Basic good business management says that you always have a Plan B in case Plan A won't work as expected. Good managers recognize vulnerabilities in the organization and then design and implement a backup plan to use when the vulnerabilities become disasters.
There's no reason why government shouldn't act the same way. Especially when it comes to voting, which is the foundation of democratic governance.
In-person voting is a great thing: It's historic, nostalgic and sociable. It's also vulnerable to a host of nasty things, some local at the precinct level -- neighborhood power outage; flooding from a broken pipe, etc. -- others of greater scope that could be state-wide or national -- a pandemic that interferes with the integrity of an election would be a disaster of the highest magnitude.
In-person voting is Plan A for most states. There's a good chance it will be a failing plan for this November's election, possibly even for elections beyond this November's, because of the SARS-COV-2/covid-19 pandemic. At this point, we don't know enough about the virus to understand what danger it presents in a few months', or a few years', time.
Vote-by-mail should be Plan B for all elections. Or, at the least, Plan B should be a combination of vote-by-mail and in-person voting. (In some states, it is already Plan A when combined with complementary in-person voting availability.)
I have been a permanent vote-by-mail voter for 40 years, having applied for that status based on a job that required frequent and sometimes last-minute travel that would cause me to be away from home on election days. My experience with vote-by-mail has been flawless.
California has done away with the need to apply for such a status. Starting with this year's recent primary election, all registered voters are mailed a ballot several weeks prior to the election date. At least four other states also do universal vote-by-mail. All states allow vote-by-mail for reasons of illness or travel.
Wisconsin's recent election is Exhibit A for why vote-by-mail should be available nation-wide. Milwaukee, the state's largest city, intended to have 180 polling locations; instead, the pandemic caused staffing to shrink so much that it could open a mere five locations. Fortunately, Wisconsin enables voters to request mail-in ballots at will, and many people had done so, thereby reducing the demand for in-person voting.
Vote-by-mail has enjoyed solid bipartisan support. . .and still does, according to a YouGov report released early this month.
But elected Republican officials, starting with President Trump, are blocking the common-sense preparations needed to have vote-by-mail universally available in time for the November elections.
An absentee ballot seems to be good enough for Trump to use for himself -- he used one in Florida's election -- and he has said that such voting should be available to older voters and members of the armed forces, voting groups that he thinks will be favorable to his reelection.
For all other voters, though, Trump says that the availability of vote-by-mail invites fraud that favors Democrats.
Voting fraud has been studied extensively and has been found to be exceedingly rare. In fact, immediately upon his inauguration, Trump started a voting fraud investigation into the 2016 election. After almost a year of existence, the investigation went out of business, having found no voting fraud.
The only recent evidence of voting fraud came from a 2018 North Carolina congressional election, and it favored the Republican candidate.
Anti-fraud measures for mail-in ballots are available. At the individual voter's choice, a mailed ballot can be tracked via email and text messages, as is done in California and Colorado. Other schemes can be devised and used, too.
For example, my wife and I decided not to mail our ballots last month (even though we did not need to place postage on the envelopes!) and instead took them to our local voting center at a nearby fire station. There, we were greeted by the friendly volunteer poll workers, one of whom took us on a tour of the place and described the use of the voting machines as well as the security measures available to both in-person voting and mailed ballots. Without fanfare -- and without physical contact with a frequently-touched surface, or close proximity to another person -- we deposited our ballots into the appointed vault.
As for Trump's other complaint -- well, it's just a stalking horse. Trump's true intent is to undermine the democratic process. The health of our democracy depends upon the availability of the right to vote. All political parties should want that. At this point, Trump and the Trump Republicans oppose it.
In the United States of America, the voting process is managed by the states, not the Federal government. However, Congress and the president can and should provide federal funding to the states to put vote-by-mail in place in time for the November elections.
Voters should not have to risk their health in order to cast their votes, or fear for their safety when they do so. Vote-by-mail is a common-sense and proven voting method that minimizes those risks and fears. Trump and the Trump suck-ups oppose this idea to make voting safe. Democrats support it.
