Thursday, February 11, 2010

The American electoral system is sorely in need of reform

“Democracy” is one of the most prized concepts of American. The constant expansion of voting and other legal rights for Americans has been a long struggle. Yet it seems too many Americans forget those struggles. Too many people seem to sink to the patriotic boosterism that democratic rule, for Americans at least, is somehow inevitable. There danger here is complacency that only benefits the status quo.

Every election we browbeat our fellow citizens with the mantra that every vote counts. The reality is that’s not true. Gerrymandered congressional districts and the Presidential Electoral College, to cite just two examples, limit true competition to only certain sections of the country and the impact on government is not what one should expect from a country that calls itself democratic. Citizens become cynical and lose faith in the very system of democratic governance they supposedly cherish. An unresponsive government and cynical citizenry means that it is only a matter of time, if we have not reached that point already, that the whole system becomes a façade with all of us simply going through the motions of democratic activity.

The entire electoral system is in need of reform. Jonathan Turley has some suggestions to start cleaning up the process in today’s L.A. Times:
For decades, political reform in the United States has largely meant campaign finance reform. It is a focus the political mainstream prefers, despite the fact that it is akin to addressing an engine with a design defect by regulating the fuel.

Many of our current problems are either caused or magnified by the stranglehold the two parties have on our political system. Democrats and Republicans, despite their uniformly low popularity with voters, continue to exercise a virtual monopoly, and they have no intention of relinquishing control. The result is that "change" is often limited to one party handing power over to the other party. Like Henry Ford's customers, who were promised any color car so long as it was black, voters are effectively allowed to pick any candidate they want, so long as he or she is a Democrat or Republican.

Both parties (and the media) reinforce this pathetic notion by continually emphasizing the blue state/red state divide. The fact is that the placement of members on the blue or red team is often arbitrary, with neither side showing consistent principles or values.

The Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down restrictions on corporate campaign giving has prompted some members of Congress to call for a constitutional amendment to reinstate the restrictions. But that would merely return us to the same status (and corrupted process) of a month ago.

We can reform our flawed system, but we have to think more broadly about the current political failure. Here are a few ideas for change that would matter:

Remove barriers to third parties. Independent and third-party candidates currently face an array of barriers, including registration rules and petition requirements, that should be removed. Moreover, we should require a federally funded electronic forum for qualified federal candidates to post their positions and material for voters. And in races for national office, all candidates on the ballot in the general election should submit to a minimum of three (for Congress) or five (for the presidency) debates that would be funded and made publicly available by the government.

End the practice of gerrymandering. We need a constitutional amendment requiring uniformity in districts to end gerrymandering, in which politicians distort the shape of districts to link pockets of Democratic or Republican voters. Districts should have geographic continuity, and should be established by a standard formula applied by an independent federal agency.

Change the primary system. The principal reason incumbents are returned to power is that voters have little choice in the general election. Incumbents tend to control their primaries, and in many districts electing the candidate of the opposing party is not an option. Under one alternative system that could be mandated in a constitutional amendment for all states, the two top vote-getters would go into the general election regardless of their party. If both of the top candidates are Republican or Democratic, so be it. All primaries would be open to allow voters to cast their ballots for any candidate appearing in the primary.

Abolish the electoral college. The college's current role in our system is uniformly negative and dysfunctional. It allows someone to be elected president even if his or her opponent gets more popular votes, as happened with George W. Bush in the 2000 election. This leads to serious questions of legitimacy. More important, it helps the two parties control entire states, because in states that are solidly red or blue, the opposing parties and candidates rarely invest much time or money campaigning given that they are clearly not going to get the electoral votes in the end. If there were direct voting for presidents, candidates would have good reason to campaign hard to grab pockets of, say, Democrats in Salt Lake City or Republicans in downstate New York.

Require a majority for presidents to be elected. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, there should be a runoff of the two top vote-getters -- as is the custom in most other nations. This would tend to force candidates to reach out to third parties and break up monopoly control of the two parties.

It is unlikely that members of Congress would implement such sweeping changes. But Article V of the Constitution allows citizens to circumvent Congress and call for their own convention "on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states." To be successful, a convention would have to be limited to addressing political reforms and not get sidetracked by divisive issues such as same-sex marriage or abortion. Individual states could also lead the way in enacting some of these reforms, such as requiring electoral votes to be divided among candidates according to the popular vote.

The current anger and outcry will mean nothing unless we can harness and channel it toward serious reform. Simply seeking a constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform would do little to truly reform the system. Though it may require a third party to seek such changes, it can be done. We have to accept that the leaders of both parties are unlikely to solve this problem. They are much of the problem. The framers gave us the tools to achieve real change in our system.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.

The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.

The bill is currently endorsed by over 1,707 state legislators (in 48 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Delaware --75%, Maine -- 77%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74% , Massachusetts -- 73%, Minnesota – 75%, New York -- 79%, Washington -- 77%, and West Virginia- 81%. Support is strong in every partisan and demographic group surveyed.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 29 state legislative chambers, in 19 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon, and both houses in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes -- 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

James Young said...

Democracy is not "one of the most prized concepts of American[s]." It's a misrepresentation by far-Left types who either: (a) don't understand our form of government; or (b) want to change it into something it is not, and never has been.

The Founders feared and loathed "democracy," and for good reason, since it is antithetical to a regime of rights, which must, of course, yield to majoritarian peccadilloes.

Sisyphus said...

Wow... I see a whole lot of vocab, stats, and a few peeks into the machinations of our political system. Folks ! In a "majority rule" you're going to have to boil it down to the basics because -drum roll- the majority of people A: Don't fully understand how it all works. B: Don't have time to follow every politician on the national and local levels. and C: Feel so overwhelmed by the entire process that they just pick whomever wins them over at the last minute or they just vote for whatever party they've claimed to have belonged to whether they know anything about the candidate or not.

THAT is what is wrong with our system people. You're going to have to come up with a way to fix THOSE issues first otherwise your other points are MOOT.

K.I.S.S. method.