Teetering on life support

Two months ago we held an election in Rensselaer County, though one would be hard pressed to describe it as “free and fair.” As it played out, it looked more like a “Godfather”-style opera with the two major political parties taking on the treacherous leading roles.

On the one hand, with easy access to absentee ballots due to the pandemic, the Republicans employed a ballot-harvesting scheme during the primary to successfully hijack the Working Families Party line. This ploy effectively relegated the Democratic/WFP candidate, Gwen Wright, running for county executive against incumbent Republican Steve McLaughlin, to just one ballot line (Democratic) for the general election. McLaughlin had two. They also triumphantly whacked four of the six endorsed WFP candidates for county legislature in Troy, replacing them with Republicans, some employed by the county and presumably none espousing WFP values.

On the other hand, the woeful Democrats spent much of this election cycle cannibalizing their own. Party bosses decided that it would be in their best interests to discard the two Democratic leaders of the county legislature, Peter Grimm and Cindy Doran, for the offense of supporting Democratic party issues like early voting, Black Lives Matter and police reform. All the weapons in the political arsenal were used to attack the two leaders, with character assassination heading the bill. Then, to address their loss of the critical WFP line, the Democrats conjured up the “Troy Strong” party, a minor party line, which they populated with Democrats except, of course, Grimm and Doran.

Thus, in the general election, confused Troy voters were faced with a ballot containing five lines and 15 candidates running for six legislative seats. In the end, instead of sleeping with the fishes, and despite the formidable forces mounted against them, Grimm and Doran managed to win and retained their leadership roles.

Throughout the county, the Democrats ran an abysmal campaign and consequently got whipped. Wright had little support from her party and McLaughlin won by a landslide. (McLaughlin has since been indicted and charged with felonies related to campaign finance.) The Democratic slate of bright, enthusiastic candidates for legislature and county clerk had some good ideas and relevant experiences for governing that hardly saw the light of day, because the party provided little support or leadership. Consequently, the Republicans retained their legislative majority and the Republican county clerk was re-elected.

There were two sub-plots, one involving the Troy City

Council majority, which the ineffective Dems lost by 10 votes. The other drama, the race for Rensselaer mayor, had all the markings of a mob enterprise replete with accusations against the Republicans of fraud, threats and violence.

The Democrat lost by 43 votes — and the State Police are investigating the election.

This election was awash with antidemocratic tactics. Throughout the cycle, there was little interest in debate or candidate forums. The League of Women Voters reached out to all the candidates to list the issues of importance to them on its Vote411.org website. Overall the response was not encouraging, though it was notably greater from Democrats than from Republicans. There was significant vote harvesting, the practice of collecting and returning absentee ballots. Usually done by political operatives, it is easily susceptible to corruption, the reason why many states either limit the practice or ban it outright. Out of 848 absentee ballots cast in Troy by election day, 39 percent were collected by Republican candidates or operatives, and 9 percent by Democrats.

Lastly, there was substantial opposition to minority candidates and voters, ranging from hostile candidate interviews by the Democrats to outright voter suppression. The struggle to bring early voting to Troy to give minorities and low-income voters equal access took almost three years, constant advocacy from a coalition of community groups led by the League of Women Voters, and finally a successful lawsuit filed by the state Attorney General against the county Board of Elections and its two commissioners.

Taken altogether, these tactics lead to low voter turnout, voter apathy and voter alienation. How do quality candidates decide to throw their hats in the ring when they see that the system is ineffective, stacked against them, and geared toward maintaining the status quo?

Ever since the insurrection mounted on our nation’s Capitol last Jan. 6, much has been written about the demise of our democracy. In their book, “How Democracies Die,” authors Steven Livitsky and Daniel Ziblatt explain how the degradation of democracies happens “slowly, in barely visible steps.” Others cite eroding institutional norms and weakening political in-democracies, such as free and fair elections, as leading to the fall of democracies and the rise of authoritarianism.

It may not be fair or accurate to declare the election process in Rensselaer County dead, but we would be foolish not to take note that it may be teetering on life support and a change in course is necessary if we are to keep our democracy intact.