With Election Day just a few weeks away, longtime church members Lucky Hartunian and Janie Booth sat outside the Revival Christian Fellowship’s sanctuary in Menifee, California, inviting congregants to register to vote.
The women urged those streaming into the evangelical church’s Saturday morning civic engagement event to “make their voices heard as Christians.” After mail-in ballots go out statewide, Booth and Hartunian will be among church volunteers collecting completed, sealed ballots and dropping them off at the county office the next day.
It’s a practice known as ballot gathering - or ballot harvesting — that’s been a source of national controversy over the years.
Robert Tyler, a California-based attorney who represents conservative churches and pastors, said he still believes “ballot harvesting and universal vote by mail creates opportunities for fraud.”
“But the rules of the game have changed,” he said. “Until the law changes, we have to get out and gather ballots like they are doing.”
If the rule is “ballot harvesting is OK” you’re going to get this kind of behavior. And it rewards whichever of the megaparties builds the most efficient political machine.
I’d personally rather have an actual election day with mandated work leave for the entire day, and rare application of absentee ballots for people with extenuating circumstances.
I want absentee to be the norm. It means that voters can take their time and research what they are voting for based on more than just the voter’s pamphlet.
In Canada we have early voting days (usually a couple of weeks before the actual election day and often on weekends) for anyone who can’t vote on the actual day.
But we also have a functioning judicial system and far less right-wing self-righteousness than America does (so far anyway, but it is migrating up here at an increasing pace).