What if we treated voting rights like we treat athletic competitions?

I came up with a new team sport.  Like many team sports, this one determines the winner by accumulation of points, where the team with the most points wins.  Points are scored by placing a ball in one of the designated team “goals” (a box) within the defined period of time.

One team has 10 players, each of whom has a ball, and must walk to, and place their ball in one of 3 designated goals, one at a time.  Another team member cannot approach a goal, until the referee has registered the goal and removed the ball.  There is a referee at each goal.  This team has one minute to place their balls in the goals.

The other team has 8 players, each of which has a ball, and must walk to, and place their ball in their single designated goal, one at a time. Another team member cannot approach a goal, until the referee has registered the goal and removed the ball.  This team has 30 seconds to place their balls in the goal.

The playing court is arranged as shown in the following image.  Goals are color-coded to the specific team who can use them.  That’s it.  What do you think of my new game?  Would you play it?  Would it matter to you what team you were on?

I suspect some people would be perfectly fine with the game, provided they were on the Yellow Team (assuming they wanted to win).  What if you were on the Red Team – would you be ok with that?

Do you know of any other team sports which are set up like this, where one team has a clear advantage over the other team?  Why don’t we see sports like this?  I’m sure there are some hardcore sports team fans out there who would be perfectly fine if their team had advantages like this, although I’m hoping the vast majority of people would see this as unreasonable and unfair.

Yet, it seems that many people in our country, politicians included, are content to leave our election processes set up in a way, at least in some locations, like my new game.  While somewhat exaggerated, I set it up a way to make the following point:  Not all people have an equal opportunity to vote, due to inconsistencies with access to polling locations and voting options.  These can include the number of polling locations (how many people must use a particular polling location), the distance one needs to travel to their designated polling location, the length of time polling remains open, the regulations governing early voting and voting by mail, and the ease of registering to vote.

Again, think how you would feel if you were playing my game, and were a player on the Red Team.  Would you feel you were being treated fairly?  If you feel your voting experience is like being on the Yellow Team, do you care more about making the next game fair for both teams, or more about winning the game?  Applied to voting accessibility, the question really becomes to what extent you support a fair democracy, with equal access to voting, and what you are willing to do to see that happen.

Fortunately, there are organized efforts to level the playing field for voting accessibility.  I personally believe it is a false dilemma to suggest that our choices are either better accessibility at the cost of election security, or better election security at the cost of accessibility.  Our country has a lot of resources, and if there were sufficient resolve from our leaders, and enough value placed on sustaining the democracy, that both better accessibility and better security can (and should) be achieved.