In the run-up to this important moment, I have watched campaigns by American politicians; I have been part of briefings on the elections, and I have seen experts expound on polls in God’s own country
By Olukorede Yishau
My beloved country, Nigeria, is preparing for the 2023 elections at a time America, a nation many across the world consider a beacon of democracy, is set for its midterm elections—a sort of referendum on President Joe Biden who is still unpopular, but has improved in the last few months, with his job approval rating rising to about 40 percent. The rise is attributable to his students’ loan forgiveness plan. I have not come across a poll showing how he has been helped by his soft stand on Marijuana.
How much Biden will get done in the remainder of his administration rests on November 8, the election day, when seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives will either be retained or lost. Like every American election, millions have already voted. All thanks to their law which allows early voting. Voting by mailing in is the choice of millions who, for one reason or the other, won’t be in the areas where they are registered as voters on election day.
President Biden and other Democrats are hoping to retain control of the House of Representatives and consolidate in the Senate where, on January 20 last year, Vice President Kamala Harris swore in three members to give the party a narrow grip on both houses of Congress and the White House for the first time in a decade. Harris’ vote gave the Democrats the tie-breaking vote to establish a majority in the Senate, with Charles Schumer becoming the majority leader and Mitch McConnell the minority leader. So, the midterm elections are make-or-mar for both Democrats and Republicans, and they are leaving no stone unturned to control the legislature.
There are 36 states electing governors, all 435 House seats are up for grabs, and 35 Senate seats are being contested in the U.S. Senate. During midterms in time past, the party in power always lost seats in the House of Representatives during the first term of a new president. Democrats are hoping to change the trend by banking on a number of ‘welfarist’ moves such as student loan forgiveness and the Supreme Court decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to an abortion.
In the run-up to this important moment, I have watched campaigns by American politicians; I have been part of briefings on the elections, and I have seen experts expound on polls in God’s own country, and I have noticed that the madness associated with elections in Nigeria is missing. I have not seen politicians discussing personalities instead of issues. I have not seen party supporters breaking bottles on one another’s heads. I have not seen candidates dancing at campaign rallies instead of speaking about the issues affecting the people. I am yet to see a semblance of political assassination. It is all too quiet around here. Madness-wise!
But there are issues making many wonder if it was not time America looked at what countries like the United Kingdom have done to reform their electoral system. To every man, his headache is a truism that even almighty America has been unable to avoid. There are concerns about the elections in which the battleground states are Georgia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, Iowa, and Utah. A key concern is electoral administration quality, which, according to Dr. Pippa Norris, the world’s second-most-cited political scientist, is going down. Norris, a comparative politics lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is concerned about putting partisan officials in charge of administering elections instead of professional, independent public servants. The presence of these partisan officials introduces some form of weakness. Norris fears electoral disputes will increase with such a situation. “And it’s what keeps me up at night. It’s what really makes me concerned,” she says. She argues that it feels like “we’re like the Titanic heading toward the iceberg. We can all see this iceberg. We know what’s going to happen and we can’t turn it around”. Reform, she believes, is something America must embrace.
It was sad to learn from Norris that non-partisan electoral officials are being threatened and forced to leave the job “because why would you be a public servant if you’re going to get threats to yourself and to your family and to your home”. Last year, many election workers faced unprecedented threats and intimidation for doing their jobs.
In Texas, the concern is about voter suppression. Recently, a law known as Senate Bill 1 was passed by both houses of the Texas Legislature. The law makes it harder for voters with language barriers or disabilities to cast their ballots. The law was signed by Governor Greg Abbott, who, according to a poll, is leading Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke by 7 points in a state that is traditionally Republican. The law also bans 24-hour and drive-thru voting. It makes compensating people who help voters with limited English proficiency, disabilities, or limited literacy criminal.
It is also a crime for election officials to encourage eligible voters to apply to vote by mail. And poll workers who try to stop partisan poll watchers from harassing or intimidating voters risk criminal prosecution. There are fears of voter suppression and those pushing this position point to the fact that nearly 23,000 mail ballots by Texans voted in party primaries were rejected by election officials. This is seen as an aftershock of the new state law.
The Brennan Center for Justice, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the Harris County Attorney’s Office, and the law firms of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in Dallas and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP in New York have filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas in federal district court. They are demanding that the law be stopped because it violates the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, Section 2 and Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Black and Latino communities, voters with disabilities, or language limitations are worst hit by this law.
My final take: America’s greatness is not in doubt, but there are stains on its claim to being the beacon of democracy. Partisan officials should have nothing to do with election management. Non-partisan officials should be protected and those guilty of threatening them and their families and their homes should face the harshest side of the law.
Quote
America’s greatness is not in doubt but there are stains on its claim to being the beacon of democracy. Partisan officials should have nothing to do with election management. Non-partisan officials should be protected and those guilty of threatening them and their families and their homes should face the harshest side of the law.
• Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author.