, to pass the plan that they were backing. So that's, y-, you know, I think that you have really hit on something there. Wa-, to say that, uh, those...
[speaker001:] What do you mean?
[speaker002:] Well, with the minorities and we are saying we have lower voter turnout. Maybe it is, is, uh, now that we have minorities included in the...
[speaker001:] You know, Karen, I wonder if we are recording.
[speaker002:] Why, did you not press one?
[speaker001:] I did press one, but usually by this time they tell me that the time is up.