In early August, I got my ballot for the September 1 primary in Massachusetts. I dutifully filled it out the next day, carefully reading and re-reading the instructions. Selfie taken; ballot back in the mail. I, an overly enthusiastic participant in democracy, registered to vote immediately after moving to Boston and requested a mail-in ballot as early as I could.
By the end of the month, I found myself calling and emailing the Massachusetts elections office asking if they had my ballot. After repeatedly checking the ballot tracking website, my ballot seemed lost into the mail abyss. My alternatives were few and far between. I was temporarily outside of Boston due to COVID-19. I would be returning to a different address after the election. And, due to pandemic risk, I am weary of going to the polls on election day. Regardless, I found myself trying to come up with a backup plan to allow me to vote in September. Luckily, after several calls to the office, the election office confirmed that my ballot was received. Though, this was never reflected on their website.
For the November presidential election, I will go through all of this again, with greater delays and risk that my ballot won’t be received. After, of course, I re-register to vote at my new address. This requires that I print out the voter registration forms, fill them out, mail them. I must do this with enough time for the registration to be processed, the ballot to be processed, and for us to receive and return our November ballots.
Each and every additional step risks that I my vote won’t be counted.
Each step in the process that makes the process of voting more onerous for us falls within the umbrella of administrative burden. The burden is the frustration of every straw that will break the camel’s back, resulting in a complete barrier to voting in November. Most frustrating, each straw represents a boring detail, imbedded in a policy that, standing alone, doesn’t result in an outcry for barriers to voting. You will not find me calling the election office yelling about having to print out my voter registration form.
Administrative burden isn’t just a phenomenon in voting, and it is not always an innocent coincidence of fumbling bureaucracy. It can be an efficient and effective tool to create barriers to access. Public officials employ administrative burdens to achieve goals that they would otherwise be prevented from pursuing if debated in the public square.
For instance, for individuals applying for benefits (unemployment, food stamps, cash welfare, disability benefits, etc.) in states with the elected officials who object to these programs, the process of applying can be nearly impossible to navigate. The paperwork can be complicated, and an agency denies or underestimates benefits based on a wrong box checked. Once complete, the agency may require the applicant to mail the paperwork to a central office, and the office may “lose” key pieces documents. Calls to offices to follow up left unanswered. An agency or organization might require in-person appointments in the middle of a workday, resulting in the additional cost of bus fare and missed work. Then, without the applicant knowing, the agency will issue a denial. Appeals time will run out.
After all of that, the agency leaves the person needing money for food or rent or healthcare with nothing. If the applicant didn’t get benefits, it is their fault. They didn’t meet the requirements. Public officials will often excuse these by citing “public integrity.” No one should get the benefit if they aren’t eligible, even if that means far more eligible people lose out. Plus, the state pays less money. This is the system working as they intended.
The rules can often be a moving target. Administrative burdens lurk in the minutiae of regulations or of policies that change often and are hard to read. Good luck trying to appeal a denial or fight for what’s yours if you don’t even know what you have a right to.
In recent years, immigrants in the US face the brunt of this. Limited English Proficient folks face all the same barriers but must try to navigate in a language that is not their own, often not receiving interpreters or translated material. For non-citizen immigrants, changing rules on public charge or on visa access create panic and fear as to whether or not immigrants can remain in the US. Undocumented immigrants do not report domestic violence, do not appear for court hearings, and turn away necessary healthcare in order to avoid deportation. Green card recipients turn down public benefits (health insurance, food stamps, child care subsidies) if they believe that this will harm their chance for citizenship. In fact, I’ve been told of HIV+ patients stopping treatment because they believed accessing this treatment would impact their immigration status.
Administrative burden, in and of itself, is not a biased tool. Policymakers can create burdens to make eviction more onerous for landlords or deportation more burdensome for the Department of Homeland Security. Like any tool, it’s used depends on whoever wields it.
However, this approach to policymaking is a subversion of democracy. It preys on the representative nature of our democracy by ensuring that lack of expertise or time or access to individuals in power reduces our ability to advocate for those fighting for access, clarity, and equity. By burdening people in an array of confusion and mess, we have less space to advocate for a better system. Yet, administrative burdens are the last on many people’s list of priorities while they fight the larger and more direct methods of harming people. We pick our battles, but we also must understand they’re being fought at many different levels.
Tara
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