I was thinking about the prospects for the US election and also about the probability of casting a decisive vote and it struck me that a situation like that of Florida in 2000 would have had a quite different outcome in Australia. In a situation where there were enough disputed votes to shift the outcome (and no satisfactory way of determining the status of those votes), the Court of Disputed Returns would probably order a fresh election. It seems to me that this is a better way of resolving problematic elections than attempts to determine a winner through court proceedings[1], though I’d be interested in arguments against this view.
In view of the long delay between election and inauguration, this solution would seem to be particularly appealing for the US. However, it seems clear from this page that the American constitutional tradition does not allow for such a possibility, preferring such devices as drawing the winner from a hat, if nothing better can be found. I wonder if there is a reason for this, or if it is just one of those things that doesn’t come up often enough for people to think about fixing it?
fn1. Obviously, once the situation arises, one side or the other will see an advantage in going through the courts, or allowing state officials to decide,and will oppose a fresh election. But ex ante, it seems as if agreeing to a fresh election in such cases would benefit both sides.
{ 53 comments }
zwichenzug 10.25.04 at 4:38 am
A new election sounds like a good solution to me.
Back in 2000 that’s the solution I argued for with my Republican friends. Everyone agreed that a new national election would have been prohibitively expensive, so I proposed a Florida re-vote.
I never really saw the point of it, but the argument that kept coming back in reply was that a re-vote would be unfair, because it would make the votes of Floridians count more than the votes of any other citizens.
I don’t know. I didn’t understand refusing to do a recount either.
Dirk 10.25.04 at 4:49 am
I haven’t thought this through, but my gut reaction is that the new election is likely to end with the same undetermined outcome as the first one. Given currently used voting technology, a given percentage of votes will be “disputed” in each election, and that percentage is likely to be pretty stable in each repeated sample (assuming a large sample size, as obviously given). Hence, if the electorate is evenly split, you are likely to end up with a disputed election every time you try.
Adam Kotsko 10.25.04 at 5:07 am
I say that if this election is disputed, we just throw out the constitution and appoint Bill Clinton as dictator for life. I say this not out of any particular affection for Clinton, but because he seemed to do a pretty good job and because right-wingers despise him.
Scott Wood 10.25.04 at 5:27 am
The US has a constitutional requirement to have a new president by Jan 20. What would happen when 2 or three new elections still don’t settle anything? –sw
Matt 10.25.04 at 5:32 am
Here are three reasons for not holding a revote.
One: it’s expensive. The counterargument here is that court battles are also expensive, both in terms of money and in terms of important peoples’ time.
Two: some people will not hear about the revote and be thus disenfranchised (or will pretend that this happened to them), and this could cause legal problems which could make the revote itself invalid. The counterargument is, uh, we’ll publicise it really well?
Three: the revote will not be a clarification of the old election. It will be a new election where every voter has a special bonus new piece of information: the race is really, really close and their vote seriously matters. (In the case of Bush-Gore, f’rexample, a whole lot of “protest” Nader voters would probably have changed their votes to their preferred major party — or rather against their non-preferred major party.) This is arguably unfair to candidates like Nader, because, uh… they won’t be able to whip up as effective a spoiler protest base this time? Sounds iffy to me.
I don’t know what the counterargument to three is. Maybe that if do-overs become too common, people won’t take voting as seriously?
Andrew Edwards 10.25.04 at 5:37 am
I suppose the best argument not to have a Florida re-vote would be the incredibly horrifying possibility of full-election-sized spending and spinmen and disingenuous speeches and fliers all distilled and concentrated into a single state over the couple of weeks between the first and second votes.
Can you imagine the scale of the political arsenal that would hit Florida?
Jack Heismann 10.25.04 at 5:38 am
I do like the idea, although there is the concern – also expressed by Dirk – that we’d end up with several more weeks of the same dribble for campaign fodder, and ultimately the same outcome. Instead, let me propose an alternative view, but one that might have some possibilities (acknowledging, of course that the constitution would have be sent to Paris for the weekend).
On every presidential ballot, in addition to the listings for each party’s candidates, is a line marked “None of the Aboveâ€. Let’s call it the “NO†line. If you don’t want any of the running candidates, just vote for “NOâ€. If “NO†gets more votes than any of the candidates, the election is void. More important, under this system, NONE of the running candidates are permitted to run again. Each party would have to nominate an entire new slate, and a new election held.
There are quite a number of advantages to this system. First, the massive wasteful campaign spending would be brought under control. No party could afford to front a potentially undesirable candidate when the possibility exists that they would just have to campaign all over again. The nomination processes would follow. The system would create an incentive for both parties to nominate electable (no, read that as desirable) candidates. Two unlikable contestants, such as we have in this electoral morass, would be unthinkable under this system. Parties would have to groom worthwhile, likeable (or at least tolerable) candidates many years before a Presidential Election were to take place.
