Better Together
An Eye-Opening Experience
Voting is the one action that every citizen has available for expressing their values, beliefs and responsibility for influencing those who will lead us and make the day-to-day decisions that will affect our lives.
I recently had the privilege of attending the Southern California Grantmakers' annual conference in Los Angeles. Over 500 people, representing hundreds of large and small foundations in the region, attended. I have attended a lot of conferences in my career and this was, without a doubt, one of the best I’ve attended in terms of production and design. The theme of “Better Together” was focused on opportunities for collaboration across the philanthropic sector, along with government and private sector organizations.
Everyone in attendance was clearly aware that every vote counts and, regardless of the outcome of specific elections, voting is the one common obligation that keeps our democracy vibrant, inclusive and, over time, representative of the people. When individuals choose not to exercise this franchise, they not only abdicate their own point of view, but also weaken the vibrancy and power of the whole. Even not voting speaks. The people who can vote but don’t are saying something: “My vote doesn’t matter”, ”I don’t like any of the candidates”, or perhaps “I am resigned that nothing will change—no matter who is in power”. (I wish those who give up their responsibility for who is in charge in this way would also give up their complaining.)
The conference covered a range of subjects and left me feeling both optimistic and inspired, in particular by how broad a cross-section of organizations are stepping up to confront real problems at the community level. The morning plenary session, a master class in how Los Angeles County is managing the process up to and through the upcoming election, contrasted with how many other States are trying to put up barriers to voting and challenging people to run an obstacle course to have their voices heard through their ballot. Los Angeles is committed to making voting as easy as possible. Their philosophy is to create infrastructure and processes to bring democracy to the voter. In addition to mail-in voting, ballot boxes and same-day registration, they have implemented over a hundred early voting locations, along with over 600 locations on the official day of the election, many in stressed areas of the community. They will also be bringing mobile voting booths to people in these stressed communities, as well as to prisons to enable those who are incarcerated to exercise their legal right to participate in the electoral process.
Dean Logan, the Registrar of Voters, was on a panel of foundation leaders, facilitated by Dr. Fernando Guerra, a professor of Political Science at Mary Mount College. Mr. Logan shared some impressive statistics. Los Angeles County itself has, out of an estimated population of eligible voters of 6.5 million with almost 5.8 million registered (more than 42 other states). The challenge is that, of the 5.8 million registered voters, more than 800,000 don’t vote. As I discussed in Cynicism: Poison or Promise, this may be due, in part, to cynicism relating to politics in general, media fatigue, information overload or, in some cases, a lack of civic engagement.
The conference was, for me, an opportunity to step outside the weight of the election and the polarized hysteria on both sides. It gave me a chance to reflect on what an amazing country we have. America’s democratic process, regardless of its flaws and biases and stresses, is itself alive and well. Even though both parties are screaming that the other is a threat to our democracy, this debate too is part of the democratic process, as is tolerance for the insanity that pervades so much of the MAGA discourse.
I am renewed in my faith that, even if Trump should win, our democracy will prevail and survive.
Members of the last panel of the day were asked a final question: “What does democracy mean to you?”. The response that stuck with me came from LaShanda A. Jackson, Executive Director of the Funders' Committee for Civic Participation, who expressed the essence of democracy most powerfully when she said:
“Democracy is me. Democracy is a young black woman, teenage mom at 18, living in a wonderful country that had things like Pell grants that helped me to get an education and wonderful safety nets like day care vouchers. Democracy is my community. Democracy is everyone having a roof over their head. Democracy is asking, ‘Is there anyone hungry?’ And ‘Will my daughter have reproductive rights?’ Democracy is me, it is you, it is we.”
Image by WOKANDAPIX from Pixabay