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Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein — Mon. Oct. 26, 2020

By Tim Martin Oct 26, 2020 | 5:42 AM
Large Turnout…But Informed Voters?
Our news stories of late have noted that this will be a record year for absentee and early voting, and may be a record turnout in other ways as well. And there’s no shortage of people who are cheering that news, that more people are voting.
As with many statistics taken out of context…more people voting is not automatically a good thing.
We moan about the low voter participation percentages, with one county auditor recently expressing concern about the especially low turnout among younger people.
I say, again, so what. If the voters are not informed about the choices they’ll be making, I don’t care how many of them there are.
That’s why I am not a fan of same day registration. If you can’t be bothered with registering to vote until the day of the election, then this somewhat sacred American right must not mean too much to you. Waking up on election day and just deciding to vote, probably without knowing much about virtually any of the races, is not just lazy…but it’s dangerous.
I don’t care which way you vote, so long as you know something about the race…and if you don’t, then leave that race blank. It means too much to the people who put their name on the ballot for you to do eeny-meeny-miney-moe, or select based upon the sound of one person’s name as opposed to the other.
If these big numbers mean people are engaged, knowledgeable, and interested…then yes, more of them voting is a good thing. But if we’re collecting ballots just for the sake of collecting ballots…or harvesting ballots and taking advantage of ill-informed people in the process…then no, heavy turnout is not a good thing.
Informed voters, yes. Last minute, can’t-be-bothered voters, I say no.

News/Talk 1540 KXEL · Iowa Politics — Mon. Oct. 26, 2020