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Electoral Reform?
The American Interest has an article out on “depolarizing” America through electoral reform:
There is a simple and feasible electoral reform that stands a good chance of emboldening moderates and facilitating their electoral success: Ranked Choice Voting (otherwise known as the Instant Run-off or the Alternative Vote). Under Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), voters rank all the candidates, or some number of them, in order of preference. If no candidate obtains a majority of first-place votes, the candidate with the lowest number of first-place votes is eliminated, and his or her second-place votes are redistributed to the other candidates. The process of elimination and redistribution of lower-preference votes then continues until a candidate gains a majority or wins a final two-candidate face-off.
I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, America is likely to face a major ethnic crisis over the next fifteen years or so The last time that coincided with a highly-polarized political environment, it led to a civil war, which makes tilting the electoral landscape in favor of moderates an attractive idea. But it is also true that America’s problems (including, arguably, polarization) are mostly the fault of moderates.
I’m not sure what to make of this. I don’t think the current electoral system is biased against the sort of moderate I admire: willing to compromise (but only from a position of strength), respects and empathizes with Republican voters, and (especially) doesn’t care how other people or the media label him. (Most of my moderate heroes were pilloried as far-right extremists in the press.)
I could be wrong; today’s moderates are far more partisan than in the past, and some might consider that a bad thing. I don’t know. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Published in General
Lets consider the assumptions of depolarizing america:
1.) Polarization is bad.
2.) Representing nobody is superior to representing anybody lest there exist an impasse.
3.) There is always a resolution to an impasse that is acceptable or tolerable to all parties.
Please explain how this favors moderates. So I get to choose between Hillary and Bernie and ranked based on which panders the most? Do people have to select two candidates to have a valid vote? Can I select the same candidate twice?
What this does is employ more bad consultants who will charge more to game the system.
Can we restrict dead & illegal voters to only voting for second choices?
Lets further unpack this:
People are unable to find an agreement on decisions which fundamentally boil down to binary choices. Should we do X, should we stop doing Y.
One can compromise on quantities. One can say we should spend 1 million on widgets, and another can say that no 2 million is the right amount to spend on widgets. They may be able to meet and agree that OK, we think we can spend 1.65 on widgets and that is acceptable to all parties.
One can say that we should spend 1 million on widgets, and another says that there is no purpose for widgets and we should not buy any. There is no acceptable compromise between these positions.
The idea that compromise is a universally acceptable operating principle is deeply flawed. Compromise is throwing only half the jews in the ovens and calling one’s self moral.
Hahaha you must be from Chicago like me. (and Obama)
Third nor does this thinking take into account time as it relates to negotiation between diverse and diverging worldviews.
Over time the area of acceptable compromise shinks. Meaning that the starting point of the new agreement is the result of the old agreement.
Over time everything compromise-able is compromised. There will then be no further room for agreement.
There is also an assumption that majoritarianism is in and of itself a cleansing salve to all things.
There is no getting around the problems inherent to the common administration of people with diverse value systems and social norms.
No system of voting is going to produce outcomes that are broadly acceptable to a large enough portion of the population, absent an underlying broad consensus on values and social norms with enough social trust for the institutions to remain credible.
Guru makes some really good points. If the underlying differences between groups in the electorate are wide enough, no electoral system can create perfect harmony.
However, I think there might still be some room for improvement. For one thing, I don’t think the actual domestic policy preferences of the majority of Americans are that far apart – I think a great deal of the “polarization crisis” is an illusion exaggerated by media outlets. But certain differences are nonetheless real.
What strikes me as problematic is the American combination of “first-pass-the-post” voting (which only allows 1 representative per district) combined with gerrymandering. This seems to lead to a disproportionate number of districts with large electoral minorities which have no chance of ever having their voices heard. That leads to disenchantment.
I don’t know if RCV is the right solution, or indeed if there is any good solution, but we should at least admit to the problem.
Yes, I agree we should have districts designed to be as homogeneous in social norms and voting preferences as possible. Districts designed to disenfranchise are bad.
More homogeneity within a district = greatest number of people represented, and least number disenfranchised.
I’m from New York. Our dead vote in the morning and them we rent them out to other states.
I do believe Guru has grasped the essential point. Societies must have some common beliefs that most can agree with or they will dissolve. Compromise is fine when there is a solution that both can live with.
The US tried to compromise slavery for decades and the patchwork finally fell apart. It took hundred of thousands dead to resolve it.
We may be approaching a point where the makers and the takers face off , or the elites and the taxpayers, or any one a several schisms where the sides cannot and will not compromise.
The Democrats know this, that is why they play to win in the short and long game, across all institutions. The Republicans either like being the losing but comfortable elites or still believe in compromise and settle to keep losing in bite sized chunks. This year, the voters are taking the fight into their own hands since the GOP does not want to really change anything.
I’m sure that there was less polarization when the Republican Party was represented by Nelson Rockefeller hobnobbing with Chuck Percy, while on the way to dinner with George Romney, Prescott Bush, and Jacob Javits. Throw in a Lodge and a Saltonstall, and I’ll take some of that polarization.
Australia has a preferential voting system which seems to work well. We also have compulsory voting.
These two things work together to make the outcomes more moderate.