Clearly there are some drawbacks and pitfalls. First, and most obvious, if “NO†won, who would govern the country? Clearly we must have a President, and must assume that the country can’t effectively be run without one (the Ford and Carter years excepted of course – where one wasn’t governing, and we could have easily done without the other). Political satire (or sarcasm) aside, that could be managed by keeping the incumbent in office until the next election. The obvious drawback – that incumbent supporters just continuously vote “NO†– fails at first test. Not all incumbent supporters can be counted on to vote that way – many would be driven to put their vote on their candidate’s name. But most important would be the ability of the opposing party to present a candidate who is desirable. Given the fact that most vote “NO†because they’re fed up with the pitiful offerings of both major parties, it wouldn’t be long before one party figures out that Amercia wants a candidate who will do some good. Will support their needs. Who will actually support the promises they make during the campaign.
That alone might create more honest campaigns, rather than the proposals of the candidates before us now – whom, if we took at face value would bankrupt the nation.
Finally, the one counter argument that survives. What if, say, the leading candidate received 35% of the vote, “NO†received 32% and the opposing party candidate received 30%. Would that mean the leading candidate, with only 35% of the vote, should lead the nation. I think not. There’s a mathematical algorithm here somewhere, but it’s late, I’m tired, and so I’ll leave it to others to either disagree completely, or figure this one out.
But the system we have now is badly broken, and we seem to have lost the warranty card.
Jack Heismann 10.25.04 at 5:40 am
I do like the idea, although there is the concern – also expressed by Dirk – that we’d end up with several more weeks of the same dribble for campaign fodder, and ultimately the same outcome. Instead, let me propose an alternative view, but one that might have some possibilities (acknowledging, of course that the constitution would have be sent to Paris for the weekend).
On every presidential ballot, in addition to the listings for each party’s candidates, is a line marked “None of the Aboveâ€. Let’s call it the “NO†line. If you don’t want any of the running candidates, just vote for “NOâ€. If “NO†gets more votes than any of the candidates, the election is void. More important, under this system, NONE of the running candidates are permitted to run again. Each party would have to nominate an entire new slate, and a new election held.
There are quite a number of advantages to this system. First, the massive wasteful campaign spending would be brought under control. No party could afford to front a potentially undesirable candidate when the possibility exists that they would just have to campaign all over again. The nomination processes would follow. The system would create an incentive for both parties to nominate electable (no, read that as desirable) candidates. Two unlikable contestants, such as we have in this electoral morass, would be unthinkable under this system. Parties would have to groom worthwhile, likeable (or at least tolerable) candidates many years before a Presidential Election were to take place.
Clearly there are some drawbacks and pitfalls. First, and most obvious, if “NO†won, who would govern the country? Clearly we must have a President, and must assume that the country can’t effectively be run without one (the Ford and Carter years excepted of course – where one wasn’t governing, and we could have easily done without the other). Political satire (or sarcasm) aside, that could be managed by keeping the incumbent in office until the next election. The obvious drawback – that incumbent supporters just continuously vote “NO†– fails at first test. Not all incumbent supporters can be counted on to vote that way – many would be driven to put their vote on their candidate’s name. But most important would be the ability of the opposing party to present a candidate who is desirable. Given the fact that most vote “NO†because they’re fed up with the pitiful offerings of both major parties, it wouldn’t be long before one party figures out that America wants a candidate who will do some good. Will support their needs. Who will actually support the promises they make during the campaign.
That alone might create more honest campaigns, rather than the proposals of the candidates before us now – whom, if we took at face value would bankrupt the nation.
Finally, the one counter argument that survives. What if, say, the leading candidate received 35% of the vote, “NO†received 32% and the opposing party candidate received 30%. Would that mean the leading candidate, with only 35% of the vote, should lead the nation. I think not. There’s a mathematical algorithm here somewhere, but it’s late, I’m tired, and so I’ll leave it to others to either disagree completely, or figure this one out.
But the system we have now is badly broken, and we seem to have lost the warranty card.
zwichenzug 10.25.04 at 6:01 am
I’m seeing three responses to the Florida re-vote proposal. The first is that it wouldn’t change anything, since the electorate is known to be deadlocked. The second is that it wouldn’t clarify the result, since this would be a new election with new stakes. And the last is that it would lead to an inappropriate apportionment of resources.
Take the last first. I think for this objection to get traction there has to be an underlying concern with the way we finance elections in the United States. But that concern, it seems to me, is operative in every election, not just in the Florida re-vote scenario.
Part of what’s interesting about the other two objections is that they seem to cancel one another out – they can’t both be accurate descriptions of what a re-vote would entail. For myself, I think the second gets things right. In the case of a re-vote lots of people wouldn’t vote the same way, and some people would vote who hadn’t cast a ballot in the original election.
As a matter of fact, I think this is the sort of situation that my Republican friends had in mind in 2000 when they said that a re-vote would be unfair.
But I just can’t see it. Yes, the result is likely to differ from what the clarified result of the original balloting would have been. But there isn’t a possibility of clarifying the original ballot, so why does that matter? It seems to me that the relevant choice is between a clear re-vote or what we got, which was an election determined by judicial fiat. A re-vote would be more fair.
Nic 10.25.04 at 7:17 am
Tony, over at Gill Advisors, has a good suggestion:
I suppose which of the two parties should get which league each election year could be determined by a coin toss in keeping with tradition. The person who got the most votes in the last election, who is not a member of either party with a real chance of winning, could toss the coin.
bad Jim 10.25.04 at 8:38 am
This isn’t a practical suggestion, since we Americans are stuck with our ancient electoral tradition, but it’s a pretty good idea.
