THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996 TAG: 9611050003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 79 lines
Election Day 1996. The candidates have had their say. Today we, ``the people,'' speak.
To which we are tempted to add: ``Speak now - or forever hold your peace.''
The temptation arises because many Americans who otherwise could vote won't be going to the polls today. Millions have not registered to vote. Millions of registrants won't vote. About 55 percent of the voting-age population turned out to vote in the 1992 presidential election. Willful nonvoters aren't exactly disqualified from complaining if election results displease them (free speech is a right), but they forfeit some moral authority to kvetch.
We recognize that many nonvoters have decided there's no point in voting because they see rich and powerful individuals and corporations manipulating government - through campaign contributions and lobbyists - for the benefit of the rich and powerful and the detriment of everybody else.
Or because they judge a single vote as not making any difference.
Or because they find politics disgusting and no one running for office to their taste.
Or because they believe - erroneously in our view - that politics and government are irrelevant to their lives.
Or - well, any excuse will do.
Contempt for politics, politicians and government is as American as apple pie. And most certainly history and current events provide countless justifications for skepticism if not cynicism toward the political process.
But ours is a constitutional democracy, purchased with blood, sweat and tears. However flawed the system (as flawed as any other human enterprise), it is the system we have. Don't like it? Work to improve it.
Call it faith or hope, but politicians can be made to respond constructively to more than a well-heeled minority and its flood of campaign contributions and armies of lobbyists. Politicians do heed those who bring to the table a different kind of currency - votes.
Senior citizens get politicians' respectful attention because they vote heavily. Poor Americans get little respect, less because they are poor than because they vote less and less. In the 1990 midterm election, 13.8 percent of those who voted were from families with incomes lower than $15,000. By the 1994 midterm election, 7.7 percent were from low-income families.
Politicians also listen to middle-income Americans living in the suburbs, which is where national and state campaigns tend to be won or lost these days.
Wherever you live, if you are registered to vote and able to get to the polls, vote today.
Excuses aren't acceptable. Vote if only to register clearly a protest. If neither President Clinton, the Democrat, nor Bob Dole, the long-time U.S. senator who is the Republican candidate, suits, Virginians may cast a Neither of the Above vote by choosing from a field that includes Ross Perot (Reform Party), Harry Browne (Libertarian Party), John Hagelin (Natural Law Party) and Howard Phillips (U.S. Taxpayers Party).
Over the past several days, The Virginian-Pilot has endorsed the following candidates:
For President: Bill Clinton (Democrat).
For U.S. Senate, John W. Warner (Republican).
For the U.S. House, Reps. Owen B. Pickett of the 2nd Congressional District, Robert C. Scott of the 3rd and Norman Sisisky of the 4th (all Democrats) and Herbert H. Bateman (Republican, unopposed) of the 1st.
We urge Yes votes on three of five proposed amendments to the Virginia Constitution: Amendment 1, which calls for administering the state government employees' retirement system as an independent trust fund; Amendment 4, to permit voter-registration forms to be revised to allow voters who move within Virginia to vote in their former precincts under conditions set by law; and Amendment 5, to permit churches to incorporate.
We urge No votes on Amendment 2, to require crime victims to be treated with ``fairness, dignity, and respect'' (could be achieved legislatively) and Amendment 3, to authorize prosecutors to ``appeal all cases, including criminal cases'' (the authority would be too broad).
We urge the Virginia Beach electorate to vote Yes on the referendum that would permit the city to establish a redevelopment and housing authority empowered to condemn blighted property. That Virginia Beach lacks a redevelopment and housing authority is an oddity that limits its ability to put unproductive real estate to economically productive use.
No one need heed our recommendations, of course, nor vote, either, for that matter. But we favor exercising the franchise. If we don't use our constitutional democracy, we can lose it. by CNB