Because people can direct their preferences however they wish (down the list to the more ‘realistic’ candidates’), the primary vote becomes a real measure of support for a policy position. Imho this is a good thing, but it can also embarrass political movements who claim a lot of support but turn out to only be strategically noisy.
I find it helps to think about domestic politics a bit like foreign policy. A given compromise is either in our interest or it is not; if it is not, it should not happen.
But what about the public interest, you might ask? That’s a red herring; if a given policy is truly in the public interest, it will be in both party’s interest to do it. That’s not compromise, that’s consensus.
Different parts of the public may have different (opposing) interests.
Which they should fight for in an honest, open way. I’m not a big fan of trying to suppress social conflict, I think it just leads to even greater conflict.
The solution to polarization is right in our founding documents – Federalism. If less issues were decided at the Federal level, and more at the State level we could have polarization without as much conflict. There will still be rural-urban conflict, but those issues can be handled better by the states.
More Federalism is the only solution going forward.
I have said repeatedly that outside of the context of a traditionally lead household, “WE” has no good faith usage, and is in fact the most evil word in the entire dictionary.
You think having a group identity is immoral? Or am I misunderstanding you?
There is no group with which anyone speaking for it is truly speaking for it. Its always part of the whole.
Obama doesn’t speak for america, he speaks for the part that elected him and then only the sub-portion that agrees with that particular usage.
One aspect of ranked choice voting that I really like is that it ends the third-party wasted-vote problem. If Trump or Sanders want to run outside of the Republican-Democrat duopoly, fine. We’ll see how solid their support is, and it doesn’t risk throwing the election to a less preferred candidate.
Also, it gives me a chance to vote for who I REALLY want… and since that person is unlikely to win, I still have a say in the election with my second and third choice.
I am always wary of new voting systems that supposedly “fix” the current system. More often than not such systems either strongly favor the party in power, or make it possible for one party to easily take control. I only need look at the City of Portland, Oregon, or California for examples of that.
This looks stupid from the simple standpoint that is un-doable. How are they going to count the votes? Decrepit old crones in Florida couldn’t figure out a punch ballot. How do you explain the switch from “one man, one vote” to “one man, many votes of different degrees”? How do you assign the point value on the ballot that has only one name punched out like it’s been for a lifetime?
You will be instantly decried as a racist for disenfranchising minorities. Democrats would only change the system if they could rig it to their advantage.
Compulsory voting is tyrannical.
I do support RCV, though. I disagree with the OP that it will lead to more moderate candidates, though. If anything it will enable more extreme Tea Party/Socialist types to vote their conscience without worrying about splitting the conservative/progressive vote.
Ranked choice voting is horrible. We have it hear in Berkeley and we had it San Francisco. As an example, Jean Quan, the failed Oakland mayor was the result of Ranked choice voting.
Just to remind everyone that this voting system is the choice of progressives here. This alone should disabuse everyone of its efficacy.
The reason why I choose a single person to vote for (something very difficult at times here) is usually because I can’t stand anyone else on the ballot. There is just no second choice.
I am opposed to this in general, and especially at the presidential level. In my view, the people don’t elect the President, the states do. States are, as I understand it, welcome to devise various ways of deciding for whom the State’s vote is going to be cast. I would prefer that we eliminate the electoral college in that I think each state should get just one vote, and we should eliminate the popular nature of it. That’s my two cents.
Most people have group identities (arguably everyone does). Yes, these identities are purely the product of human imagination, but that’s true of most of human social behavior.
I agree people can take it too far. I think I get where you’re coming from. I’ve noticed that people in Europe spend way too much time defining (one might say boxing in) their ethnic identities and contrasting those identities with each other.
Still, I don’t think it’s inherently harmful; I suspect the reason Europeans take it so far is because of the self-destructive pseudo state they’ve built for themselves.
So are death and taxes. Compulsory voting requires citizens to take some responsibility for decisions – or at least comes very close to that.
It’s still possible – and I know people who do this – to turn in unfilled ballots, or ballots with a message written on it ‘nobody deserves my vote’ – but I think it’s irresponsible.
It does, but it also quantifies (because compulsory voting and no fear of ‘wasting’ a vote) their actual electoral strength. Fringe organisations cannot claim more support than they actually have. It quiets them down considerably.
Otoh parties outside the ‘consensus’ which do get significant support (eg the Greens, or One Nation) are able to speak convincingly for their constituencies.
Would that be a good thing for the Tea Party in the US or PEGIDA in Germany? I think it would be good for the countries’ politics regardless of whether these parties got support or not.
This is an extremely confusing explanation of the process. Actually inaccurate if read literally. Wikipedia has a clearer explanation that makes a lot more sense:
“Ballots assigned to the eliminated candidate are recounted and added to the totals of the remaining candidates based on who is ranked next on each ballot.”
The distinction is subtle but important.
In other words (and I hope this clarifies rather than further confuses the matter), it’s not the losing candidate’s “second-place votes” that are redistributed. It’s the second-place (and third-place, etc.) picks for the other candidates on this losing candidate’s ballots that are redistributed.
Whew! It took me way longer to work this out than it should have. That initial inaccurate explanation tied my brain in a knot.
If I choose to vote for a particular candidate, it also means that I am voting against the others. I don’t want my vote arbitrarily assigned to someone I didn’t want to vote for.
This is a covert attempt to promote slate politics. The left has long used slates to cement its hold on local governments.