Since I first started voting in elections, in about 1961, the methods used for voting have changed considerably. In those days, practical voting machines had not yet been invented, so paper ballots were just about universally used. Early voting was basically unheard of back then, except that if one wanted to vote absentee; an absentee ballot could be submitted prior to the primary election or the regular election. Arkansas in the 1950s and 1960s was still largely a one-party state. Anybody who wanted to get elected to a public office ran as a Democrat, whatever their party preference. Remarkably, over the years that situation has turned right around, so that today anyone wanting to be elected to a public office in northwest Arkansas runs as a Republican, regardless of party preference.
In the earlier days, Democrats and Republicans were not necessarily considered enemies, and for an officeholder to work cooperatively with legislators affiliated with the other party as a way to accomplish things in the House or Senate was a rather normal thing. When the nation elected a president, whether a Democrat or Republican, he was considered "our" president, not just our side's president or the other side's president. When a new president was elected, the House and Senate tended to grant him a "honeymoon" period, when he was expected to advance his legislative agenda, given the mandate of his election, with both houses and both parties being somewhat open to the new president's lead. In those days there were liberal Republicans and moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats and moderate Democrats and conservative Democrats. What a strange idea that would seem to be in today's political environment! Today we see candidates with big money backing running against an incumbent because that incumbent has gone along with some of the other party's ideas.
We did have the beginnings of the idea of term limits back in the late 1940s. President Franklin Roosevelt had been elected to four terms during the 1930s and 1940s, and after that, a limit of two terms was put on the office of president. But, in those days it was not assumed that all politicians would become corrupt by the time they were in office for three or four years. Many political leaders in those days were able to carry out long periods of service and to remain highly respected and esteemed. Term limits back then meant that if the people wanted you out, they voted you out. In earlier days, the term "politician" basically meant a public servant who was serving in or running for a public office. Today, we have the weird phenomenon of politicians running for office claiming they should be elected because they are "not" politicians! Go figure!
In the earlier days of voting, as I remember, the ballots (always paper) with choices marked by an X in the proper box, were always counted by the local precinct workers, then boxed up and turned in to the county election office. Some areas initiated punch card voting methods, because that allowed machine counting of votes, and workers in the local precinct no longer had to count votes late in the night after the polls closed. But punch card voting seriously fell out of favor with the Bush-Gore election, when Florida's famous hanging chads led to major disputes, distrust and delayed results for the presidential election. Paper balloting was somewhat improved by providing oval "spots" for indicating choices. When the ovals were filled in by pencil or black pen, the paper ballots could be machine counted. Technology was advancing.
Probably the biggest innovation in voting methods over the past several years has been the introduction of electronic voting machines. As I have observed, the public has been generally receptive to the use of voting machines, although, as was to be expected, some voters have been slow to trust the machines, and they continue to prefer to vote using paper ballots. One major hurdle to the transition to electronic voting machines has been the cost of purchasing, programming and maintaining the machines. Our county began with a transitional strategy of purchasing a certain number of electronic machines, as seemed affordable at the time, with the idea of gradually increasing the number as funds became available. This meant that all voting precincts had to use a combination of machine voting and paper balloting in order to serve their voting citizens. Normally this worked satisfactorily, but our local voters will probably easily remember the election of 2012, when we ran out of paper ballots, (which had not been supplied in sufficient quantity), and all of our huge turnout of voters had to vote using only three working electronic voting machines. Since then, we have worked intently to assure that situation never happens again!
To be continued.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols may be contacted by email at [email protected] or by phone at 479-621-1621.
Editorial on 02/24/2016