Well, Like I said, I have noticed over a long period of time that people
who do not vote mostly express a disgust with the choices they have, but
there is something else I have noticed all my life too. There are also a
lot of airheads out there.
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
On 8/19/2020 9:23 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Well, in the case of the person I was talking about, Tia, she liked Bernie Sanders, but she wasn't even aware that he was no longer a candidate. She does not know who the candidates are. All talk of politics seems irrelevant to her. When I pointed out that what the people in charge do, has a direct impact on her life and that if people want things to change, they need to know what's happening and get involved in some way, she said that made sense to her. And it did, for about 2 minutes only, I suspect.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *On Behalf Of *Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 18, 2020 10:34 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Wisconsin State Senate Race
There is something that Miriam did not mention and it may be because she simply did not observe it, but I have observed this very many times. That is when someone says that they do not plan to vote or that they are uninterested in voting they usually say something derogatory about the choices they have been given or else when asked why they do not vote they then say it. I will have to admit that I have encountered a good many people who simply are completely uninterested in politics without offering a reason, but they seem to be in the minority. Most of them show that depiction of the nonvoting population as apathetic is wrong. They care, but they are entirely turned off by the kinds of candidates they get, or at least by the kind of candidates they are aware of.
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
On 8/18/2020 6:46 PM, Erica R wrote:
Thank you for your reply, Miriam. I agree that it seems like many
young people and people of color do not see any purpose to voting
because they are not included in the process and therefore don't
see it as impacting their lives. I also have anecdotally
experienced the phenomenon of many people previously uninterested
in politics wanting to vote for Bernie Sanders because they felt
included in his campaign and platform. I should add for context
that Wisconsin also has a law requiring photo ID to vote, which is
estimated to have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters
in the state, disproportionately minorities, elderly people of
color, and young people.
On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 5:21 PM Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
This article reminds me of a brief discussion I had with my
home health aide this morning. My knowledge of poor and
working class black and brown people, for the past few years,
is first hand, and comes from what these aides say to me. They
have little education. I had two, briefly, who were African
American and since I've been living here, two who emigrated
from Jamaica. This one had been attracted by what she heard
Bernie Sanders say many many months ago when I was listening
to Democracy Now and they played a clip of one of his
speeches. I don't think she'd ever heard him before. By the
way, she's 25, and a high school graduate. This morning again,
I was listening to Democracy Now and she said in a sort of
startled voice, "Oh, I didn't realize that the elections are
soon." I asked how she could have avoided hearing all the
election talk. She said that she isn't interested in politics.
She isn't. She's interested in gossiping with other family
members and friends on her I phone. Along with the 4 hours,
five mornings a week that she works for me, she's a child care
worker at a Catholic agency that cares for troubled kids and
kids who've been removed from their homes for one reason or
another. She has her own three year old child who lives back
in Jamaica with her mother, and a boyfriend with kids with
whom she lives here. Her friend, who is much brighter and more
caring, worked for me previously, but she joined the army. The
point is that all of these people whom the Left sees as
potential voters, are socially and emotionally detached from
this society. They're here because they want to better their
lives but they don't feel included, nor do they especially
want to be. Back in 2016, I had a very young, very bright,
extremely marginal African American aide briefly: 20 years
old, unmarried with a 2 year old. She planned to vote for
Bernie Sanders. Then there was an African American woman in
her 30's who was nice, but less intelligent and was not
interested in voting. If you want to have a Democracy with an
active engaged citizenry, then you need to provide for the
people, help them feel that they are important, and provide
education. You need to be reaching out to people continuously
on a personal basis. It doesn't happen in a mass society where
everything is impersonal and everyone communicates by smart phone.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> *On Behalf Of
*Erica R
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 18, 2020 5:50 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Wisconsin State Senate Race
We had an interesting primary election for our state senate
representative here in Madison, Wisconsin last week. It was a
7-way split with nobody taking the majority. The winner was a
democrat, and the strongest competitor was a young progressive
from a black, Muslim, immigrant family. Turnout was two times
as high as it was for the last state senate primary election
at 38%.
The progressive candidate was endorsed by Ilhan Omar,
Democratic Socialists of America national and local chapters,
The People for Bernie, and many more organizations.
Unfortunately she received almost no coverage in the
mainstream Wisconsin press. Madison is heralded as a liberal
paradise, but is home to the worst disparities in educational
outcomes and incarceration between black and white residents.
A lot of focus has been paid in recent years to awareness for
this issue with little progress or substantive measures taken.
Despite Madison's outward pro-diversity image, the progressive
candidate was lambasted for her vocal and unapologetic support
of Black Lives Matter. She was present at and spoke at some
protests.
A local independent arts and culture news outlet, Tone
Madison, summed up the race and turnout. There is some
reference in the text to images of maps that show the turnout
in different neighborhoods, but the results shown in the
images are explained in the text. Also note the introduction
says that the primary winner will be the next state senator,
she will be unopposed in the general. Full text below and
here's a link:
https://www.tonemadison.com/articles/mapping-turnout-and-power-in-madisons-big-state-senate-primary
Mapping turnout and power in Madison's big State Senate primary
Andrew Sernatinger
politics
What the results in the 26th District reveal about Madison's
political geography and the chances for upstart candidates.
The votes from the August 11 primary are in and Madison will
have a new State Senator in the 26th District: Kelda Roys. The
competitive seven-way Democratic primary was basically unheard
of in Madison politics, and had candidates genuinely
representing different interests in the city.
