Speaking of poor voter turnout, consider the experience of the small Alabama town of Ragland, northeast of Birmingham.

Ragland turned out only 260 of its 1,900 registered voters in the June 3 election.

From the Associated Press:

“It’s atrocious, the apathy that exists in our country today,“ said Mayor Gary Daffron. “It (voting) is one of the few luxuries that we still have in a democracy.“

So, the AP says, while the rest of the state prepared for a runoff expected to set a record for low voter turnout, a group of folks in Ragland hatched a plan: Incentives. Lots of them.

Lemonade. Crackers. Hot dogs. A 10 percent discount at a local grocery store.

Even a raffle that promised cash prizes of $50 to $1,000.

It worked.

The group exceeded its goal of 500 votes, finishing just one vote shy of doubling the June turnout.

Five hundred and nineteen votes out of 1,900—that’s 25 percent turnout, nearly six times the state average.

You guys know how I feel about voting. I hate it when people don’t vote. I hate apathy, because that’s what’s gotten us into the situation we’re in with our government.

Not voting: Bad. Voting: Good.

I appreciate the action this group of people took to address the problem. It’s always laudable when folks get together to tackle their issues as a community.

But this story leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The ability to choose one’s leaders should be its own reward. People shouldn’t have to be bribed to go do their civic duty—especially since so many men and women have gone willingly to sacrifice everything to insure it.

The Montgomery Advertiser had a good editorial about this today.

Turnout among the rest of the state’s registered voters, who didn’t have the lure of freebies, was, to put it bluntly, pathetic ...

Only about 392,000 people voted in the first primary, which was better than in the runoff but still a paltry 15 percent turnout of registered voters. Even that percentage does not take into account the hundreds of thousands of Alabama citizens who are eligible to vote, but who haven’t bothered to register.

So what’s the answer, free hotdogs and raffle tickets for all voters statewide?

We hope not. While it worked in Ragland, there is something demeaning about enticing voters to the polls with freebies. And it is a slippery slope that almost certainly would be abused. For instance, it raises the possibility of one party or the other only offering incentives to get people to turn out in counties with high numbers of their voters. That would skew the results in a general election, and it might well be illegal.

Also, while such tactics may get more voters to the polls, they are not likely to get more knowledgeable voters to turn out. We wonder how many of those voters who were influenced only by freebies actually took time to study the candidates and issues. We’d bet the numbers would be tiny.

To be effective, a representative democracy depends upon the knowledgeable participation of its citizenry in the selection of elected officials. Any time the polls open, there should be more than 5 percent of registered voters present. The turnout Tuesday does not speak well of Alabamians and their commitment to maintaining this nation’s democratic tradition.

Read the rest here.

What do you think? Morally, ethically and legally, how do you feel about incentivizing the vote? Do the ends justify the means?