RE: Reflections from Cindy and Ken

[Nils K. Hammer <nh0g@andrew.cmu.edu>]

Ellen asks about encouraging citizen engagement. Without coming up with an acutally useful answer, I'd like to hint about it. I used to run a polling place. I was very moved by the look of determination that lots of citizens showed to do their duty and vote. The poll workers seemed to be members of a special fraternity. Many of the political workers who visited us were the same, and this sense of mutual society as political people had, as far as I could tell, absolutely no association with the recognized parties. 

If this sense of communal duty could survive as I saw it with very little contact between the members, essentially no training, very little money for the work, practically no support for the tasks of running the elections, and certainly no public recognition, then I like to think that there is a powerful cultural force that remains behind it. Our conversations here also showed a lot of citizens who are interested and intelligent, and not at all like the published images of everyone being depressed, angry, or obedient.

I gave a presentation to high school students recently, and found them to be very sharp, and less naive than a lot of older people. I'd like to see more opportunities for them to get involved with nonpartisan organizations like the league of women voters. I haven't got a plan or a system, but I still have some hope, and like I learned at another public issue presentation, if you keep bringing up the subject, then you are doing something about it.