On the one side you had candidates representing segments of
the Democratic establishment, with its interest in modest
socially liberal policies and capital-friendly economics:
Kelda Roys, John Imes, and Amani Latimer Burris. On the other,
you had grassroots “progressive” Madison, represented by Nada
Elmikashfi, Brian Benford, and Aisha Moe. Then there was
William Henry Davis III, an underdog even among underdogs.
For the two “sides” in the election, each candidate
represented a subset of their base: Roys, for example, was
able to win the real estate and technology interests of the
Democratic Party, while Benford could tap into the
progressivism of the 1990s that’s been pushed aside as Madison
has tried to lock down a neoliberal development model for the
city, and Elmikashfi appealed more to the younger crowd of
millennials and zoomers, as well as an impressive coalition of
local community groups, nonprofits, unions, and
environmentalists. (I am a member of Madison's Democratic
Socialists of America chapter, which endorsed Elmikashfi.)
With so much going on in the race, the voting data can tell us
a great deal about the ongoing showdown between establishment
Democrats and leftist upstarts. Despite COVID-19, it was the
highest turnout for the 26th District in at least 20 years.
Just shy of 50,000 voters participated—more than double the
number of ballots cast in 2016, when long-serving State
Senator Fred Risser ran unopposed. This year, Roys took the
lead with 19,789 votes (40.2%), followed by Elmikashfi
(26.8%), then Benford (9.5%), Latimer Burris (8.9%), Moe
(7.4%), Imes (6.2%), and lastly Davis (0.8%).
Roys took a plurality, but not a majority—60 percent of the
votes cast in the race were for someone other than the winner.
The race came down to Roys and Elmikashfi, who pulled ahead of
the rest of the pack as the only candidates with double-digit
support. Roys and Elmikashfi were the only two candidates to
win wards in the district: Roys 55 to Elmikashfi’s 24.
Is this a vindication of establishment liberalism in Madison?
If we pick apart the numbers beyond the overall percentages,
it reveals a much more nuanced picture of Madison's political
geography.
The above ward map shows the level of support for either Roys
or Elmikashfi (dark blue is strong Roys, dark orange is strong
Elmikashfi). The first thing you’d see is a typical east-west
divide, but east-west doesn’t tell us anything about the
people who voted other than where they live.
Pair that instead with a map of income in the district, and
you see something much more interesting: the lower income
wards tended to go to Elmikashfi, and the higher income ones
went for Roys. But there are more poor people than wealthy
people, so shouldn’t that have carried Elmikashfi? Sure, if
everyone voted, but they don’t: the less money you make, the
less likely you are to vote.
If we look at how many ballots were cast by ward, we’ll see
something else interesting: The poorest wards and the wards
with the most Black and brown residents had the lowest turnout
in the city. What’s more, the wards covering and adjacent to
the UW-Madison campus had absolutely miserable turnout: some
as low as 48 votes total cast. Whether that’s from COVID-19
keeping students from sticking around or the fact that the
primary happened right before move-in week, it had the effect
of suppressing the student vote. The highest turnout was along
the Isthmus (downtown and the near-east side) and the west
side closer to Middleton.
That should give us pause when thinking about the results.
Even with double the turnout, who turned out played out
according to your class and race. This isn’t to say only rich
people voted, but the turnout doesn’t reflect the city—it
over-represents white people and people with more money.
Madison’s no different than the rest of the country in this
respect.
For those who voted, why did they pick one candidate over
another? We don’t have any polling information to draw from.
We could speculate about how the Black Lives Matter movement,
the Presidential election, or attitudes to the candidates’
policies influenced the outcome, but actually the strongest
determinant of the outcomes was how much money each candidate
raised.
There’s a 94% correlation between the money a candidate raised
(as a percent of total funds raised) to the percent of votes
won. Basically, the more money you raised, the more votes you got.
If we sort the candidates by the two sides
(establishment/centrist vs. grassroots/progressive), you
notice something else. Grassroots candidates outperformed
compared to the establishment candidates: they won a share of
votes above their portion of the funds raised. The
establishment candidates (Roys, Latimer Burris, Imes) all got
a lower return for their money. So grassroots campaigns are
more effective, dollar for dollar, but that doesn’t matter if
you’re running against someone with a shitload of money to
burn. Roys actually had among the worst ratios of money
raised-to-votes won, but she had so much money that she still
won out over the other candidates.
Why should this matter? We like to think that money isn’t
everything, and it is not the only thing; Brian Benford
performed exceptionally well considering his shoe-string
budget. But in modern US politics without publicly funded
elections, you gotta pay to play. Money buys exposure and the
appearance of a professionalism that many voters look for to
signal who is a legitimate candidate and who isn’t.
Given the spread, one might ask if the election was “spoiled”
by having too many candidates. Would Elmikashfi have won if
this race was just her and Roys? Sadly, no. Assuming the
two-sides dynamic holds up, it would have been 56-44 for
Roys—a much better spread for Elmikashfi, but there’s no
silver medal for second place. This is comparable to the April
Presidential Primary in Dane County, where Bernie Sanders took
40% to Joe Biden’s 55%. Both Sanders and local grassroots
candidates have the same problem: even if your perspectives
are widely popular, it's extremely difficult to activate the
new voters you’d need to win. Still, this is a testament to
grassroots organizing that they could provide a real
alternative to business-as-usual politics.