Work on this needs to start immediately in order to meet the needs of a November election. There is no good reason not to do this.
###
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Memo to: All Corporate Chief Marketing Officers
(Looking for a break from the non-stop coronavirus/covid-19 news? Read this from good friend and contributing author Guy Heston for a few smiles and perhaps a "right on!" moment or two.)
MEMORANDUM
April 8, 2020
To: All Corporate Chief Marketing Officers
in the USA
From: Guy
Heston, Consumer
Subject: Market
Research
Hi all. I am writing to
inform you of my new policy regarding your market research efforts. This new
policy, effective immediately, is as follows:
If you want my opinion you have to pay me for it. I prefer cash but am
willing to accept a prepaid debit card or, providing your company has not filed
for bankruptcy or been bought by a private equity firm in the past three years,
a corporate check.
I know it can be hard to adjust to a new policy so I thought it
might be helpful to explain why I have implemented it.
Because you keep relentlessly bugging me for my opinion.
I go to the corporate-owned pharmacy to get my ibuprofen, and my
roughly three-feet long cash register receipt (I am considering implementation
of a new policy on the wasteful use of paper and will keep you posted on this),
offers me the opportunity to participate in a prize drawing if I will kindly go
on-line and rate my experience. The prize strikes me as cheap, and the odds of
me winning it seem long. Pass.
I take my car for servicing and, since I have to give up my
e-mail and phone number to schedule the appointment, the dealer staff hunts me
down to ensure that, if I am contacted by corporate market research, there
would be no reason to rate my experience anything less than exceptional.
The place where I used to get my morning coffee would always offer a
free cup of joe on my next visit if I participated in the on-line survey in
which I was randomly selected to participate. Not bad. Then corporate got
stingy and my last receipt said I would get that coffee only if I bought a food
item. Honestly!
I go to a department store for a clothing refresh and upon
check-out the sales associate flashes a four-star smile, writes her first name
on my receipt, and says she hopes I will give her an excellent rating in case I
am contacted by corporate (yes, they have my e-mail and receipt number, and
apparently can match it with the first name of the clerk).
I visit my doctor in my new clothes (see above) for the annual
physical, and sure enough here comes an e-mail survey from corporate health
care asking me to rate my doctor. I have been going to the same doctor for more
than 20 years, so I think corporate can safely assume I believe he’s a fine
guy. Even so, just to be nice to my doctor, I fill out the survey, rating him a
10. Two decades makes this a solid relationship, so this one’s
given for free.
You get the drift, and I think you are, on a scale of 1 to
10, making a 9.3 marketing mistake with
way too much emphasis on the metrics. I imagine you sitting in a conference
room reviewing said metrics, concerned and drinking strong black coffee when
the overall customer satisfaction rating dips from a 9.2 to a 9.1, or excited
and having donuts with coffee (maybe the fresh-ground Kona variety) and cream
when the rating goes from a 9.2 to a 9.3, based on customers who have been
offered a potential prize to part with a casual opinion and employees who know
how the system works.
Metrics are fine to a point, so to speak, but toss in a little
more qualitative data to brew up a better blend of customer reactions. I once
took great heat from the management team at the company I was working for when
I implemented a policy requiring all managers to spend one day either answering
the customer service phones or being in
the field mingling with customers. Some of the managers were not happy campers
with this policy, but I remain convinced they came out of the experience better
informed about customer opinions.
Hopefully, this explains my new policy of cash on the line if you
want to know what I think. Incidentally, I know you can pay cash to ask me and
other consumers for our opinions—I was once paid several hundred dollars to drive
new cars and pipe up with my opinions, and a few hundred dollars more to walk
around a make-believe showroom, observing and commenting on mock-ups of
prospective new car models. I think I used the proceeds to buy some more new
clothes.
If you have any comments regarding this new policy, please let me
know.
Hope everyone has a good day. Cheers!
Guy
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