Doing the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason

I don't think that Old dog was here yet when we last discussed this, so I'll go back and start at the beginning.

Early this year, the Michigan legislature and governor passed a law abolishing straight party voting. As far as I know, there was no groundswell of public opinion in favor of this measure. Indeed, most of us didn't even hear about it until after it was a done deal. I understand that the people of Michigan have voted down similar measures at least twice in the past, so this time they didn't let us vote on it. By tacking an appropriation bill onto it, they made the measure immune to being overturned by a referendum, so they must have suspected that the law would be unpopular. Some people mounted a court challenge, claiming that the law discriminated against Blacks, and they won the first round. The state filed an appeal, and a three judge panel ruled that the case did not merit consideration by the whole appeals court. The state appealed that decision and asked the court to grant a stay so that they could go ahead and print up the ballots, since this this was unlikely to be settled before the election. I read in the paper the other day that the stay was denied, so we will still be able to vote a straight ticket in this election, but the state has vowed to take it all the way to the Supreme Court, no matter how long it takes.

Some of the bill's opponents claim that it will make for longer lines at the polling place and inconvenience everybody regardless of race, color, or creed. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, however, based their argument on discrimination against Blacks, and they won with it. According to our local paper, the latest ruling specifically stated that it was unfair to make Black people stand in long lines to vote, but it didn't say anything about White people standing in long lines, so I guess that's okay. Nevertheless, the effect of the ruling is that the lines won't get any longer for anybody unless the state ultimately wins the case. The state's main argument was that 40 other states already have this law, and that it will make for a more informed electorate. I don't know about the "more informed electorate" part, but the original trial judge declared that the fact that 40 other states have this law is "irrelevant".

When I first brought this issue up, Uncle Ken explained to me that the reason the law discriminates against Blacks is that most Blacks don't have the patience to go down the list and check each individual box on the ballot. If they can't vote a straight party, they will just vote for the top two or three offices and leave the rest of the ballot blank. The last article I read in our paper said something like that too, so it must be right. Well, as long as we're stereotyping, maybe the Blacks could be persuaded to vote the whole slate if the election clerks passed out free watermelon to everybody who promised to do so. Of course, many White people also like watermelon, so this would be a "win-win" for everybody. The state could fund the program with the money they save by not taking the case to the Supreme Court.

I won't be here tomorrow because we are going to visit our daughter in Charlevoix. See y'all Tuesday.