What would you say if your state representative whom you voted into office and who you expect to be there to vote on the laws that will affect the people in your community is not there to vote in your stead, but rather another state representative is casting their vote under your state reps name? And in some cases those other state reps that are casting their vote in the name of your state rep are from the opposing party.
This is a common
practice known as “ghost voting,” and it’s been going on for quite some time
now. This is when a fellow state representative casts a vote on any particular
law from the voting terminal that belongs to another representative while
he/she is away from their desk. Even though the House rules state that “a
member must be on the floor of the House or in an adjacent room or hallway on
the same level as the House floor, in order to vote,” a lot of these representatives
can’t be found anywhere near capitol grounds.
What’s going on
here? These same representatives that voted on a law that makes it mandatory
for the public to show an i.d. card in order to cut back on multiple votes from
the same person aren’t practicing what they are preaching. If we the people
must show proof of who we are and can only vote once, shouldn’t it be the same
for them as well? Now don’t get me wrong, not everybody in the legislature is
doing this ghost voting, but enough of them are doing it to raise an eyebrow or
2. Why isn’t this illegal? Some of the state representatives argue that it’s absurd
to think that a representative is bound to sit and vote on laws 12-14 hours a
day for the entire time that the legislature is in session for the full 140
days. Isn’t this what we pay them for?
I know that it’s often hard to be at your desk
to hear and vote on every single law that arises, but isn’t this is what these
office holders have signed up for? I realize that there are restroom breaks
that must occur, meetings in other parts of the House, lunch breaks, etc. So
what’s the solution? Maybe scattering voting terminals throughout the House so
that our representatives can do their duty and vote on every law might be worth
looking into. But putting extra terminals isn’t going to help with those who
leave the capitol grounds entirely. Passing a law that makes it illegal for
these representatives to leave the House before that legislation work day is
out might be in the best interests of the people that they are representing.
Only when we
start paying closer attention and start being more active can we stop this
practice of ghost voting. And while it’s not illegal, at least not yet, it’s most
definitely wrong and unethical.
I completely agree with my colleague's "Lonestar State of Mind" blog post titled "Careful...Scary Ghost Votes are Lurking!" Ghost voting is without a doubt unethical and should be illegal. We select who we want to represent us for a reason. Ghost voting definitely skews the voting turnout if one representative votes in their favor for another representative. Just think about it. As mentioned in my colleague's post, we pay our representatives to be present at their job. Our lives are practically in their hands and a single law can make or break us. It’s insane how the people who vote on laws for us and represent us, don’t even follow their own rules. When a representative is away from his or her desk, their chance to vote is lost and shouldn’t be taken into someone else’s hands. We understand, especially during a 12 to 14 hour period that bathroom and lunch breaks are necessary. But again, as my colleague has mentioned, that’s what we are paying them for.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why I love this well written post so much is not only because it raises awareness to the horrors of ghost voting, but also because of the solutions my colleague offers. The first solution proposed is to place voting terminals throughout the building to allow our representatives to vote when they are away from their desks. Although this will not affect those who leave the building for a break, it is a step in the right direction. The second solution my colleague suggests is to make leaving the House illegal to help reduce ghost voting.
Before ghost voting was brought to my attention in a class lecture, I had no idea that this was going on. It's disappointing to say the least that our representatives aren't taking their jobs too seriously.
As my classmate and I wrote on overlapping topics, I feel obliged to take the time to reflect on and expand some of my original points! Ghost voting – the practice of placing votes for absent members of the legislature (you know, because politics is real friendly) – is simultaneously atrocious and hilarious, it’s one of the sloppy parts of the political process. I previously touched on it very briefly in my larger commentary on the state of the Texas legislature as a whole.
ReplyDeleteMy colleague and I agree on the most important points – ghost voting is highly unethical, extremely ironic, and that action needs to be taken in order for it to be fixed. Ghost voting is eyebrow-raising – and with it come a lot of questions about what our lawmakers are doing instead of voting on the laws they’re making. I do appreciate my colleague’s tough-love approach to the situation, but this is where I disagree. Yes, I’m pretty sure legislators knew what they got into when they were voted into office. It is (depending on how you want to argue it) a tough job and it does (also depending on how you want to argue it) carry a lot of weight. But seriously, they have a lot to get done. If the whole legislative session was sitting down to vote on bills, well, BAM – Emeril should be in charge of everything; they’d be hitting buttons so fast they would be in and out in a week, tops. Except the legislative session includes all the bureaucratic trimmings of any government meeting – paperwork, red tape, research, committee time, bill writing, fancy lunch dates, I could go on. Suddenly, 140 days doesn’t seem like such a long time. And, oh yeah, you’re doing all this work not only for this year, but for next year, too. And suddenly, voting on the stuff you crammed so many man hours into becomes your last priority and then ghost voting happens.
Is “but we’re so BUSY!” an excuse for letting this get out of control? Absolutely not. As my colleague mentions – this is what they’re getting paid to do (albeit not very much, but I digress). It is the responsibility of our elected officials to make ethical, informed decisions about policy that will do the most good for their constituents. This isn’t conducive to letting the dude who sits behind you cast your vote for you when you’re in a meeting in a different wing of the capitol. So, how do we fix it? My colleague suggests the installation of voting machines throughout the floor of the House and Senate – so no one can miss a vote, no matter where they are. It’s a good idea – except we already tried that and nobody went for it (remember this (http://youtu.be/JqjfD_LzgYs)?). So, I point my way back to the argument I made – we need to change how our legislature functions on a fundamental level. Our current system leaves us with an extremely homogenous group of underpaid and overworked professionals.
My colleague and I agree on another (and the most important) point – we, the people, need to pay more attention. We need to get angry about our representatives doing a terrible job at representing us – and then we need to help find a way to fix that. If we as voters do so little voting, can we really be upset with the people we (sort of) voted into office doing the same thing?