From the WSJ Opinion Archives
CROSS COUNTRY
The Powerball Voters
Will $1 million bring Arizonans to the polls?
TUCSON, Ariz.--Some say the desert breeds quirky freethinkers, and one need look no further for proof than Mark Osterloh, a Tucson activist championing a November ballot measure that would hand a $1 million lottery award to one lucky Arizonan after each and every state primary and general election, the aim being to boost voter turnout.
Polling data are hard to come by, so nobody knows what chance Arizona's Voter Reward Act has. But that hasn't stopped the media from beating a path to Mr. Osterloh's door. The BBC, CNN, NPR, TV networks and foreign journalists from Australia, Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands have all rung up--or shown up.
With his elastic, "aw shucks" grin, molded DeLay-style hairdo, and taste for jeans and boots, Mr. Osterloh has been labeled a "gadfly" by Fortune and the New York Times. A onetime Wisconsin ophthalmologist who returned to his hometown of Tucson in the 1990s, he ran unsuccessfully for Arizona governor in 2002, unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2000 and unsuccessfully for state representative--twice, in 1996 and 1998.
But opinion-makers underestimate Mr. Osterloh--and his plan for increasing voter turnout--at their own peril.
In 1996, Mr. Osterloh, a Democrat, led a successful ballot fight in this red state to expand free health care. In 1998 he successfully championed the Clean Elections Initiative, a voluntary system of publicly financed campaigns, which in 2002 inspired a staggering 90,000 Arizonans to give $5 to candidates trying to qualify for public financing; on Aug. 4, a Superior Court judge upheld the removal from office of a "Clean Elections" legislator who overspent by just $6,000--the first such ouster in the U.S. In 2000, Mr. Osterloh helped persuade Arizonans to stop the Legislature's incessant gerrymandering by handing the power to draw voting districts to an independent panel.
Yet in July, when the Voter Reward Act qualified for the ballot by attracting more than 185,000 signatures, analysts were unprepared. Was this for real? The Arizona Republic, the state's largest newspaper, hadn't even bothered to include a question about it in its January poll of upcoming ballot measures.
If approved, the law would hand a randomly chosen voter from each primary and general election $1 million from an intriguingly fat chest of uncollected state lottery money. And there's a very special surprise if the measure passes: It's retroactive to Arizona's fast-approaching Sept. 12 primary. (If you're voting by absentee ballot, you may already be a winner.)
Few Arizona politicians openly oppose the measure, perhaps realizing that in this conservative but deeply independent state--Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano is expected to be easily re-elected in November--it's unwise to lambaste a lush award to voters. Mr. Osterloh chortles that political consultants are "still trying to figure out what to say."
Editorials have decried the measure as a voter "bribe." But Mr. Osterloh, who is vague about how he supports himself as a full-time reformer (he stopped practicing medicine in 1997), insists Americans "need a carrot" to participate in democracy.
It's hard to argue with that. Voters are handed sticks, not carrots. Negative campaigning and "gotcha" journalism make elections a turnoff. Sly "voter suppression" tactics to keep the other side's voters at home are now distressingly widespread. Tiny "polling place" signs hung outside community centers and schools--utterly lost in our raucous visual culture--are a reminder that, with the exception of presidential races, American elections are among the most mismarketed of public events.
In Arizona, as in many states, only 70% of those eligible have bothered registering to vote. And when there's no presidential race, participation often plummets well below 50%. The media invariably blames "voter apathy," but it's really more about voter disgust.
Supporters of the Voter Reward Act note that in Australia, voter turnout is 95%. If Australians fail to vote--and can't give a good reason--they are charged a $15 fine. But critics see partisanship behind Mr. Osterloh's measure, noting that deep-pocketed groups, including some Native American tribes, hope the lottery will attract poor and disenfranchised voters, also known in Arizona as Democrats.
Mr. Osterloh admits he hopes the law will "dramatically alter" the 2008 congressional elections in Arizona. But in a state dominated by conservatives, it seems just as likely that inactive GOP voters and right-leaning independents will stream to the polls. He says that's fine. Just show up.
Some legal experts, including University of Arizona law professor Jack Chin, claim the law defies a federal law against vote-buying. But that is countered by other Arizona law professors and by Anthony Ching, a former Arizona state solicitor general, who helped write the initiative and says the federal law is aimed at people who try to influence specific races or parties.
One complaint that earns a scowl from the twinkle-eyed Mr. Osterloh is that "bad voters" will jam into polling places. "Bad voters?" he harrumphs, claiming just the opposite: that voters who stand to win $1 million will at long last take a personal interest in upcoming elections.
Certainly Mr. Osterloh's past measures have not always turned out as advertised. The effort to stop gerrymandering, although bringing sanity to the process, has not created very many politically mixed voting districts, nor ended "safe seats" for incumbents. Likewise, the Clean Elections law hasn't ended gridlock or stopped lobbyists from ghost-writing legislation. Arizona's post-reform statehouse is mostly business as usual.
While all of that is true, there's something exhilarating about the idea of dramatically shaking things up. Arizonans have jumped on fresh reform ideas like "clean elections" that are now spreading to other states. If the state launches another trend, it could catch on and lead to sweeping changes in U.S. elections. And with the odds of getting rich just for voting said to be about one in two million--long odds, but far better than most lotteries--Arizona elections might become more riveting even than Powerball.
Ms. Stewart is a syndicated columnist.
