t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 29 February 2008
Elections are the proximate requirement for democracy. Although they alone cannot sustain democracy, without them no system could ever make a reasonable claim to be democratic. Likewise, voting is the most basic, fundamental and obvious means by which citizens can participate in democracy. It is the means by which the people's will is supposed to become manifest. But if elections don't function democratically - that is, if they fail to produce a reasonable approximation of the people's will, either because of a flaw in their design or corruption in the process, then they must be reformed.
This all became starkly clear nearly eight years ago as I found myself telling a passionate, proactive, socially conscious student that his choice to vote for Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election was both irrational and counterproductive. I heard myself suggesting that in the future he seriously think about sacrificing his principles for a little common sense. I was suppressing my usual idealism for the skepticism wrought by the bleak reality of American presidential elections. Our electoral and political party institutions (with a lot of help from special interests, media and savvy marketing teams) have created an entrenched, impenetrable duopoly in which elections are more frequently than not a contest between the "lesser of two evils." What a sad commentary on American democracy - when the choice comes down to conviction or pragmatism.
Any person who really knows the rules of the game understands that it's better to settle for the least egregious option than to risk the worst possible one. It's not that the two parties - Democrats and Republicans - excel at their job as links between people and their representatives. It's not even that they do a better job than most third parties would do. It's just that no third party candidate stands a chance of winning an election under current election rules. Setting aside the prohibitive cost of running a viable campaign, even if a third party candidate makes it onto the public radar, the Electoral College guarantees that he or she will not win the presidency. Ever. This is because it is the electors' votes that actually select the president, not the voters' (for those of us who've already forgotten the political science lesson that was Election 2000). And it is only the two major parties that get to select slates of electors for each state. In fact, these individuals - the electors - are selected precisely because of their demonstrated loyalty to their respective party. They can be counted on to vote for the party's candidate - in fact, that pretty well sums up the job description of an elector. For an elector, there is no meaningful choice between candidates because they know how they're voting beforehand - we all do. The question is not for whom an elector will cast his or her vote, only which slate of electors will be permitted to do so in each individual state. This, of course, depends on which candidate wins the state. Because it is a plurality system, the winner - that is, the person with more votes than anyone else - gets all of the electoral votes from that state (with the exceptions of a couple of small states that utilize a proportional rule). It's called "winner take all," and it's the reason why not only will no third party candidate ever win the presidency, but why none is likely to ever get more than a handful of electoral votes.
Consider the case of Ross Perot. He received 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992 - a very respectable showing for a third party candidate. But he failed to receive one solitary electoral vote. If Perot stands no chance of winning, what is the point, and more importantly, the consequence, of voting for him? At best, a vote cast for a third party candidate is wasted and at worst a spoiler. Think about it this way, if everyone voting for the third party candidate were completely indifferent in preferences among the other candidates, then that vote cast for the third party candidate who stands no chance of winning is wasted. It serves no electoral or political purpose other than to lessen the margin of victory for the eventual winner. On the other hand, a vote cast for a third party candidate is very likely to be a "spoiler" vote if voters both have preferences among the candidates and are rational. To illustrate using the 2000 presidential election:
There are three candidates:
Candidate 1 is George W. Bush. Candidate 2 is Al Gore. Candidate 3 is Ralph Nader.
We will assume each voter has a preference among the three candidates and can rank them ordinally. To simplify, we will categorize the electorate into Bush voters, Gore voters and Nader voters. Using simple logic and a glance at the policy positions of the three candidates, we can presume that the typical voter of each type ranked the candidates this way:
Bush Voters: 1) Bush, 2) Gore, 3) Nader. Gore Voters: 1) Gore, 2) Nader, 3) Bush. Nader Voters: 1) Nader, 2) Gore, 3) Bush.
At the end of the day, Bush received approximately 48.5 percent of the popular votes cast, Gore received 48.5 percent and Nader received approximately three percent. Given that Nader and Gore are closer on the ideological spectrum than Nader and Bush, and likely are closer than Bush and Gore, the election resulted in a victory for [Bush], the candidate who was, in all likelihood, the least-preferred candidate for the greatest percentage of voters. This argument is even stronger if we use the 1992 presidential election, in which almost 57 percent of voters likely considered Clinton their least-preferred choice. In other words, had Nader voters in 2000 understood the rules of the game (i.e., that their candidate stood no chance of winning), they would have voted instead for their second-most-preferred candidate - Al Gore - and given him the victory. (This, of course, doesn't count the 50 percent of registered voters who didn't turn out, and, in effect, voted against democracy itself, but that's another story.) Nader voters presumably cast their votes sincerely rather than strategically, and while that kind of conviction is admirable in principle, it is reckless under current election rules. As they exist, elections are and should be treated as races between the two major party candidates. And that's the real shame.
We have to start by doing away with the Electoral College. It served its purpose back in the 19th century, but is no longer relevant. The college was created for some very specific reasons, none of which make much sense in the 21st century United States. The first argument for the Electoral College (and against direct election) was the fear that presidents would be selected by the most populated states, and more precisely, the largest population centers within those states. But this raises two counterarguments: firstly, this can't be any worse than the overrepresentation of citizens in small states as well as the largest "key" states themselves, and secondly, so what? Majority rule is among the most basic of democratic principles. If a majority of the populace lives in metropolitan centers, then why shouldn't those places have their interests represented in proportion to their size?