Back in 2000 it was noted that, during the monthlong squabble over the Florida result, our neighbor to the north conducted an entire campaign and election. For Canada it was a simple pencil-and-paper exercise.
Pedro 10.25.04 at 9:41 am
It seems to me the flaw in this discussion is the assumption that the “ancient electoral tradition”, as Bad Jim puts it, must be preserved at all costs, with fixes here and there. Why not rethink the whole model operationally while keeping intact the admirable spirit of the American democracy?
Just as an example, this is how things are done in Brazil:
1. In majoritary elections (as opposed to proportional elections, like those for the Senate and House of Representatives), the winner is required to attain, well, the absolute majority of valid votes. When that doesn’t happen, a second election is held 30 days after the first one with only the two best-voted candidates. That doesn’t solve the “NO” problem mentioned above, since null votes have to be excluded before the winner’s percentage is calculated, but it does add to the legitimacy of the election, since the final choice is always based on more than 50% of the valid votes.
2. For that to work, vote counting must be fast. Honestly, it’s a mistery to me why the US hasn’t gone electronic yet. We have been doing this for over 20 years now and there never was a single fraud complaint. Last month we elected the mayors and city councillors in over 700 municipalities and ALL the results were known approximately 3 hours after the last ballot was cast. Apparently India has a similar system.
3. Brazil is a federation of states, just like the US, but voting is strictly a federal business with uniform rules all over the board. There is a whole branch of the Judiciary devoted entirely to the preparation and management of elections. All disputes go through regional electoral courts and all appeals are settled by the federal electoral court, which is the hightest instance one can resort to. Most matters are settled within 24 hours. Furthermore, the whole process is managed by career federal employees, which prevents meddling by elected officials at any level.
Reinder 10.25.04 at 10:00 am
In the event of a tie, can’t the candidates just armwrestle one another for the presidency?
derek 10.25.04 at 11:21 am
When I talked to American friends about the amazing nationwide screw-up that was the 2000 US Presidential election, the same theme kept coming up: “we can’t do what you guys in Britain, or Canada, or Australia, do, it would cost too much money.”
Americans consider getting democracy right first time to be not worth the money it would cost. I suggest this is a deeper problem than the lack of any mechanism to handle the failure of an election.
Bill Tozier 10.25.04 at 1:01 pm
Just out of curiosity (and I know this much only because I shared a desk with him for a few weeks in New Mexico once) is there any loophole in Arrow’s Theorem that might lead us to believe that a repeated sequence of elections of any kind would be any more universally satisfactory than a single one?
Just wondering.
Ginger Yellow 10.25.04 at 1:09 pm
There’s something very disturbing about the idea that ensuring the outcome of an election reflects the votes cast would be “too expensive”. Especially in a country whose presidential candidates have just spent over half a billion dollars on their campaigns. I’m not saying a re-vote is the solution, but the cost of one is completely irrelevant.
Tim Kelley 10.25.04 at 1:13 pm
Well I think the real pain of this issue is that the executive branch of the U.S. state has become far too powerful, much more so than when the Constitution was drafted. Presidential elections should not be this important – they should not be able to change the very character of the State willy nilly like this.
jet 10.25.04 at 1:27 pm
You either think Gore’s plan for the recounts was fair (har har) or you have all been pawned by the great Democrat propoganda machine.
Bush won by any fair measure in the recounts. He won by a larger margin by each independant recount after the election. He won even after Gore’s “fair” recounting method was used. So even if the US supreme court would have allowed the Florida supreme court ruling to stand and Gore got to recount only HIS counties, he still would have lost.
Gore lost the election by the Florida rules. And there would appear to be something un-ethical in changing those rules after the ballots are cast because, while they suited you 1 day ago, now they are the bane of human existance. Maybe we should apply Gore’s Law to all facets of life.
Too bad Nixon didn’t apply Gore’s Law against Kennedy, maybe we could have skipped Vietnam (aka psycho crazy Democrat cowboy Johnson wouldn’t have gotten a chance to prove the size of his manhood in SE Asia).
Nicholas Gruen 10.25.04 at 1:43 pm
Tossing a coin for President? Worse than a penalty shootout! In Oz we’d have a replay!
harry 10.25.04 at 1:44 pm
Why not have a run-off of the two leading candidates in the second election (Gore and Bush)? That might change the result (indeed, the numerous Nader-haters assure us that it would). The problem is that there are other States where no-one got a majority of undisputed votes. Why not run-off in those, as well?
Tom T. 10.25.04 at 1:44 pm
What is the perceived advantage of a fresh election? Why would there be reason to believe that a new election would be more decisive?
mona 10.25.04 at 2:02 pm
I don’t think the real solution is to come up with patches a system that’s flawed. You have to rebuild it from scratch. Ie. while of course every electoral system needs to set down rules for how to operate in case of a perfect tie, that scenario is usually avoided by electoral systems based on the principle that each vote counts directly. I never really understood how exactly the system for Presidential elections works in the US, I only understood it doesn’t work like it should by logic – ie. have each vote count directly for what it is. Direct popular vote – one person, one vote – why can’t you have that? I don’t see the need for an extra layer of representation to elect a president. Districts or colleges are of course necessary for local and congress representatives, but they are an absolutely unnecessary complication for presidential elections. Also, absolutely un-democratic.
