Election Reform Ideas: What, How and Why

[GulliverFoyle]

@Max_Blancke

But If the needs and wants of people in less populous states are different from those in the crowded ones, then a system where the votes of people in Wyoming are irrelevant becomes oppressive. It goes to the whole taxation without representation thing.

It seems to me there are two issues here. The wants of each state’s collective populace and the wants of the people within them.

The system of state’s winner-takes-all in the electoral college came to be before the Civil War (though after the American Revolution and founding) because the two dominant political parties (at the time the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists) wished to consolidate the votes of the states they each tended to get more votes in respectively. It was a kind of arms race. Jeffersonian Anti-Federalists and Adams Federalists both quickly realized that once all the EC votes in a given state that favored the other party went to it, the only chance to win a POTUS election was to pass state legislation making it the same in the states that favored their own party. This is a scenario that will be familiar to anyone who’s played strategy games.

This may even have made a good bit of sense at a time when voters identified more with their states than with their country as a whole. These days however, I would argue that people identify less with their states than with whether they live in an urban or rural area. And also, unfortunately, with the tribalism of race, though I’m highly skeptical that is anything it’s wise to encourage.

If you took a popular vote and didn’t allow reporting until all polls were closed, then every voter would have an equal say. It’s true that Wyoming as a whole would have way less influence than California or Texas as a whole, but each voter in Wyoming would have exactly as much say as each voter in California or Texas. So a key question it seems, in determining the fairness of the state’s winner-takes-all EC system, is whether people think of themselves first as Wyomingites, Californians and Texans, or first as Americans.

I would argue that if most Americans place an allegiance ahead of their country, it is not to their states of residency but to their race, economic class, sex or perhaps even whether they live in an urban or rural area.

Mind you I do think there are arguments for the states that use the winner-takes-all system in directing their electors how to vote to continue to do so. But I’m pretty skeptical as to whether someone would be disenfranchised simply because they only got the same individual vote-strength in Wyoming as they got in California. Simply put, the state having a say is not the same as the voters in a state having a say. Moreover, even in the current system, states with as few EC votes as Wyoming and Montana get ignored anyway, because the race would have to be even closer than any EC vote has ever been for them to make a difference in the outcome. As such, the franchise of Wyomingites isn’t actually protected by their individual votes having more weight than individual Californians, because the state still has far too few EC votes to influence the outcome of the election. For the winner-takes-all system to protect them, Wyoming would need many more EC votes, if not quite as many as California, to the point where the state votes could matter to the outcome. But going by the popular vote, or returning to the proportional allocation the first 13 states originally used in the EC, would protect the individual franchise of Wyomingites, though not the state as a collective entity.

That said, at least a plurality of the states would have to voluntarily move to a popular or back to proportional system in the same cycle, or all of them would have to under a much less likely Constitutional Amendment, for otherwise a few states doing it would be guaranteeing that their EC votes, and thus their individual voters’ POTUS ballots, are at least as ignored as those of states such as Wyoming and Montana already are. This hearkens back to why the winner-takes-all system emerged in the first place, because it was a way to consolidate votes within a state that made it more influential to the outcome than a state that didn’t do it.

In the interest of being clear. I do think there is sound logic in the States’ Rights doctrine, and @RatMan was quite right to push back against my facile dismissal of it. Indeed, this the good reason why the Senate is constituted as it is. I’m just not especially convinced that balance-of-power is represented in the winner-takes-all allocation to the Electoral College vote for POTUS.

[d_r]

@Brainspore

@d_r

In February Bush was polling at 4% in California, so his presence on a February primary in California would have been meaningless. Only Cruz was anywhere near Trump at that point.

But that goes directly to my point. Candidates were basing their campaigns and their decisions to stay in the race or drop out based on where the polls were at that point in time. Voters were basing their decisions on who to support on who was still seen as a viable candidate at that point in time.

Voters in earlier primaries had already shaped the choices Californians had to choose from. I don’t see how this is a remotely controversial statement.

No, you’re missing the point. February is when the first primaries were. If California had been first, the result wouldn’t have been any different from what we actually saw. In a non-strange year, what should have happened (in our current system) is that the field should have developed, so that when California rolled around the choice would have been more meaningful. This actually happened on the Democratic side.

Think of the early primaries as the elimination rounds before the main event.

I understand that in a close election with an unsatisfactory outcome there is a tendency to start second-guessing the system, but all electoral systems have problems, and you can’t just imagine that when things went badly in our universe they would have gone swimmingly in the alternate universe.

[Brainspore]

@d_r

Think of the early primaries as the elimination rounds before the main event.

