BusinessTN

Step right up. Try your luck. Cast your ballot to win a million bucks.

This month, Arizona residents will vote on a citizen ballot initiative that would give them the chance to win $1 million for simply voting in a primary and/or general election. Preposterous? Maybe. Or maybe not.

Arizona political activist and ophthalmologist Mark Osterloh crafted the Arizona Voter Reward Act to boost voter turnout and improve public participation in Arizona state government. The initiative would finance the award with unclaimed state lottery prize money. Business Tennessee shopped the proposal, which has garnered national media attention, to several Tennessee notables to explore whether the Volunteer State should consider it and whether such a proposal would be legal and/or constitutional here. Most people responded with statements that included words like “bribe,” “gimmick” and “game,” but others conveyed a willingness to “wait and see.” Despite Tennessee’s reluctance, there’s at least one person, independent of both Arizona and Tennessee, in favor of a Voter Reward Act. Miles Rapoport, a former Secretary of State for Connecticut who is president of Demos, a think tank “committed to building an America that achieves its highest democratic ideals,” says America’s electoral system puts up barriers that discourage people from voting. A properly implemented monetary incentive, he says, may be a creative way to get people to the polls.

“States need to adopt and hopefully the federal government will adopt a comprehensive set of policies that stop discouraging people from voting and affirm or encourage participation. The lottery could be one part of that,” Rapoport says. “It’s worth a try. I hope Arizona will give it a try, and if it’s successful, other states like Tennessee can give it a try.”

Local think tank president Drew Johnson of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research disagrees. “A person who has to be bribed to vote is not a person who should be helping shape the future of Tennessee,” Johnson says.

But what about the constant chatter regarding voter apathy? In the 2004 presidential election, about 66% of registered voters cast ballots in Tennessee, and in 2002, it was about 50%. Does it matter why people are voting, as long as they are, in fact, doing so? While Rapoport contends democracy is enhanced by the largest number of people casting their ballots, Tennessee blogger Bill Hobbs says promoting a more informed electorate should be a higher priority than increasing voter participation.

“The Arizona voter lottery strikes me as a gimmick that is likely to increase voter participation, but in a detrimental way, because it is likely to bring many more uninformed voters to the polls—voters who have not studied the issues and candidates but are there just to, in effect, buy a lottery ticket,” he says. “Increasing the number of uninformed, disinterested people casting ballots is a recipe for bad government.”

One might expect Republicans to agree with Hobbs and anticipate Democrats supporting a proposal that could drive more “disenfranchised” Americans to the polls. In Tennessee, though, the Democratic and Republican parties seem to agree on this one. Chris Devaney, executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party, says his party is interested in increasing voter turnout but believes voters should cast their ballots because they understand the issues and the importance of voting.

“We encourage citizens to vote because they want to be a part of the democratic process, not because they want to be a millionaire,” he says.

Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Bob Tuke says voting is a sacred right that shouldn’t be turned into a game, but he admits that he’s interested in whether such a proposal will be effective in Arizona.

“If that gets people out, maybe the motivation is not as important as the act itself, but I would hope people regard the right to vote as a privilege and a right, and cast their votes because they understand that and not because they might win the lottery,” he says Perhaps, though, all this talk is for naught—since there is the question of whether such a proposal is legal under state and/or federal law, though even that seems debatable. (See sidebars.) “It’s illegal,” says Brook Thompson, state coordinator of elections. “State law says you cannot give anything of any value for voting or not voting in an election.”

In Arizona, passage of the ballot initiative would, “notwithstanding any other provisions of law to the contrary,” declare it “lawful for the Arizona Voter Reward Commission to offer the reward to electors as an inducement to vote,” thereby superseding a state law barring any exchange of a vote for money. In Tennessee, citizen ballot initiatives are not permitted, so getting around the statute barring an exchange of a vote for money would necessitate legislative action. Both states, however, would be held to similar federal laws that prevent people from offering or receiving money to vote or withhold a vote—if such laws even apply to this discussion.

“I think those rules are designed to stop candidate X from going into a neighborhood and saying, ‘Come with me to polls, and I’ll give you money,’” says James Blumstein, Vanderbilt University professor of constitutional law. “You can’t bribe someone to vote, but if every voter qualifies for this, and it’s paid for by the government, my intuition is that it would not be violative of a federal or state law because the money is coming from the state itself.”

In this instance, Blumstein says, individuals aren’t receiving money for their vote. The act of voting simply allows them to qualify for a game of chance.

However, determining whether state and federal statutes preventing the exchange of a vote for money would prohibit a voter lottery in Tennessee is only one piece of the puzzle. Another issue, Blumstein says, is whether the Tennessee constitutional amendment that made the state lottery possible is broad enough to provide for some sort of voter lottery.

Article XI, Section 5 of the Tennessee Constitution declares that the legislature cannot authorize “lotteries for any purpose” and shall pass laws to “prohibit the sale of lottery tickets,” except for a state lottery in which the “net proceeds of the lottery’s revenues” go toward college scholarships for Tennessee residents. Although the Constitution clearly prohibits most lotteries, it’s important to note that in the case of a voter lottery, nothing is for sale. Would a proposal like that in Arizona be considered a lottery, when, in actuality, it’s really just a “lottery drawing?” Finally, and perhaps most relevant, the Constitutional Amendment for the lottery includes provisions for distributing excess lottery money to capital outlay projects for K-12 educational facilities, early learning programs and after school programs. In addition, the legislature passed a bill this year that allows 100% (with a cap of $18 million) of unclaimed prize money, which, according to a recent press release from the office of Senator Steve Cohen, the “Father of the Tennessee Lottery,” is $14 million, to be used to develop after school programs.

Thus, a voter lottery that draws its reward from unclaimed lottery prize money would seem to require, at the very least, legislation and presumably an amendment to Tennes- see’s Constitution. “It’s hard to amend the Tennessee Constitution,” Blumstein says. “You need someone who stays with it for quite a while.” Cohen (D-Memphis), who devoted almost 20 years to amending the Constitution to implement the Tennessee lottery, says he’s not interested.

“What Arizona is doing may be okay for Arizona, but I don’t think there’s any way in the world that we should do it in Tennessee,” Cohen says. “I would never suggest doing anything with that money other than what we’re using it for, which is after school programs, and I don’t think anyone else would either.”

One can’t blame the “Father of the Tennessee Lottery” for protecting the legacy he took years to create, but who knows whether another Tennessee legislator will take to this unusual proposal making waves in a western state? After all, if Arizona’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is a hit, Osterloh has predicted spin-offs in the 24 states that allow citizen ballot initiatives. And maybe, just maybe, states like Tennessee will follow.

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