I think that’s what needs to be changed. Why aren’t more people demanding that?
John Quiggin 10.25.04 at 2:05 pm
Bill T., repeated votes don’t overcome Arrow’s theorem – it’s too general for this.
There are good theoretical reasons for expecting that a second vote is unlikely end up effectively tied (you just need an element of randomness, which can come from all sorts of sources). Or you can look at actual experience in Australia if you want – I’m not aware on any case where the fresh election hasn’t produced a clear winner.
mona 10.25.04 at 2:06 pm
(sorry – of course it’s very unlikely to have a “perfect tie” – what I meant was obviously “disputed results”)
jet 10.25.04 at 2:09 pm
Mona, that will never happen. The fact that in presidential politics, some states can be taken for granted, is too huge of a benefit to get rid of. I certainly agree with you, as probably everyone else in the US, that direct elections would be a vast improvement. But there are too many advantages to the current system for politicians to give them up without a fight.
Of course this time around it will probably be Bush who wins the popular election and maybe Kerry will win the electorial college (Ohio will decide it, and will probably be a 2000 Florida). So maybe I’m biased because of that.
John Quiggin 10.25.04 at 2:11 pm
Harry, I’ve previously argued for instant runoff voting as a response to Nader (or, for any Republican readers, as a response to Perot). But as your comment implies, the two issues are logically separate.
Stentor 10.25.04 at 2:59 pm
I don’t think “NO” would ever get enough votes to trigger a do-over, at least in high-stakes elections like the President. I can already hear the partisans screaming “a vote for NO is a vote for Bush!” As underwhelmed as I am by Kerry, I wouldn’t risk voting “NO” in a swing state.
One thing that might make the “NO” vote operative is if we had compulsory voting. All those folks who don’t bother to vote may pick “NO” if forced to come to the polls. Alternately, we could count non-votes as “NO” votes, so that a candidate had to get a majority of eligible voters, rather than just a majority of people who actually voted.
Giles 10.25.04 at 3:18 pm
I think the calendar effects area also quite an important difference; the Us constitution sets these rolling 2 periods. If a new election were held, the question might then arise about whether the subsequent congressional elections should be shifted back. And if they were, shouldn’t the presidential election be shifted back. This isn’t an insurmountable problem but it raises the cost.
Secondly this re-election proposal doesn’t really deal with the de minims problem – can a re election be ordered if there’s a dispute at state level, or would a dispute in just one county be sufficient. What if a state disputed vote is only decisive if it’s added to another states disputed vote. Again this isn’t a killer point but it shows how the re election proposal alone doesn’t solve all the issues.
It’s also a bit disingenuous to compare the US with a parliamentary system. If Florida had happened in Australia, the likelihood is that it would not have been litigated – Gore would probably have realised that it would be better to have let Bush lead a lame duck government without a parliamentary majority until it collapsed in a year or so at which point he could run again. Because of the separation of legislative and executive and the fixed terms in the US system the calculation for Gore was different – the fixed term meant that Bush would be president for 4 years for sure and the separation of powers meant that he would be able to do something during that period.
Joshua W. Burton 10.25.04 at 3:56 pm
Matt writes:
_In the case of Bush-Gore, f’rexample, a whole lot of “protest†Nader voters would probably have changed their votes to their preferred major party — or rather against their non-preferred major party._
On the contrary: for exactly this reason, Nader’s total would almost certainly have gone _up_ in a revote. People who vote for a spoiler intend to _spoil_, and the higher the stakes, the sweeter the revenge.
“To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.” – George Santayana
justin hardman 10.25.04 at 4:22 pm
i don’t know if a second election would be a good idea. afterall, there would still be accucations by both sides of election trickey and fraud… and lets me realisic – sadly many of these accusations would probably be true. As other posters have pointed out a second election could easily produce a similar “close” result; and with problamatic election systems casting doubt on the first result would a second result really be any better, espically if it were different. besides there is also the issue of postal votes, which is an important issue in the US. It could be weeks before the election is decided.
pj 10.25.04 at 4:25 pm
The real problem with your idea is that the US Constitution is a very different document than most people think it is. There is no direct election of the President in the Constitution, and close elections were supposed to be decided by the House of Representatives, as in 1820. That’s the tie breaking mechanism. Also, the Constitution did not envision the state’s population voting — the initial tradition was for state legislatures to vote for the electors, who voted for the President. It is a very undemocratic system that has evolved over time into a legitimate democracy, but when you get litigation, you have to play be the written rules, and the written rules are terrible. That’s why the republicans in Florida were planning to overrule the vote of their people by having the state legislature vote for Bush and cancel out the people’s vote if Gore came out ahead in court. That’s why the House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, was lined up to accept the vote provided by the Fla. legislature, not by the people of Florida, and under the Constitution, the House is supposed to resolve such disputes about which vote counts.
