EDITOR'S COLUMN: Unintended consequences of Proposition 1

‘Tis the season when everyone you meet is likely to be wearing an ‘I Voted’ sticker, greeting you with a ‘rock the vote’, or ‘vote or die’ or ‘if you don’t vote, you can’t complain’ salute with the same joyful tone they’d give you a hearty ‘Merry Christmas!’

Even candidates, after months of scratching and clawing for every last vote, will pivot to the light at the end of the tunnel, and say with great magnanimity and humility, ‘and finally, even if you don’t vote for me, please vote!’

But does anyone really mean that?

Republicans certainly don’t want everyone to vote. If everyone were coerced, or in some way incentivized to vote, Democrats would have a stranglehold not only on the White House and Senate, but maybe even the House of Representatives, too.

If the unwashed masses actually voted, Mitt Romney’s famous ’47-percenters’ would undoubtedly side with taxing the rich to pay for the poor. This might be short-sighted and foolhardy as policy, but they would be voting their self-interests.

It’s no wonder then that Proposition 1, which asks Alaska voters to include the option for voter registration with PFD sign-ups in the hopes of increasing the state’s dreadful voter turnout rates, comes from the left. More specifically, the drive comes from the mind of 26-year-old John-Henry Heckendorn and his group of progressive brainstormers.

Heckendorn’s latest venture is a political think tank called Ship Creek Group, and you can read all about these groovy, spunky hepcats in this week’s edition of the Anchorage Press, our sister publication to the south.

I spoke to Heckendorn last month about the PFD voter proposition.

“Being registered to vote doesn’t cause somebody to vote; it means that instead of having a conversation about filling out one more form, we’re having a conversation about why it’s important to vote,” he said. “We saw this as a first step toward addressing (voter registration), at low cost, and also a way to make our government move forward that saves money because it cuts the cost of processing registration applications.”

Saves money? Makes it easier to register? Who could possibly be against this?

But there is opposition, and it seems to be coming from two angles. One objection is as a matter of privacy. This worry doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, seeing as how PFD registration is already used to count population in the state, and I can’t fathom what new information the government could glean from voter registration data.

Then again, my Doomsday vault isn’t as stocked with canned goods as it should be.

The second objection is more intuitive and nuanced.

It assumes the PFD applicant will associate receiving the dividend with having to vote — a requirement most un-American — and worse, will make the new voter — consciously or subconsciously — associate voting getting a check from the government with the act of voting itself, making him or her more inclined to favor checks from the government in future elections.

This viewpoint doesn’t think very much of the as yet unregistered Alaska voter, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t without merit. And it’s obvious to see that Heckendorn and company, even if they won’t admit it, view this as a way to one day turn Alaska blue, which means they don’t think too highly of the as yet unregistered voter, either.

“This isn’t a radical idea; we use the permanent fund now to fill fishing and hunting licenses… deduct child support payments, so we already take advantage of these efficiencies in the status quo,” Hackendorn said. “I think it’s kind of ironic that people get excited about what the governor did to their PFDs and then don’t vote.”

What’s more ironic than that is that Alaska is such a political unicorn that greatly increasing voter turnout could actually stifle progressive causes.

This fall in the Mat-Su Borough, ribbons were cut on a pair of brand new schools funded through bond initiatives; a vote to ban commercial marijuana in the borough was soundly defeated and an even more lopsided win was enjoyed by Proposition B-4. That was the prop which allowed the borough to accrue $23 million in debt, with more than half of it going to fix two swimming pools in Wasilla and Palmer and a hockey rink in Wasilla.

I’m as big a fan of sports as anyone, but I just don’t see how voters in these rocky economic times, with the borough in a $5.7 million, and the state in a $4 billion hole, think it’s OK to incur that kind of debt so that a pool’s dimensions can meet regulations for interscholastic competition. I definitely don’t understand how it won so handily.

Passing these types of progressive measures just about anywhere in the Lower 48 is darn near impossible. But so few vote in Alaska, it’s really not that hard to cobble together a special interest contingent — usually parents of school-aged children — and get instant access to other people’s money with considerable ease.

If ever there should be a statewide property or income tax, all those new voters that Proposition 1 might bring in would start voting their selfish self-interests.

In other words, they’d start voting Republican.