IF ASKED, DON'T TELL

IF ASKED, DON'T TELL
By Dick Meister

The secret ballot. How’s that for an idea? It’s supposedly been a
fundamental right of all citizens since the 1880s.

What if we began taking that right seriously? What if we decided it doesn’t
make sense to slip behind a curtain to vote and then dash outside and blab
to a pollster – or to tell all even before we get behind the curtain?

No longer would we fuss over the media’s use of polls to declare winners and
losers, or likely winners and losers, as quickly as possible and thus
discourage some citizens from going to the polls at all and encourage others
to show up to vote for the front-runners.

No longer would we be burdened with pre-election coverage that stresses
polls and who’s winning or losing rather than focusing on the issues --
coverage that presumes to tell us what will happen before it actually
happens, that presumes to tell us how we will vote before we actually do so.

No longer would we suffer smug post-election coverage stressing whether we
had performed as predicted by the all-knowing media and their polls and thus
had acted “as expected” -- or, of course, had participated in an “upset” or
“surprise” that no one could possibly have anticipated.

Polls, in any case, are not real news, but artificial media-made news and
entertainment. And when they’re badly done, they can cause havoc. Think, for
example, of the exit polls on election night in 2000 that declared Al Gore
as the winner in Florida over George Bush and thus the president-elect.

There’s an easy way to stop all this nonsense. The next time someone dares
ask how you’re going to vote, or how you voted, remember your right to the
secret ballot. Say it, and say it loud: “None of your damn business!”

Or lie, as the late Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko once suggested.

“All you have to do is tell a little fib,” he explained. “Then go home, sit
back, relax, and watch the anchormen slowly swallow their tongues.”

True, exit polls can help show the nature, needs and desires of the
electorate. But there are plenty of other ways to do that without
interfering in the fundamental democratic practice of conducting elections.

Using exit poll results to predict and declare election winners is only part
of the media’s interference. They also use the actual vote totals in their
attempts to beat the competition and attract lots of customers for their
advertisers.

They carry their treatment of elections as horse races into the counting of
votes on election nights. The polls are closed, the votes are in and all
that remains is that they be counted. But listening to the media, you’d
think the votes were still being cast, minute-by-minute. It’s as if the
candidates were racing around the track at Churchill Downs, as if the order
in which their votes happened to be counted made for a contest.

Typically, CNN’s Lou Dobbs reported, just as the polls closed in South
Carolina’s Republican primary in January, that “we’re going to have
interesting contests tonight.” And sure enough, on came Wolf Blitzer to
exclaim, “There’s a battle underway for second place!” Minutes later, he
excitedly told of candidates who “are now fighting for first place!”

The underlying message of such reporting, as of any commercial television
programming, is for us to “stay tuned” – stay tuned, that is, for the next
commercial.

Newspapers can’t have as much fun in this regard, but they do try. They,
too, treat vote counting as horse racing. A typical post-election report
recently told readers, for instance, that although early returns favored a
particular candidate, his opponent prevailed after “a thrilling, nail-biting
finish.” Another candidate won in “a stunning, come-from-behind finish.” And
losers? Well, they often are described as having “trailed all night.”

But at least those reports are based on actual votes rather than on exit
poll information that should be none of the media’s damn business.

Copyright © 2008 Dick Meister

Story ID:	3492
Written by:	Dick Meister (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	EVERYWHERE USA
Year:	2008