By T.J. Ray

Columnist

 

When four high school seniors showed up in the Circuit Clerk’s office one bright day, everything was grand.  The Clerk turned around a big ledger and asked us to sign our names.  

Somebody in the quartet asked if we didn’t have to take the literacy test first. That brought a gentle laugh and a comment, “I know you boys can read and write.”  

We paid our $2 poll tax and left.

Such a simple thing, and we felt great.  Had it been 1868 and had we been black, we would have been turned away because we didn’t have the vote.  

The efforts of former abolitionists pushed through the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1869, empowering black males to vote.  Thus a long struggle began, one that culminated, after decades of controversy and bloodshed, in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned literacy tests for registration to vote.  

Had we been girls, we would have been turned away.  Half a century would follow the 14th before the 19th Amendment extended the vote to women.

In theory, we now have one man/woman with one vote.  As far as the ballot is concerned, all men and women are equal.  And a majority of those voting on an issue or in an election should prevail in the outcome.  

Given all the irregularities found in polling, it is not surprising to find suggestions that there might be a better way to conduct public votes.  How often has someone said that his vote cancels someone else’s or he won’t vote at all if the other person doesn’t?  How often do dead people vote?  How often is the person who votes not the person who registered to vote?

Decades ago Huck Finn’s creator offered the idea of giving some citizens more than one vote.  In “The Curious Republic of Gondour” Mark Twain suggested the idea of giving some folks more than one vote.  In his imaginary republic a second vote would be  given to anyone who completed common school (grade school) but had no money.  A high school education rated four votes.  Owning property of three thousand “sacos” earned another vote; fifty thousand “sacos” got another.  A university degree gained nine.  

Twain saw votes as being in one of two categories, mortal and immortal.  

He said that those based on capital were moral because they could be lost as money can be lost.  It is no great feat to start naming folks who would have lost votes because of their schemes and plots.  Those based on education were permanent.  Such a system gave the most educated voters an edge, even over the wealthy.

In the spirit of Samuel Langhorne Clemens’ multiple vote notion, a 20th century writer, Nevil Shute, proposed such a scheme in one of his novels, In the Wet.  

Set in the future, he foresaw citizens holding up to seven votes.  The Basic vote would be universal.  For the Education vote, one would need a university degree or be a lawyer, medical doctor, or commissioned officer in the military.  Anyone could earn the Foreign Travel vote by living abroad for two years.  The Family vote was for people who had no divorce and raised two children to age 14.  The Achievement vote was for people who achieved personal exertion incomes, i.e., self-made persons.  Recognizing the value of the church in society the sixth vote was the Church vote, reserved for officials in the church.  The rarest vote was the seventh, the Queen’s vote, given for extraordinary service to the country.

What Clemens or Shute or that old Greek writer of The Republic, Plato, would have thought of our system of voting is anyone’s guess.  Plato, for instance, argued that the voting process began with present or former members of the military choosing candidates.

At the very least they might have been disdainful of all our caucuses and primaries and the sadness of having only two parties dominate all elections. 

No poll tax is necessary anymore, but that doesn’t mean the vote hasn’t been bought.  

It should properly be printed in red ink to remind us of what it costs.  That blood was shed at Breed’s Hill, Shiloh, New Orleans, the Alamo, the Little Big Horn, San Juan Hill, the Marne, Pearl Harbor, Anzio, Malmedy, the frozen Chosin Reservoir, Hue, Pleiku, Khe Sanh, and Kabul.  The list does not include the soldiers who have died in classified operations. 

So. . .on any election day, when it’s raining or cold, remember that you have a very precious gift you should open.