Thoughts on Trump’s comments about Voting; An explanation for the linguistic Left.

Voting falls under the language concept of performative as established by John L. Austin. From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [of the five classes of illocutionary acts, essentially performatives] “The class of Exercitives includes acts of exerting powers, rights or influence (as appointing, voting, ordering, warning). These presuppose that the speaker has a certain kind of authority or influence.” (emphasis mine) We must extend in person voting through Aye or Nay to any type of voting such that it is a language act rather than a speech act, but without getting into the details, it is more or less the same.

So, if I vote by mail, my vote only excites the parameters of performativity if my vote is received (and thus, presumably, counted). If I mail in my vote and some accident causes it to be lost, my vote never finished the act of being a performative. It dies in rehearsal. But if my vote does arrive and is purposefully cast aside, my vote has accomplished it performative task and my presupposed authority or influence has been subverted (the act, right, or influence has not been exerted).

Voting irregularities of course make none of this quite 100% (I’m looking at you, “hanging chads”), but to vote at the booth is to excite the entire parameters of performativity—the vote is cast and registered in one motion.

The point is that the performative act of voting requires the vote be cast and received, cast and tabulated. An untabulated “vote” is not a vote. The “reception” of the “utterance” is part of the casting. Just like a person making a bet in an empty room by saying “I bet xyz” is not exciting all of the parameters of performativity (when what they clearly mean is “I speculate that xyz”), submitting a vote without it being received precludes the ability to functionally perform.

So, if I’m going to utter a performative–the result of which is usually near instant—I’m going to check to make sure the lack of immediate enactment is due to any problems. For example, if I place a bet over the phone on a transatlantic telephone line in the year Austin gave his first lecture on this, and I did not hear a response after 15 seconds, I might repeat my bet to make sure it goes through and not to place a second bet. The person on the other end of the line would confirm that, just as at the polls, if your ballot has not been received, you are not barred from voting. But if the bookie on the other end of the line did get my bet and the delay was simply the delay of speaking over phone, across the Atlantic, in the 1950s, the “second” bet will not be placed but discarded. And if there was a connection issue, the first bet will be discarded, the second bet placed.

Here are the real world implications of this

If a person goes to the polls on election day after having mailed in a ballot for the purpose of making sure their vote went through and there is no record of their vote having gone through, they have not voted yet, in the performative sense (and it is the performative sense that matters in an election). So “voting again” is not actually voting again; they haven’t voted yet. If they submit a vote at the poles (and have therefore performatively voted) and their mail-in ballot later arrives, it cannot be considered a vote because the initial potential performative was interrupted, and it no longer excites the parameters of performativity—it will not be tabulated because a vote has already been tabulated.

It’s a more complicated way of getting to the point that POTUS does, but it’s grounded in the language theory that the left loves and loves to weaponize (as they have done with Austin’s performative—his being an interesting study in the use and function of language)