With three major political conventions and several satellite caucuses having assembled, paraded, deliberated, nominated, and adjourned, we are again aware of one of a democracy’s phenomena—the electoral system.
While pre-election circus tactics have a tendency to distort the fundamental importance of the ballot, it cannot be denied that the right to express one’s opinion by such a method is a privilege both unique and essential to the maintenance of a democratic form of government.
There have been and there always will be just two kinds of government: government with the consent of the governed, and government without the consent of the governed. Having suffered under the latter, our forefathers chose the former.
They seemed to know that, by an inner sense of its own gravity, power always tends to abuse—and the greater the power, the greater the abuse. So for the long pull they preferred the common denominator of the judgment of all, faulty as it might be, to the single judgment of one. They placed the broad base of our government upon the pyramid of popular sovereignty rather than upon the apex of one-man rule.
The writer maintains staunchly that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are still the most liberal documents placed on parchment, and they were not written by reactionaries nor was the Revolution of 1776 fought by Tories. The concepts contained therein were predicated upon and can be perpetuated only by the representation of the majority of the people.
President Coolidge once said: “It is not in violence and crime that our greatest danger lies, but in the shirking of those responsibilities of citizenship where the evil may not be so noticeable—in shirking, for instance, the responsibility to vote.”
From 1856 to 1896 an average of 80 per cent of our eligible voters cast their ballots.
Since that time the percentage steadily has been decreasing until in 1920 only 52 per cent went to the polls, and in 1928 only 49 per cent. Except in the 1940 Presidential election when, of more than 80,000,000 potential voters, a record total of 50,000,000 went to the polls, like a creeping paralysis we have experienced an apathetic attitude spreading over the body politic. Ad it is startling to note than in 1940 the number of people who failed to vote was greater than the number that voted for the victorious candidate.
The Department of the Army in a recent “Armed Forces Talk” has discussed rather succinctly the history of the attitude of state and federal governments pertaining to voting by service personnel. Since those data are of general interest and necessary to a complete understanding of the subject, it is set forth herein verbatim:
Voting by servicemen did not become a major issue until the Civil War. Until then the number of men in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps was never large. For the most part these men were professionals whose lifetime careers were in the Armed Forces. A military or naval station was their home. Usually they had no off-post residence, and did not identify themselves with the life of the State or community where they were stationed.
Many States prohibited soldiers, sailors, and Marines from voting. There was a danger, they believed, that members of the Armed Forces stationed in the State might dominate and control local elections near their military posts. Twenty-one of the 34 States in the Union in 1860 excluded servicemen from suffrage. In the other States, members of the Armed Forces could vote, like other citizens, if they were qualified and voted in person on election day. No State had provisions for voting by absentee ballot.
During the Civil War both the size and the character of the Armed Forces were changed. Wartime enlistments and conscription brought into both the Union and the Confederate Armies large numbers of men who had previously exercised their right to vote. In order for these men to vote while in the service, changes in the voting laws of the various States were necessary. By 1864, twenty-five States had enacted such laws. Some of the States had enacted such laws. Some of the States provided for proxy voting; that is, a soldier would mark his ballot and then mail it home to a relative or friend to drop in the ballot box on election day. In other States voting was conducted in the field, supervised either by civilian election officials or by Army officers. Of the 4,000,000 votes in the 1864 election, 235,000 were cast by members of the Armed Forces.
In the ten years following the end of the Civil War, most of these soldier voting laws were repealed, and the prewar restrictions on voting were again in force.
During World War I, many of the Civil War voting laws were re-enacted. In addition, a number of States has adopted general absentee voting laws which applied to any qualified voter who was away from his voting precinct on election day. There was a measure of voting by members of the Armed Forces in the elections of November 1917.
But in the elections of 1918, when there were almost 2,000,000 soldiers, sailors, and Marines overseas, absentee voting broke down completely. No provisions had been made for voting in the field outside of the continental limits of the United States. Proxy voting was not workable with communications so uncertain. No Federal legislation to assure voting by servicemen had been adopted by Congress. As a result, there was little or no voting by members of the Armed Forces overseas in 1918.
During World War II, Congress sought to avoid a repetition of the 1918 experience. In 1942, for the first time in our Nation’s history, a Federal Soldier Voting Law was adopted. The law did not set aside the voting procedures required by the State laws, but it did waive all requirements for registration and for payment of poll taxes by members of the Armed Forces who used the Federal ballot in voting for Federal offices during time of war. Voting in the 1942 elections, nevertheless, was not widespread for members of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, largely because of mechanical difficulties in obtaining ballots.