This time around, we could have a 269-269 tie in the EC, which may be broken in 2 ways — a WV Republican elector has announced that he may not vote for Bush, which would swing the election to Kerry even though WV voted for Bush. Or, the decision goes to the House of Representatives, which would vote for Bush.
And the Constitution is incredibly difficult to change — 2/3 votes of both houses, 2/3 of the states. You can’t get a contentious issue such as election reform passed in that climate. Add to that Founders’ worship, and you’ve got a terrible system that will never be fixed. It works well when an election isn’t close, but in a close election, its a disaster.
Henry 10.25.04 at 4:47 pm
If there had been a fresh election in 2000, then many Nader voters, seeing that their votes almost elected Bush, would have switched to Gore. From the standpoint of electing the candidate the people want, that would have been good. This same result could be reached by having a runoff election between the top two candidates anytime that neither has a majority.
jif 10.25.04 at 6:32 pm
Just a thought- would a re-vote have been less fair than the original vote? A re-vote would have allowed those who accidently voted for Pat Buchanan to re-cast for their intended candidate. From the reports at the time it sounded like a chunk of people big enough to change the outcome. I also recall that those who realized after casting that their confusing ballot had been miscast were mostly in the pro-Gore camp. Which is to say that I’ve only really heard the ‘unfair’ claim made by those who were happy with the supreme court outcome. But the re-vote sounds like it would be more fair for the accidental Buchananites.
If this election is close (and it looks like it will be), it is sure to end up in the courts where all sorts of shananigans are going to be trotted out (crackheads registering Mary Poppins, right leaning groups in Nevada and Oregon throwing out registeration cards with Democrat checked, the ‘felon’ rolls in Florida, the ballot initiatives in Maine and Colorado to split the electoral college based on the popular vote). Can we start talking seriously about getting rid of the electoral college and actually having a democracy? One person, one vote?
james 10.25.04 at 7:07 pm
The laws regarding an election are required to be established so many days in advance of the election. A re-vote for the 2000 election would require rewriting election law after the fact. Doing so sets a dangerous precedence that allows sitting officials to alter the election process after the fact in an effort to change the outcome.
James J. Kroeger 10.25.04 at 8:09 pm
I’m really surprised that most of you are missing the most important reason why it is absolutely essential for both the losers and the winners of a close and disputed election to embrace the wisdom of a fresh election. When this occurs—especially when the “winner†is uncompromising in fighting all reasonable efforts to resolve electoral disputes, there is always at least the remote possibility that deep political divisions can lead ultimately to social & political chaos and even civil war.
The “perceived need†for fresh elections therefore arises from this fundamental political concern. The whole point and purpose of Democracy is its ability to establish before all the legitimacy of those who govern. If the way that we execute our Democracy through our institutions does not provide the voting public with confidence that those who govern do so legitimately, then The People will lose their faith in democratic rituals. They will then consider other means to seek justice.
When election results are close and disputed, those who are wise should immediately recognize that the issue of who won and who lost is secondary to the absolutely urgent need to preserve the public’s faith in the nation’s democratic institutions. This means that the losers of the first election must be given every reason to believe that they lost fairly. If this means that fresh elections would be necessary, then the winners of the first election should eagerly embrace the idea, given that it is preferable to the risk of social chaos.
The appropriate attitude for all parties involved should be to do the election over again and this time do it right. Extraordinary measures should be taken to reassure all parties involved. It should be a time of unusual institutional scrutiny and innovation. Observers representing all parties should be allowed to look over everyone else’s shoulders to verify that no cheating occurs. Whichever party ends up winning a Fresh Election would enjoy an enhanced perception of its legitimacy. The losers would gain the reassurance that they did, indeed, lose fairly and will be content to try again, harder, the next election cycle.
It is not necessary that a fresh election be free of all complaints in order for it to be perceived as legitimate. The only complaints that should be given consideration are those that could possibly have had an impact on the outcome. Would it cost more money? Sure, but what price is too high for a nation that constantly preaches the sanctity of democratic institutions and which also happens to be one of the wealthiest in all of history? Average Americans are constantly being reminded that they should be willing to sacrifice their lives in order to protect their democracy. How can any sober individual suggest that America cannot afford the financial cost of reassuring the American people that their democratic institutions are beyond reproach?
Thanks to Al Gore’s baffling eagerness to concede, a compliant media, and the fact that most Americans were utterly stunned by the results of the last election, George Bush was able to assume the office of the Presidency without a true political crisis developing. If the same kind of crisis were to unfold again over the next few weeks, I seriously doubt that Democrats would be able to contain their rage. I know that I, myself, will be out on the streets if that happens because the issue would no longer be whether or not John Kerry won. The only issue that would matter is defending America’s Democracy from those who would trample it into dust.
James J. Kroeger
http://www.taxwisdom.org
Brett Bellmore 10.25.04 at 11:47 pm
It makes about as much sense for the winner of a close election to embrace a new election, just because the outcome is “disputed”, as it does for the winner of a toss of the dice to agree after the fact to best two out of three. What’s the stopping rule, when the new loser of the second close election disputes it’s outcome?
