Democracy has often been compared to our national pastime. If you have ever endured nine innings with the Santa Fe Fuegos, our home team, you know that baseball can be tedious to watch. As a sport, it’s slow paced and non-violent. It requires patience and (sitting on a hard bleacher) tough buns. Ideally, the only color that matters is on the uniforms. And the only race that counts is the one to the plate.
That thought occurred to me today, working as an Election Clerk for early voting. It’s a complicated electoral season here in New Mexico, because for the first time we have open primaries where Independents and members of minor parties (e.g Green, Socialist or Working Families) can help select the major party nominees. I expected confusion, delays and voter frustration. But working the tabulator machine, I had time to start a novel, do a crossword puzzle and peruse the New York Times. About a hundred voters drifted through. There was no excitement.
Yet everyone who walked through the doors got a ballot, had an opportunity to mark down their preferred candidates, and then hear the satisfying “ka-ching” when their vote was counted. Everyone got their choice of sticker afterward: Road Runner, Green Chile, or Zia symbol to paste on a lapel proudly stating that “I Voted.”
I was bored, mostly sitting or standing still all day, being pleasant and thanking my fellow citizens for coming in. But the voters themselves left happy, confident that their choice was registered. No drama, no hassles, no flare-ups or confrontations. Despite the refrain you sometimes hear at street demonstrations and protest rallies, I thought to myself: This is what democracy looks like. Dull. Routine. No drama.
It's all rules-based. Our Presiding Judge was a registered Republican, our go-to guy for questions about same-day registrations, spoiled ballots and other arcane matters. He’s the umpire. But state law requires judges of both parties to sign off at the beginning and end of each day to make sure that the numbers all add up. Having been through the training for poll workers, I’m convinced it would be very tough (or impossible) to game the system.
It's a long electoral season, with months still to go till the mid-terms. A lot can happen because, as in baseball, even the winners are going to lose about a third of their games. Teams at the bottom will still win about a third of theirs. And the best hitters won’t connect with the ball more than half the time. Narrow margins often determine the winner. As the conservative columnist George Will observed, “baseball is a game you can’t like if winning is everything. And democracy is that way too.”’
Maybe our national politics could take a lesson from the Big Leagues, where teams are genuinely competing with each other (not just one team that expects to win all the time). Return to having umpires (like Supreme Court Justices) that are non-partisan, calling balls and strikes, not trying to tip the outcome toward Yankees or Dodgers. Get back to a shared commitment to respect the score at the end of the day, where the majority rules. No jiggering of districts or gerrymanders. No storming the Capitol. No casting doubt on the results. The one with the most votes (or most runs) wins.
We Americans could all use a Seventh Inning Stretch, in my opinion. Eat a hot dog together. Drink a beer. Sing the National Anthem, off key. And then get back to the long, slow, boring task of democracy.
Because we get the country we work for. And it's our turn at bat.