In 1944, Congress modified the Soldier Voting Law in order to eliminate some of the difficulties arising from the world-wide spread of our Armed Forces. The major change in the law was a provision for a Federal War Ballot, which could be used by servicemen stationed overseas. Many of the States also changed their election laws to make it easier for members of the Armed Forces to vote. As a result, in the 1944 elections, almost half of the 9,000,000 persons of voting age in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, applied for ballots. About 3 out of every 10 servicemen voted in that election.
Following the war, Congress adopted a permanent Federal Voting Law. It recommends that each of the States adopt voting laws which will enable members of the Armed Forces to vote by absentee ballots, and it requires the Army and Navy to assist servicemen to cast their votes. The law, however, does not assure that every serviceman may vote in the elections. In order to vote, each serviceman must be qualified under the laws of his own State.
It is gratifying to note that the liberalizing of state and federal voting laws pertaining to servicemen has resulted in an increasing utilization of the opportunity afforded by such legislative measures.
On the other hand, the writer is apprehensive of the reasoning of those in the Armed Forces, particularly that of officers, pleaded in extenuation, so to speak, for their failure to vote. Several theories are propounded—some sincerely and seriously, others whimsically and superficially—to further this contention.
The most oft advanced argument is based on the premise that the “military” must remain above and beyond the plane of politics. While fundamentally the premise is sound, it is not considered applicable to the limited subject of individual voting. Indeed, there are desirable prohibitions directed toward all Federal employees concerning political contributions and active political participation. These are not founded on the assumption, however, that “voting” and “politics” are synonymous terms. They are not. A career officer, for example, has certain inviolable obligations inherent in his duties which preclude a division or conflict of interests. He does not by such a relationship, however, surrender his rights or duties as an individual citizen. He enjoys the benefits and protections of the provisions of the Constitution; he has access and is amenable to the courts of the land; he pays taxes; and the members of his family are accorded the same privileges bestowed by the government on any other member of society.
Although it is not proper or discreet for him to voice publicly his political preferences in view of the persuasive effect it might create upon those subordinate to him in the military organization, it would be tyranny to presume that he could not entertain his own thoughts and convictions on the matter and register such expression at the polls. The most eloquent example of this is the President of the United States himself, who in his counterpart is Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Navy and Air Force of the United States. Never does a national election take place but that, on the day designated by law for popular voting, the newspapers flourish with pictorial accounts of the Chief Executive entering and leaving his polling booth.
This brings us to another associated argument not infrequently posed. It goes in substance like this: Since the naval officer owes complete allegiance to his Commander-in-Chief, the incumbent in office, he cannot consider the advisability of casting a ballot for another. Brief analysis reveals such a tenet to be not only inane but ludicrous as well. The fealty owed the Commander-in-Chief was never intended to be a devotion to an individual. It is the position, not the personality, to whom devotion is due. If it were otherwise, officers could not serve in a lifetime under more than one Commander-in-Chief with equal loyalty.
We then come to the considerations of a more personal nature. How many times have you heard it said by officers: “I would vote if it weren’t for the fact that I’m never in one place long enough to establish legal residence or qualify under the state laws”? Or: “I’m just not around at voting time”? These are the “path-of-least-resistance” arguments—less plausible than any others encountered. Every officer has a legal residence some place, whether he thinks so or not. He is not a man without a state. He can qualify for voting somewhere. With the use of the “absentee” ballot, made continuously more accessible, he can vote with little inconvenience. Military exemptions regarding quali fications are additional accommodations.
The writer has said that he views the tendency to excuse the necessity of voting on the part of the man in the service with apprehension. Why?
First, the career military man is, as a rule, deeply imbued with a love of country, a solicitude for the preservation of its concepts, and a realization of the dangers threatening those concepts from enemies within and without. The very nature of the service emphasizes these factors to a greater extent than do most professions. This should constitute sufficient reminder to preclude wilful or inadvertent neglect of the essentials which collectively keep our country “safe” and “sound.” The ballot is one of the most important of these essentials.
Secondly, through numerous wars this same officer has been subjected first-hand to the results of foreign governments where the ballot has not been honored. Even in times of peace, he has been called upon to patrol foreign areas to keep intact these rights of the individual. Such experience furnishes forceful precedent as to the dire effects of the relinquishment of individual rights.
Thirdly, because of the dignity and prestige accorded the service by most of the citizenry, there is imposed a moral obligation upon the officer to further this respect by deed and example. This exemplary influence should not be underestimated.
If we are entrusted with the privilege of protecting our country from aggressors, let us, within the bounds of propriety and decorum, be no less militant in our daily pursuits on the home front than on the battlefield.
Gilbert K. Chesterton, well-known critic and author, aptly described our current national dilemma, when several years ago he said: “A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls over the community, the citizens are less inclined toward that eternal vigilance which has been truly called the price of liberty, and they prefer to arm only one single individual to guard the city while they sleep.”
God grant that we Americans remain vigilant!