Ezra Klein and Rachel Maddow absolutely nail this: A four, five, or six hour line at the polling station is just a poll tax exacted in time rather than dollars. That’s not to say we should holler “disenfranchisement” every time there’s a bit of a queue at the booth, or even that it’s obvious which way this “tax” cuts demographically, but there’s obviously a point at which the demand to take such a huge chunk out of your workday becomes an unreasonable burden on the right to exercise the franchise, and in a way that affects voters unevenly.
My Dear Old Poll Tax
November 4th, 2008 · 3 Comments
Tags: Horse Race Politics · Law
3 responses so far ↓
1 Franklin Harris // Nov 4, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I suspect Tyler Cowan is right that voting is just a form of signaling. That being the case, the willingness to pay the “tax” on voting is part of the signal: It intensifies the holier-than-thouness that voters experience. In a sense, the higher the tax (i.e., the longer people wait in line), the more holier-than-thouness voters get out of voting. You get what you pay for.
2 Tybalt // Nov 4, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I guess your response, Franklin, is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I still want to point out that the problem with a poll tax isn’t connected at all to its social utility, the problem is strictly with its artificial limitation of the franchise.
I’m a professional, and therefore I run my own business; having to stand on line for five hours to vote has a real effect on my ability to run my business, with net costs that run into the thousands of dollars. Lots of other self-employed people, or employed people whose employers aren’t inclined to follow the law, take the same position.
Additional voting machines are expensive, but of course additional paper ballots and voting carrels/booths would be extraordinarily cheap. As would opening up further voting by mail, which is surely the cheapest way of all.
I don’t care much who is hurt and who isn’t by a poll tax; what matters is that the more you take people out of the process, the less they care about it. America faces innumerable threats to its democracy; why create more of them needlessly?
3 ゴヤール // Jan 20, 2012 at 2:28 am
r five hours to vote has a real effect on my ability to run my business, with net costs that run into the thousands of dollars. Lots of other self-employed people, or employed people whose employers aren’t inclined to follow the law, take the s