Why should some states participate in those elimination rounds and not others?

The point isn’t that California and other late-primary states would make better decisions than the earlier states, or even that those decisions would be different. It’s entirely possible that the result would have been the same. The point is that late-voting been excluded from an important part of the process that many other states get to participate in.

@d_r

I understand that in a close election with an unsatisfactory outcome there is a tendency to start second-guessing the system

It’s not just about the outcome. I was second-guessing this system long before Trump was elected. Even if the outcome is a good one it doesn’t excuse an undemocratic process.

I don’t mean to trivialize the importance of women’s suffrage, but your question “how would the results be different if voters from all states had equal participation in the primary process?” is kind of like asking “how would the results of the 1916 election be different if American women had the vote?” The point isn’t whether or not the results would have been different. The point is that everyone should have had an equal say in the process.

[d_r]

[quote=“Brainspore, post:63, topic:89872, full:true”]
The point is that late-voting been excluded from an important part of the process that many other states get to participate in.[/quote]
But they’re not. They get to vote, the slate of candidates is the same, and the power of their vote on the whole election is proportional to their population.

I don’t mean to trivialize the importance of women’s suffrage, but your question “how would the results be different if voters from all states had equal participation in the primary process?” is kind of like asking “how would the results of the 1916 election be different if American women had the vote?”

Except that before women’s suffrage women didn’t have the vote. The difference here, and it is the important difference, is that the group of voters complaining about being excluded are not actually excluded, they have the vote, and their vote counts more than the states they’re complaining about. If anything, California is the men complaining that the women should go last because they’re small.

Just because some Californians feel that their vote doesn’t count doesn’t mean that their vote doesn’t actually count.

[Brainspore]

@d_r

The difference here, and it is the important difference, is that the group of voters complaining about being excluded are not actually excluded, they have the vote, and their vote counts more than the states they’re complaining about.

The energy that candidates put into wooing voters in Iowa and New Hampshire is GROSSLY disproportionate to the populations of those states.

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

[Medievalist]

My radical half-baked ideas.

1. anybody who is on the federal ballot in any state is on the federal ballot in all states.

2. nobody gets to drop out. Ron Paul and Denis Kucinich all the way, baby, screw Iowa.

3. national holiday for voting, excepting emergency workers who’ll do half days at a full day’s pay.

4. all votes hand counted and verified, no unauditable voting machines permitted, full stop. No bullshit whining about this being impossible or too expensive. Voting officials selected similarly to jury duty, and people who refuse duty lose their right to vote for five years and get their names published in a shame list.

[d_r]

@Brainspore

The energy that candidates put into wooing voters in Iowa and New Hampshire is GROSSLY disproportionate to the populations of those states.

This is probably true, at least on a per-person basis, but that doesn’t really have much to do with anything; it doesn’t mean that Californians have less power or influence on things like who is the candidate or what is in their platform than Iowans or New Hampshironians.

California used to have a February primary; the only difference was that it cost California taxpayers a bundle because they still had to have their June primary for state offices, and it didn’t really affect their power over anything. Back earlier when all the states were racing to be first, ('96 through 2004) it was a disaster, the race was enormously expensive and we didn’t have a proper vetting or winnowing of candidates, and we ended up with even crappier candidates than we had this year.

However, I believe that while Party rules would prevent CA from being first in the US, the rather late June primary is CA state law, not a Party rule. If you want your primary earlier you should be working on your Governor. You could probably move yourselves at least to Super Tuesday if not further forward. I personally think it would be bad for the system, but if it makes some Californians feel more beloved by the candidates than that’s all that really matters.

[Daaksyde]

@emo_pinata

1. Treat voting like jury duty where there are penalties for not voting, probably done trough taxation to avoid criminal fine or charges.

With a law like that, they might do things like require voter ID, shut down DMVs and polling stations, require registration months in advance, forbid voting by mail unless you’re outside the country, etc. Well, they already do all of those things and they don’t even get to collect fines or arrest people yet.

That is effectively punishing people for the ‘crimes’ of being poor, disabled, sick, non-mobile, employed, or living in a district that normally votes against the incumbent party. Mandatory voting is treating a symptom, not the disease, and establishing penalties goes a step further by beating the patient for being sick. Moreover, given that the goal is to select the best leaders/representatives, not just to get the high score for number of voters, it’s focusing on the wrong thing.

@kcsaff

But why is it important to electorally buffer citizens of small states and not members of minority races? (or genders or sexualities or religions or…?) Especially when the latter have much larger effects on someone’s life than just what state they reside in?

