Editorial

Now the politics really begin

Posted

With the national conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia over, the real competition for citizens’ votes begins. It will be Clinton vs. Trump on Nov. 8 (along with Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green candidate Dr. Jill Stein and Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party of the U.S.).

Of course, that’s just the presidency. In New York, hundreds of local candidates for State Senate, Assembly and village offices are running as well. These local elections, many would argue, usually have a greater effect on our day-to-day lives than who’s sitting in the Oval Office.

New Yorkers, including us residents of Nassau County’s South Shore, have already gone to the polls this year in April, for the presidential primary, local primaries and a special election to fill former State Sen. Dean Skelos’s seat; in May, to vote on school budgets and Board of Education trustees; and in June, for congressional primaries. We will cast votes again on Sept. 13, in State Senate, Assembly and local and judicial primaries, and there are special sanitary district elections as well. We could be excused for complaining that we’re weary of politics, even three months before we help choose a president.

Between the sheer number of elections and the anachronistic methods it employs to schedule, record, count and report the votes, it’s no wonder New York state has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country. Some might conclude that incumbents prefer low turnout because that favors the status quo: re-elections. Making it easier for eligible, registered voters to cast ballots might actually bring change!

We urge legislators in Albany to pass needed reforms with the goal of encouraging greater voter participation. First, lawmakers and the governor should come up with a saner schedule of votes so citizens aren’t called to the ballot table so often that they lose interest. Wouldn’t it be better to consolidate election days? And why force people to vote on just one day, and a workday at that? Why not let them have their say over four or five days?

And we’re way behind most states in the use of web-based voter registration and online voting. For those of us who’ve spent long nights waiting for elections boards to report results, it’s obvious that our state and local systems of voting, counting and reporting are archaic, inefficient and frustratingly masked in secrecy. We get confirmations in seconds for bills we pay by app, but it takes more than half the night to find out how people vote in local elections.

Beyond the lack of an effective, technologically current and transparent voting system, citizens still face the perennial challenge: whom to vote for and how to decide. At every level, from the race for the White House on down, there will be speeches, heated arguments over policy, scandals — real and fabricated — insults and put-downs, spin, sarcasm, snark and outright lies. Candidates and their staffs have a mission, and sadly, it’s not to educate without bias or to illuminate all sides of all issues. Their goal is to persuade as many likely voters as possible to fill in the ballot oval for them on Election Day.

They’ll use press conferences, advertising, the media — traditional and social — whistle stops, street fair appearances, robo-calls, fliers and lawn signs to accentuate their positives and hide their negatives from the public. It may be cynical, but their aim is not to tell the truth; it’s to omit any part of the truth that makes them look bad, and to convince voters that whatever deficits they haven’t been able to hide are outweighed by their talents and experience.

So if it’s not the candidates’ job to reveal the whole truth about themselves, whose is it? We’d like to say journalists. Trouble is, in this age when everyone’s a blogger and anyone can catch a candidate’s misstep or misstatement on a smartphone, it’s harder than ever to tell who is practicing authentic, truth-seeking journalism and who has chosen a side in the race.

So it falls to us, the voters, to listen carefully, listen skeptically, attend debates, find trusted sources in newspapers and online and determine for ourselves which candidates have priorities that most closely match our own. We must seek out sources beyond those that only affirm our opinions. We must try to cut through the clutter and the bluster and focus on what’s most important to us and our community. We must try to be objective in listening before being confident in voting.