In Florida 2000, after the state supreme court overuled it’s own decision on the deadline for finishing recounts, Republicans figured they knew the stopping rule: When Gore finally won. They might have been wrong about that, but it was a reasonable inference under the circumstances.
John Quiggin 10.26.04 at 1:32 am
Brett, read footnote 1.
James J. Kroeger 10.26.04 at 1:43 am
Brett:
It makes about as much sense for the winner of a close election to embrace a new election, just because the outcome is “disputedâ€, as it does for the winner of a toss of the dice to agree after the fact to best two out of three. What’s the stopping rule, when the new loser of the second close election disputes it’s outcome?
The stopping rule: cease challenges when the collective efforts of both parties to produce an “unassailable†election result are widely perceived to be successful. Such a result will never be achieved, of course, if efforts to manipulate the outcome are unending. It would only take a couple of iterations of corrupting malfeasance to convince the first round losers that they will never obtain justice, and that’s when the social order begins to break down. There must be a good faith effort by all parties to produce a fair election in order for fresh elections to provide the desired social benefit. If that occurs during the first attempt at a fresh election, then only a single iteration would be necessary.
If the level of rancor is substantial, then it will be very trying to go the extra lengths necessary to restore good will, but the difficulty of the effort should not be sufficient reason to abandon it. It is true that there will always be some voices that will cry foul, but only complaints that “most people†find compelling would be considered. In spite of your suggestion to the contrary, there are only a finite number of “violations†that can occur and it is fully within the intellectual capacity of those in authority to enforce safeguards that will provide the public with the assurances they need to continue to invest their faith in the system.
Tom Doyle 10.26.04 at 3:24 am
John:
You wrote:
In a situation where there were enough disputed votes to shift the outcome (and no satisfactory way of determining the status of those votes), the Court of Disputed Returns ( would probably order a fresh election. It seems to me that this is a better way of resolving problematic elections than attempts to determine a winner through court proceedings, though I’d be interested in arguments against this view.
In your paragraph above you refer to the fresh election as “a better way than …court proceedings…[for] resolving problematic elections.â€
But the material on the AEC site seems to indicate that a fresh election would only happen following, and as a result of court proceedings, rather than as an alternative to such proceedings.
First, someone-a candidate, the AEC, a voter – would have to file a petition to invalidate the election.
“Petitions must set out the facts relied on to invalidate the election and if alleging illegal practices, must show how these could have affected the election result. Only illegal practices within the meaning of that term under the Act can invalidate an election.â€
[…]
“A petition must:
“(i) set out the facts relied on to invalidate the election;
(ii) set out those facts with sufficient particularity to identify the specific matter or matters on which the petitioner relies as justifying the grant of relief (the Court may at any time after the filing of the petition relieve the petitioner from complying with this);
(iii) contain a prayer asking for the relief the petitioner claims to be entitled toâ€
Detailed pleadings are required, it would seem. Regarding the forum:
“The High Court of Australia sits as the Court of Disputed Returns.â€
It has a panoply of inquisitory and remedial powers.
“…to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents;
“…to grant to any party to a petition leave to inspect in the presence of a prescribed officer the rolls and other documents (except ballot papers) used at or in connection with any election and to take, in the presence of the prescribed officer, extracts from those rolls and documents;
“…to examine witnesses on oath;
“…to punish any contempt of its authority by fine or imprisonment;……to award costs;
“…to dismiss or uphold the petition in whole or part;
“…to declare that any person who was returned as elected was not duly elected;
“…to declare any candidate duly elected who was not returned as elected;
“…to declare any election absolutely void;
Are fresh elections held when the court declares elections absolutely void?
Under any other circumstances?
John Quiggin 10.26.04 at 4:26 am
Fresh elections are held if and only if the court declares the election void.
In practice, this happens when the number of votes subject to irresolvable disputes exceeds the winning margin. This was clearly the case in Florida.
The Court has the power to unseat the initiall declared winner and seat another candidate but, as far as I know, this has never happened.
Nicholas Weininger 10.26.04 at 4:26 am
I hesitate to bring up Steven Landsburg on this blog, but he makes an awfully good point on this subject over at Marg. Rev. Money quote: “if you really believe in democracy, and if the election is close, then it doesn’t much matter who wins.”
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/10/democracy_theor.html
I would add that, if you don’t believe in democracy but rather in the preservation of a stable rule of law, it matters even less.
The calamity of 2000 was not that the election was decided contrary to the Holy Will of the People; Bush and Gore had essentially indistinguishable degrees of approval from said Holy Will. The calamity was that we spent so much time wrangling over a question that might just as fairly, and much more cheaply, have been solved by a coinflip. A do-over election would worsen, not solve, this problem. The right answer is to simplify procedures so as to make challenges to close election results much harder, and to disabuse people of the delusion that there is somehow an enormous difference in legitimacy between the guy who won 50.1% of the vote and the guy who won 49.9%.
Dubious 10.26.04 at 5:57 am
First, on the revote question…
Suppose the second vote were also close, as seems fairly likely if the first one was. Would you then go on to do ‘best out of three’ or would you keep on voting till someone got a large enough majority?
