How Important Is Your Vote; L. W. Reed

Ideas and Consequences How Important Is Your Vote? T he November 1994 election campaign has thankfully come and gone and once again we had to listen to a familiar whine: "Isn't it simply awful that so few people vote. What we need are laws that make it easier to vote or laws that penalize people if they don't. " Don't get me wrong. I cherish the right to vote-so much so that I don't want it belittled by those who think that just show ing up at the polls is all it takes to assure the survival of representative government. There are some people who should vote, and then there are others-millions of them, unfortunately-who would do representa tive government a big favor if they didn't. Imbedded in the popular complaint about the decline of voting among the American electorate is at least one assumption that is demonstrably false: that higher voter turn out is needed to somehow "make democ racy work."

In the firstplace, "democracy" is perhaps the most oversold political concept, drummed uncritically into our heads at an early age as the moral high ground of gov ernance. Some measure of public participa tion in whatever government we have is certainly preferable to dictatorship but not because it carries with it any assurance of good or limited government. It does not guarantee a free society. An electorate can Dr. Reed, economist and author, is President of The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free market research and educational organization headquartered in Midland, Michigan. by Lawrence W. Reed democratically vote itself into bankruptcy and slavery. Americans, in fact, have been doing that for most of this century. What people commonly think of as "de mocracy" is preferable to dictatorship be cause it permits changes in government policy without the need to shoot, hang, or guillotine anybody. Those changes, how ever, will be in whatever direction public opinion is blowing at the moment-good or bad, smart or stupid, helpful or destructive.

Besides, America is not a pure democ racy anyway-and was never intended to be. There are some things our Founders wisely felt should not be subject to majority vote such as individual rights to life, liberty, and property. In the first half-century of America's ex perience as a nation, voter turnout was often much lower than it is today-frequently less than 20 percent of adult males actually cast ballots. Part of this is explained by the presence of property requirements for vot ing in many states. Most of our Founders and early leaders believed that people ought to have a direct and personal stake in the system before they could vote on who should run it. The fact that in those years we managed with low voter turnout to elect the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Adams suggests that maybe we should make voting more difficult, not easier-a privilegeto be earned, not an unbridled right to be abused.

Then there are those who want to make it so easy to vote that you wonder how any18 thing so costless could be the least bit meaningful. Three years ago, I read a blurb about a Colorado organization called "Vote by Phone." I don't know if the group is still around, but the idea still isallowing Amer icans to cast their votes on election day by telephone from home instead of at local polling stations. Under the plan, all registered voters would be given 14-digitvoter identification numbers. Voters would call a toll-free num ber from touch-tone phones, punch in their ID numbers, and vote on candidates and ballot issues by punching other numbers. Whether or not the science exists to resolve the inherent technical, security, and privacy questions, there exists no reason at all to make voting any easier than it cur rently is. Low voter turnout does not en danger our political system. Here's what does: politicians who lie, steal, or create rapacious bureaucracies, voters who don't know what they are doing, and people who think that either freedom or representative government will be preserved by pulling levers or punching ballot cards or making phone calls.

The right to vote, frankly, is too important to be cheapened and wasted by anyone who does not understand the issues and the candidates. The uninformed would be doing their duty for representative government if they either became informed, or left the decisions at the ballot box up to those who are. How did the idea that votingfor the sake of voting is a virtue ever get started anyhow? Our political system-resting as it does on the foundations of individual liberty and a republican form of government-is also en dangered by people who vote for a living instead of working for one. H. L. Mencken had them in mind when be described an 19 election as "an advance auction of stolen goods." They use the political process to get something at everyone else's expense, vot ing for the candidates who promise them subsidies, handouts, and special privileges. This is actually antisocial behavior that erodes both our freedoms and our represen tative form of government by conferring ever more power and resources upon the politicallywell-connected and the governing elite. I don't know about you, but I don't want these people to have it so easy that all they have to do is pick up a phone to pick my pocket.

Surely, the right to vote is precious and vital enough to be worth the effort of a trip to the polling place. Anyone who won't do that much for good government isn't quali fied to play the game. Moreover, politicians who bemoan ever lower voter turnout shouldn't be so critical of non-voters. Ifa non-voter's excuse is that he doesn't know what he should to vote intelligently, he should be thanked for avoiding decisions he's unprepared to make and encouraged to educate himself. If a non-voter is simply disgusted with lies and broken promises, or just doesn't want to choose between Scarface and Machine Gun Kelly, then maybe it's the politicians who should listen and learn; the non-voters are trying to tell them something. Sure, it would be nice if more people voted-but only if they know what they're doing and if they're not doing it to grab something that doesn't belong to them. There's nothing about voting by telephone or other such schemes that makes people smarter or more honest, and there's nothing about stuffingthe ballot box with more paper that assures either freedom or representa tive government. D THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY Private PropertyOwnership by Albert R. Bellerue A ccording to the Fifth Amendment to the u.S. Constitution, no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property, with out due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." This clause, known as the eminent domain reservation, gives the state the legal right to take private property for public use without the consent of the owner.