There is something grossly wrong with local, state and federal elections that deserve our attention. Since the last election, the country has spiraled down the abyss of regulatory overkill addressing voter rights. The Brennan Center for Justice finds that over 60 dozen new bills are moving through the system even though voter fraud is rare, and most are administrator error or other forms of election misconduct that have no impact on any election result. Even with all the hyperbole from the last presidential recounts and recounts of recounts, miniscule impropriety was found and it wasn’t in the way predicted by the pundits of 24-hour news cycles.
Even Steven Bannon is calling his ideologue supporters to dismantle a healthy democratic election system by participating as partisan operatives for elections positions (precinct captains and other poll workers), and I can see he is capitalizing by instilling fear in his listeners and painting them as victims of voter suppression.
America has come a very long way in regards to voter’s rights. We have evolved from land owning white men being the only eligible voters, to including women, people of color, even formerly incarcerated people as registered voters. There is still so much more that can be done and we cannot stay stagnant.
For example, during the last election, there were multiple polling places in various counties where voters waited over five hours to cast a ballot. Americans deserve better than that type of election system.
My personal experience as a candidate is a perfect example of alleged impropriety and inaccuracy in elections. I want to share my experiences and encourage future candidates to have legal representation for the whole process.
I ran for county supervisor of Kern County in 2018. On election day, I learned that the wrong ballots had been delivered to a polling location where my team spent a lot of time walking and meeting voters. That same day, a poll worker in Oildale called me directly to say that two men had unlocked the ballot box and had looked through the ballots. Both egregious situations were reported to the County Board of Elections only to be minimized and conveniently dismissed.
In 2018, a federal court ordered Kern County to implement full redistricting, but it was too late for my candidacy. The county board and elections officer were found guilty in federal court (Luna et al v. County of Kern) for racial gerrymandering including in my district and Oildale, a conservative stronghold with a white supremacist history still highly racially and economically segregated. It took a lawsuit with MALDEF, (The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund), for Kern County to redistrict.
Looking back, I was intentionally drawn out of my district in a closed-door session which helped the incumbent.
A close friend and longtime elections veteran shared a story with me about counting ballots during the 2014 midterm at the Kern Board of Elections. She questioned a staffer about a pile of ballots in the corner. They said they were not signed properly and explained they would be shredded after the election without any attempt to contact the voter.
Another example: In 2018, a group of attorneys exerted pressure to recount Measure N that would raise the sales tax for the first time in the City of Bakersfield. Enough votes were found in the recount to pass the measure with a tiny margin of 79 votes representing the majority of the 375,000 people in my city.
I still have the utmost confidence in the system, and I say this as an informed voter and activist in my community. It’s the elections system that should root out impropriety of individual fraud or incumbent manipulation. However, we still need to build a system that is more stable, accessible and, most importantly, won’t favor powerful groups to rile up voters with off-the-rails conspiracies.
To move forward, let’s make voting a national holiday. Let’s make it simple, accessible, and easier. Voter rights must be protected and candidates must have recourse for impropriety in the system. It’s time to make sure that every eligible American can vote in a system where the power class cannot manipulate the process.
My personal experiences would piss off anyone. I am jaded. But, I want to assure you that I trust our elections to improve in accuracy and fairness. With Kevin McCarthy’s reelection coming in 2022, this would be a great opportunity for a candidate like Bruno Amato, who is running in the 23rd District of California’s Central Valley, to educate voters on the protections of voting. Kevin McCarthy has benefitted from the swampy elections of Kern County, and Bruno brings integrity and humanity to the office, as well as a moral compass. Kern County desperately needs a representative like Bruno who is willing to listen to his constituents and address the needs of all voters in his district to reshape the political culture in Kern County.