A second argument in favor of the Electoral College was that electors were needed to act as "filters" for the voice of the electorate because the public was not knowledgeable enough or wise enough to make a "fit" choice in its own best interests. Inherent in this argument is the suggestion that information on the candidates and their positions was inaccessible to the public at large. Of course, in the age of the internet, television and faxes, this is no longer the case. In fact, if anything, the public is routinely bombarded with too much information (granted, most of it superficial and image-oriented) on candidates. However, any voter who bothers to take just a few hours out of an entire election season can find out almost anything he or she wants to know about any candidate's policy positions, record, character or any myriad of variables. The fact that voter apathy and ignorance are widespread despite the overwhelming accessibility of information no longer justifies a filter of electors. In fact, it is the Electoral College itself that is partly responsible for the perception that one's vote "does not count," and is therefore a source of the ignorance and apathy upon which it continues to rationalize its existence.
The third argument for the Electoral College was based on the principle of federalism. The framers argued that power needed to be divided among the states and the central government, rather than simply centralized in the national government. They were working out of a fear of the tyrannies of unitary government and disgust for the inefficiency of confederation. It was argued that the Electoral College would make states the key players in the selection of the president, and that as such, every state's interests would have a chance at being represented in the final outcome.
There are several flaws in this logic as it applies to contemporary politics, however. Firstly, while states may be the key battlegrounds for a presidential election, they do not share this power equally. In fact, the bulk of electoral power goes to the five largest and five smallest states. The former have a disproportionate amount of power because, without their support (California, New York, Texas, Florida, Michigan), it becomes very difficult to win a presidential election. And conversely, citizens of the smallest states wield a disproportionate amount of influence because of their small population size and the rule that every state, no matter how small, gets two senators (recall the number of electors is determined by the number of senators and representatives). Thus, the vote of a citizen of Wyoming carries approximately four times the weight of a vote of a citizen of California. Surely this isn't what the framers intended when they called for "one man, one vote."
Another, more philosophical, argument given for the Electoral College was that it would translate a bare majority or even plurality into a clear majority victory. This, it was argued, would confer more legitimacy on the victor, which, of course, is a key component in the healthy functioning of democracy. There is one major flaw that the framers either did not anticipate or could not account for, however. While more legitimacy for an actual victor is difficult to argue against, there was also the very real risk that the Electoral College would do its job too well - that is, produce a majority for a non-victor. And of course, that is exactly what happened in Election 2000.
Virtually every presidential democracy other than the United States elects its chief executive through direct vote. In many cases, such as France, Russia and Italy, there are routinely so many candidates on the ballot that no one ever receives a majority in the first round. However, they get around the potential illegitimacy problem of conferring victory on a plurality candidate by having a run-off election in which the top two candidates (or everyone who received 15 percent of the vote in the first round) compete in a second round. One could argue that this method is actually more legitimatizing than the Electoral College because a candidate must win the support of the electorate not once, but twice, in order to claim victory. European democracies have their share of political messiness, but you rarely hear a French voter complain that his "vote didn't count."
Finally, some framers also expressed concern that a direct election would be problematic in the case of a recount. If the election were statistically too close to call, and a recount demanded, it would be extremely difficult to do this on a national scale. A statewide recount was much more manageable than a national one, and thus it made more sense to have states as the election mediums. The ironies in this argument are too numerous to list in full, but suffice it to say that until Election 2000, there has never been an election so close on a national scale that a recount would have been called for statistically (this includes the 1960 presidential election between Kennedy and Nixon.) Likewise, it became clear in 2000 that recounts are unmanageable even on a statewide level. Different voting standards across counties, varying and often confusing ballot structures, and the intervention of political actors with interests to protect were the real barriers to a fair and legitimate outcome. But all of these problems can be easily repaired with a standardizing of election law nationally. States can still have control over counting ballots and holding elections, but the only reasonable and constitutional way to make sure that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment isn't violated again for scores of voters is to have one type of ballot and one consistent set of election rules.
In the place of the Electoral College, we should create one national district and switch to a direct election. This would counter the naysayers who would argue against scrapping the Electoral College on the grounds that elections [then] would favor heavily populated urban centers, because there is no purer form of "one person, one vote" than the nationwide district. A further fix would be to switch from the plurality rule to the majority rule. Require that the victor win a majority of the vote (after all, isn't this the first and most basic democratic rule?), and if there is no such winner, have a run-off between the top two candidates. This would confer greater legitimacy on the victor, because it would ensure that the victorious candidate had won the support of (at the very least) more voters than not. And if there are those who believe the simple majority run-off system is antiquated and unfair, then let's utilize the "instant runoff voting" formula rather than strictly one person, one vote. IRV, under which winning candidate receive an absolute majority of votes rather than a simple plurality, eliminates the need for runoff elections by allowing voters to rank their candidates in order of preference. It would also eliminate the need for strategic voting and would produce a choice that is truly the most preferred among the greatest number of people.
There would, of course, be consequences to all of this. More choices and more parties will be messier, both during and after the campaigns. It would be more difficult to get a majority in Congress, voters would have more candidates to choose from (and thus, to learn about), and when more than two parties are represented, it is natural that some efficiency and responsiveness be sacrificed. But these reforms are also necessary so that I never again have to tell a truly well-meaning and civic-minded student that he should sacrifice his convictions rather than risk helping to bring about the worst possible outcome. It's an elementary observation, but in a democracy, shouldn't a vote be constructive, sincere and, most importantly, meaningful?
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Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science and international studies at the State University of New York at Brockport. She specializes in political development, nonviolent social movements and quality of democracy.
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