Second, more generally, it seems like any voting system is an imperfect measurement device for measuring the preferences of everyone who shows up that day. All measurements of reality are imperfect. It is incredibly important that we try to make them as perfect (and transparent, that’s important too) as we can.
But suppose the true state of affairs in Florida was that those who showed up to vote (or all the registered voters, your choice) really were 50% +/- .05 for Gore, 50% +/- .05 for Bush. Every resampling, either by using different methods of counting the already existing votes or by holding a new vote, is going to have a roughly 50% chance of proclaiming the “wrong” guy as victor.
In a close election, there’s just no way around that, as far as I can see. Even moving to 2 out of 3, or 3 out of 5, would not significantly affect the chances of proclaiming the wrong guy the victor.
A disturbing prospect, that our vote-measuring is fairly likely to be wrong in a truly close election, but I see no way around it. The best practice seems to be to work at continual improvement of our measuring tools and hoping for better luck next time.
Tom Doyle 10.26.04 at 10:14 am
Administration and Cost of Elections Project
Vote Counting-Guiding Principles
To establish and maintain public confidence in the electoral process, vote counting systems and procedures should incorporate the fundamental principles of vote counting in a democratic election. These fundamental principles are:
transparency; security; professionalism; accuracy; secrecy; timeliness; accountability ; equity
Transparency
For the counting process to be open and transparent, representatives of political parties and candidates should be allowed to witness and/or participate in the process, and permitted to copy the statement of the results of the counting process. National and international electoral observers should also be allowed to witness the process and permitted to copy the statement of the results of the counting process. In some countries, ordinary citizens are encouraged to watch the counting process.
Manual counting is by its nature more transparent than computerized counting. If vote counting is computerized, new mechanisms for ensuring transparency, such as external audits, need to be introduced.
Security
The security of the ballots and the ballot boxes, from the time voting begins to the completion of the count, is fundamental to the integrity of the counting process. Polling and counting officials, representatives of political parties and candidates, and national and international electoral observers should carefully watch the ballots and the boxes at all times, and accompany them if they are moved from one location to another.
[…]
Professionalism
Polling and counting officials must act in a professional manner. They should be thoroughly trained in the counting process, as distinct from the voting process; thorough in their procedures; and committed to treating electoral materials with care and respect. Once a person accepts work as a counting official, he or she must be non-partisan throughout the entire process.
[…]
Accuracy
Accuracy is directly related to the integrity of the count, and of the elections themselves. Later discovery of errors and correction of mistakes can lead to accusations of manipulation or fraud. The accuracy of the count will depend on clear procedures and manuals, adequate staff training, and their commitment to the process. Clear audit trails of ballots and ballot boxes, as well as checking and rechecking mechanisms, will contribute to the accuracy of the results. Whilst mechanical voting or computerization may enhance accuracy, this must be balanced against the resulting apparent loss of transparency.
[…]
Accountability
Clear responsibility and accountability for each stage of the counting process are important. At the national level, the electoral management body should be accountable. At the electoral district level, it may be a senior election officer or commission official. At polling stations, specified poll workers may be responsible for polling and counting. Clearly defined complaints and appeals processes are also important.
Counting rules, including criteria for rejecting ballots, should be clear, known in advance, and understood by everyone involved in the election, including election officials, the general public, political parties, candidates, non-governmental organizations, and national and international electoral observers.
Clear audit trails are essential in ensuring accountability.
Equity
Equity generally means that the rules are the same for all participants in the electoral process, and that they accept these rules. The proper training and non-partisanship of counting officials and polling officials, and the presence of political party representatives, national and international electoral observers will help to ensure that counting is conducted in a fair and correct manner.
Brett Bellmore 10.26.04 at 10:43 am
James, “The stopping rule: cease challenges when the collective efforts of both parties to produce an “unassailable†election result are widely perceived to be successful. Such a result will never be achieved, of course, if efforts to manipulate the outcome are unending.”
That’s not a recipe for legitmate outcomes, that’s a recipe for giving the edge to whoever is more unreasoningly adamant about “assailing” any victory by their opponent. It boils down to, “Keep holding new elections until the side that lost the latest one gives up.”
jet 10.26.04 at 12:42 pm
This thread is ridiculous. Either several of you, or I, have taken a distinct vacation from reality. If you think Gore, suing to only recount in “his” counties and to not recount in Bush’s counties, is fair, then perhaps you are open to debate that Hitler’s election was fair. Bush was fighting to recount all counties or no counties. And if you think Bush was wrong for that, you are an extreme partisan willing to cheat to win. Because as was proved, whichever way a county leaned, that is the way the recount favored.
No wonder people on the right have a tough time taking the left seriously as this is the level of debate on an academic site. Crying because Gore didn’t get to recount in every single possibile way until he won is boring and wins no one to your side.
James J. Kroeger 10.26.04 at 1:03 pm
Nicholas: The calamity of 2000 was not that the election was decided contrary to the Holy Will of the People; Bush and Gore had essentially indistinguishable degrees of approval from said Holy Will. The calamity was that we spent so much time wrangling over a question that might just as fairly, and much more cheaply, have been solved by a coin flip.
