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Exporting democracy
(by Walt Brown - September 17, 2008)
For anyone who has spent any time, either as a tourist, visitor, or resident, in a dictatorship, it is not a long, time-consuming process to realize how wonderful democracies like the United States, England, Canada, or like-minded nations can be.
If nothing else, at least "we, the people," on a two-year or four-year basis, get to choose the leaders who will squander our resources.
So the phrase, "exporting democracy" takes on a meaning that transcends rivers, mountains, polar ice, and even oceans. If democracy can be exported, it is always a good thing, although sometimes the people on the receiving end are so sadly accustomed to different governance that it takes some time to come to grips with something as simple as a "ballot." In dictatorships, it is usually the "bullet," not the "ballot."
Unfortunately, these thoughts are about a different kind of the exporting of democracy. Eight years ago, certain "irregularities" in the voting, ultimately decided the election results for the White House.
Because of wide-spread bi-partisan suspicions about the above-cited "irregularities," there was a hue and cry in our democracy to guarantee that it remain a democracy – that the people, not the bean counters, decide who wins and who loses.
Accordingly, Congress subsequently appropriated $3 billion for "touch-screen" voting machines. The federal government (read: your taxes) paid for them, and they were dispatched to such places where they seemed most necessary. We did not get any in the Pascack Valley area, because our existing machines do the job quite well.
So where did they go?
To warehouses, where they sit. No state has chosen to accept them and use them for the 2008 election, so the $3 billion, as currently viewed, is money down the drain. The states where they went, to be unused, "like" the way they vote and count ballots and refuse to be bullied by technology or the desire for simplified results.
Some states have offered the machines for sale on eBay. If they were cheap enough, I'd buy three or four of them and donate them to the high schools, so the students could vote for their officers in the American tradition.
And that concept may yet still be possible, as some foreign governments, according to recent news accounts, have offered some of the states $1 (read: one buck) for each machine. It's fair to say that is a huge loss in value, but, to return to the original thesis, it's certainly an example of the "exporting of democracy."
It's hardly likely that Congress was thinking of Paraguay or Gabon when it spent the $3 billion, but that may well be the result. I can only add that in this moment, when so many dollars' worth of democracy are being exported, that we do not regret the absence of such machines in seven weeks.
If we do, it will not be "democracy" that we have exported.
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