That’s a very good point. 250 years ago, the colonies/territories/states were likely much more homogenous in terms of local culture (settlers from this group settled here, those from that group settled there) and most people lived out their lives within their local community with nowhere near the amount of exposure to outside ideas that we have now. So at the time, things like origin, culture, religion were very closely related to where people resided. Nowadays not so much. So how do we progress to a system that is representative of groups of people based upon values regardless of their location?

[Wanderfound]

For compulsory voting to work, you also need a genuine commitment to the value of universal suffrage.

Speaking of which:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8009522.stm

[popobawa4u]

If you are willing to consider compulsory voting, how about compulsory government service? Filling offices by lottery instead of vote is one way to get rid of entrenched power structures. On the average it is less ideal than voting for real experts, but perhaps better than relying upon career politicians.

[Wanderfound]

Australian voting isn’t actually compulsory; attendance at the polling booth (where you can abstain if desired) is encouraged by a token fine that is easily evaded with minimal effort. It’s designed to be just enough that not-voting is more hassle than voting.

I have major issues with compulsory service of any kind. I was a messy kid; I would not have survived an early-adult national service system of the sort found in Sweden/Israel/etc.

[emo_pinata]

If you treat voting like jury duty then you would not be able to cut polls or limit options, remove voter registration, and you would have to recuse yourself. 100% of the population is not a potential juror, but a lot more people are potential jurors than are current voters. It would require a change to identification laws to make them freely available, but that’s covered by removing voter registration and the current laws already saying voting must be free (and yes states will step on that - like they already do, but it is a single court case from being fixed). I also explicitly said to make voting a tax break instead of a penalty. Deductions are popular and sought out even when they are not worth a lot.

Also, treating a symptom is typically a cure. When everyone has to put their opinion down suddenly things must change. It’s a forcing function for greater reforms.

[Medievalist]

@Daaksyde

. So how do we progress to a system that is representative of groups of people based upon values regardless of their location?

That would likely result in terrible environmental damage. A “right to water” or something equally horrific. Dominance by urban interests even worse than now.

Of course I’m in a tiny riparian state with 3 electoral votes, so I can be expected to have several biases, I guess.

[chgoliz]

@mewse

Would this mean that if one doesn’t choose to be a citizen, that one also would not need to pay income tax, or register for the draft?

Or would explicitly choosing to be a citizen only affect whether or not voting would be mandatory?

This reminds me that our jury duty in Chicago (all of Illinois?) used to be based on voter registration. They switched to drivers license registration instead, because that opened up a much larger pool of potential jurors.

[daneel]

Same here. Which makes it weird that I’ve never got a summons in getting on for 10 years with a licence.

[GulliverFoyle]

@chgoliz

This reminds me that our jury duty in Chicago (all of Illinois?) used to be based on voter registration.

It’s also a potential deterrent to people who want to avoid jury duty, even though both voting and jury duty, imperfect thought they be, are both responsibilities people are fortunate to have.

I’ve been summoned twice and served once. The first summons I was dismissed in the first round of selection for whatever reason. The second time I was selected. I was pretty excited, being young and eager to do my duty. Holy fuckballs was the trial boring. I’d do it again, but with none of the enthusiasm.

[popobawa4u]

@Daaksyde

So how do we progress to a system that is representative of groups of people based upon values regardless of their location?

That has been a project of mine over the past few years, although more based upon methods than values. One reason why is because most “wealth” now is virtual, so on an institutional level already divorced from geography. Another because modern communications have destroyed the illusion that you and your neighbor share the same values or goals about anything, which makes most borders look more like hostages than citizens. Online social networking sites get part way there in grouping by affinity or interest, but don’t facilitate users creating and administrating actual social structures.

So what I am working on is a kind of meta-country which offers support to anyone who prefers to secede from their current country and start new ones, and to network with other people’s countries. To replaced the “imagined community” of an abstract de-facto state with actual community of people who choose to work together. And to update the concept of nation-states from the Westphalian model of violent control of populace and territory to something more modern, civilized, and network/relationship-based.

[GulliverFoyle]

Neat idea, but you still gotta share the neighborhood with your neighbors.

[popobawa4u]

True, but even now most people seem to have no policies or negotiations with their neighbors. Instead they seem to hope that they can trust third-parties to handle this - despite often not having any trusted third-parties.

Around here, for instance, what neighbors share is just proximity. So it’s not really a community in any meaningful sense.

[GulliverFoyle]

@popobawa4u

Around here, for instance, what neighbors share is just proximity. So it’s not really a community in any meaningful sense.

I suspect this is, to varying degrees, true in all densely populated areas, and is an unintended consequence of increased reliance on corporations and centralized politics such as nationalism tends to promote.