I’m not sure if you realize what you are actually saying. Implicit within your argument is the assumption that an unfair election result matters little if correcting the unfairness would not significantly affect the total amount of satisfied voters. If I agree with your logic, then why should I not embrace the idea of cheating in order to win an election that is expected to be close, since it really doesn’t matter which party ends up winning it?
I would argue quite the opposite: that the Fairness Variable becomes a matter of transcendent importance when elections are close. I would also argue that making it harder to challenge the results of a close election result would actually encourage election participants to cheat more. If on the other hand it appeared certain that any discovered acts of cheating would result in a fresh election, why bother?
Nicholas Weininger 10.26.04 at 1:39 pm
James: you’re right, I don’t care whether there is cheating in close elections. There always will be anyway; politicians are all power-lusting bastards, after all. It is not possible to be “unfair” to them, since they are irredeemable scum, and it is not being “unfair” to the voters to give the post to the 49.9% guy instead of the 50.1% guy.
The sensible objective here is not to satisfy some nonsensical cosmic ideal of “fairness.” It’s to provide a system that doesn’t go too far wrong (say, no more than the 3-4% error margin of a poll) and is efficient and regular in its operation.
James J. Kroeger 10.26.04 at 1:54 pm
Dubious: Suppose the second vote were also close, as seems fairly likely if the first one was. Would you then go on to do ‘best out of three’ or would you keep on voting till someone got a large enough majority?
Again, the idea is not—as cynics like to suggest—to grant the losers of close elections fresh opportunities to try to garner enough support to win the last election; it is to correct [and preclude future] acts of electoral fraud. Expressed suspicions of illegal activity are generally not sufficient to warrant a fresh election. It would be wise to make an exception to this rule, however, if the electorate is deeply polarized and suspicions have inflamed the losing party into a very agitated state. In such a scenario, it would probably be wise to address those suspicions by scheduling a fresh election and taking extraordinary measures to reassure the disenchanted that the entire voting process is being carried out fairly.
Second, more generally, it seems like any voting system is an imperfect measurement device for measuring the preferences of everyone who shows up that day. All measurements of reality are imperfect.
Absolutely; a vote is an imperfect measurement of something that can change from day to day. But that reality is not a sufficient reason to ignore the importance of reaffirming the integrity of the democratic process in a country. Daily variations in sentiments would have to be considered secondary to the need to assure the electorate that elections in their country can be counted on to be fair. If 1) your party happens to have benefited from a daily change in sentiments among swing voters on the scheduled voting day, 2) some members of your party were subsequently caught cheating, and 3) your party then lost a fresh election by twenty-five votes due to another daily variations in sentiments, then it could be argued that you should have been more vigilant in enforcing discipline on your party members. By making sentiment variations secondary to fairness issues, political parties are given an incentive to not cheat in the first place.
James J. Kroeger 10.26.04 at 2:16 pm
Nicholas: “…I don’t care whether there is cheating in close elections.”
Thank you for clarifying your position.
Dubious 10.26.04 at 9:59 pm
Thanks for the thoughful reply, James.
I suppose what I worry about is something like this:
Nov 2 Florida goes Y by 49.5 vs. 49.
Media reports various overcrowded polling stations, disproportionately in X party districts.
Nov 3: Florida court orders new election
Dec 3: New election held (must allow time for logistics, including new mailing of absentee ballots)
Election is still close, because underlying voters are closely divided. But whichever party lost now points to irregularities which might have *it*.
Dec 4: Florida court decides…
Jan 3: New election held…
et cetera.
My guess is that if the electorate has no confidence in the process, no close election will satisfy them.
John Quiggin 10.26.04 at 11:05 pm
As I’ve pointed out quite a few times, the likelihood of two successive elections as close as that in Florida is minimal. I’ll put up a post with the math on this when I get time.
Dubious 10.27.04 at 4:24 pm
I’d be interested to see how you modelled it, JQ. My instinct would go something like this:
Normally, if we thought that each individual vote was an iid sampling from a distribution, we would just model this as a binomial problem with a really large n. In this case, with an electorate that is 50.1% Gore, 49.9% Bush, and with 3 million votes, we would have an expected gap between the two of 6000 votes, with a st.dev. of 866. In this case, it’s virtually impossible to have the wrong person win.
But the sorts of problems that people worry about aren’t iid sampling errors. Rather, they worry about errors from a biased instrument.
Suppose there’s a 50% chance that A) the instrument correctly counts 100% of Gore votes while only counting 99% of Bush guys
and 50% chance of
B) the other way around.
The lost 1% in each case is just thrown away.
Under A), a Bush win is virtually impossible.
Under B), we now have final votes which are distributed 49.6% Gore and 49.9% Bush. In this case, a Gore win is virtually impossible.
Obviously, all this depends on the particular underlying value of the voters and the distribution of the error rates. Given a less evenly divided electorate, you’d need larger, more uneven, or more probable error rates to generate a “50% chance of picking the wrong guy” result.
John Quiggin 10.28.04 at 10:05 am
“it’s virtually impossible to have the wrong person win.”
That’s why effective ties are rare, and why two ties in a row would be most unlikely
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