By Steve Brawner

© 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Voters in two very different countries have been going to the polls recently.

One is the world’s oldest continuous democracy. It enjoys prosperity to the point of excess, a stable government and the rule of law. Voters have weeks to go to the polls and usually face at most the inconvenience of a short wait, probably inside.

The other does not have a democratic tradition. In some ways it’s less a country and more of a collection of factions, including violent ones, contained within an arbitrary international border. It avoids collapse only through the presence of heavily armed foreigners concentrated in its capital city. Government corruption is rampant.

As its election neared, one of its factions threatened citizens that polling places could be attacked. That’s what happened. At least 28 people have died, including in one attack by a suicide bomber who killed 10 civilians and five police officers at a polling site north of the capital. 

Still, out of 8.8 million registered voters in a country with 36 million people, about 4 million have voted. In one province, human chains formed around the polling stations to keep the suicide bombers out. Voters have stood in line despite the dangers and the fact that many of the voting devices have malfunctioned.

By now you probably have figured out which two countries I’m writing about. The second is Afghanistan. The first is ours.

Here, early voter turnout seems to be higher than normal for a midterm election. In Saline County where I live, 12,353 people voted in the first week of early voting, compared to 9,084 ballots cast during the first week of the 2014 midterms, according to The Saline Courier.

Whether that ultimately translates into higher voter turnout remains to be seen. Four years ago, 852,642 Arkansans voted, which was about half the state’s registered voters and about 28 percent of the population. Perhaps the same percentage will vote this time, but they’re just doing it earlier.

But probably we’ll have higher turnout this time. People are riled up these days.

Higher voter turnout is desirable, even if this country’s own worsening factional divisions are not, for two big reasons.

One can be traced to a concept that underpins all democracies – the value of collective wisdom. In his 2005 book, “The Wisdom of Crowds,” author James Surowiecki explained how a group of diverse individuals acting independently can have better judgment than a group of like-minded experts.

Obviously, crowds aren’t perfect. A mob, after all, is a crowd. But people in mobs are not acting independently and are rarely diverse. All types of people voting independently are needed to avoid too much like-mindedness and a herd mentality.

Unfortunately, certain groups in elections are underrepresented – particularly young people. According to the Census Bureau, only 46 percent of 18-29-year-olds reported voting in the 2016 presidential election, compared to 71 percent of voters ages 65 and older. Those numbers assume respondents are telling the truth about voting. In one poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics, 40 percent of 18-29-year-olds said they would definitely vote in the midterms.

We’ll see. Only 30 percent of Americans born in the 1980s said living in a democracy is “essential,” according to a World Values Survey study cited in the Journal of Democracy. There’s no guarantee that today’s young people will grow up to be active voting citizens like older generations did.

That’s the other reason why voter turnout is important: Young people are watching, including children. The less we vote, the less they will too. Election by election, the crowd becomes smaller and maybe less diverse. And then the chances increase that it will act less wisely and more like a mob.

If you’re reading this, I’m probably preaching to the choir. You probably will vote this November and probably voted in November 2016.

But you may not have voted in May. In Arkansas, any registered voter can vote in either party primary. That’s when many elected officials are actually chosen, particularly local officials and school board members. It’s also when President Trump and Hillary Clinton were chosen as the major party nominees in 2016.

That year, voter turnout was 65 percent in the general election and 38 percent in the primaries. This May, it was 19 percent.

Put another way, about 328,000 Arkansans voted in May. That’s about one-ninth of the state’s total population – about the same percentage as have voted in Afghanistan.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner