Democracy in Action - II

On November 12, 2022, I wrote a post - Democracy in Action - about my experience as a volunteer at a polling station in my city. The point of that post was that participation by the governed is essential if democracy is to work and if we want to "keep the Republic" as Benjamin Franklin is said to have told someone who asked him what the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had produced - "a Republic if you can keep it". For most people such participation is limited to voting in elections but less than two out of three of those eligible to vote do so. This is somewhere in the middle of pack when compared to countries for which this information is available. Other forms of civic participation are less documented.

I volunteered for poll duty again in the recent election. Volunteers were not screened for party affiliation, age, gender or other criteria. They were required to attend a training session and swear allegiance to the Constitution. The experience was the same as in 2022, that is, uneventful. People came in throughout the day, right up to closing time. At the close we went through the process of matching the number of ballots with the number of voting permits, recording the number of spoilt and write-in ballots etc. and putting them in sealed containers and envelopes with the signatures of the volunteers attesting to their accuracy. Two of the volunteers then delivered the containers to the designated office in person. At no point in the process was the voter's choice of candidate an issue. As I drove home at the end of a long day, I could not help thinking how helpful it would be if those suspicious of the integrity of the electoral process would volunteer for poll duty. If more people were to see how elections are conducted there would be far less acrimony and election denying. In this regard, it is noteworthy that there is no sign of questioning of the election this time. You can draw your own conclusions about that. In a refreshing return to the norm, Kamala Harris called Donald Trump to congratulate him, and President Biden called him to invite him to the White House for a visit and to assure him of a smooth transition. I mention this because of the contrast with what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election culminating in the January 6 riot and - lest we forget - insurrection. As Biden said in his address to the nation today, we cannot love our country only when we win an election. If we as a nation cannot agree on election integrity and transparency, we do not deserve to keep the Republic.