I can’t resist a racing metaphor to describe the problem that’s now facing the US Democrats, but one that is a more-or-less generic problem for democracy. In any system of government, there is a problem of succession, which has a large contingent element. In monarchies, for example, the absence of an adult male heir can produce crises of all kinds (in England, this problem recurred in different forms for all the Tudors from Henry VIII onward). Dictators rarely nominate a capable successor until the last possible moment, so their sudden death often brings about the collapse of the regime. To avoid this, it’s common to see a quasi-hereditary succession which rarely works well, indeed, at all, for more than one generation.
In democracy, close election results can cause big problems, since there is always a range of uncertainty in which normally unimportant procedural decisions or rule violations become critical. Obvious recent examples include the Bush-Gore race in 2000, the Mexican election of 2006, the recent election in Kenya and now the Democratic nomination race. Such close races inevitably produce a lot of bitterness and can lead to disaster. At the moment it seemed as if the threatened breakdown of democracy in Kenya has been averted, but it’s by no means certain that the power-sharing agreement there will hold, and lots of people have already died. At a less drastic level, but one with big consequences for the world, it seem quite possible that the closeness of the race between Obama and Clinton will produce a vicious contest that sinks the eventual winner.
It’s tempting, and sometimes correct, to argue that the sharp divisions that emerge at times like these were there all along. But often this is no more valid than the kind of analysis which ascribes civil strife to “ancient ethnic hatreds” when these are, in reality, little more than rationalisations of contemporary power politics. Certainly, in the case of the Democratic nomination, it’s clear that the vast majority of Democrats would be happy with either candidate and likely that the majority would prefer an immediate end, regardless of the choice, to a continued contest.
Rather than reflecting deeper underlying problems, to a large extent, these succession crises really are problems of institutional design. Some kinds of institutions manage succession problems better than others. Confining attention to democratic systems (broadly defined), I’d argue that there are substantial benefits to simple and definite procedures. If US national elections (including primaries) were based on popular vote (whether first-past-the-post or instant runoff) the likelihood of a result so close as to permit serious dispute would be very small. By contrast, when the result is reached from 50 state ballots, each operating under local and variable rules, the only surprise is that crises are as rare as they are.
{ 39 comments }
yoyo 03.13.08 at 4:26 am
Not only the 50+ jurisdictions, but a big problem is the FL/MI problems, which came up because of a fight for control of the nominating process between states and the national party. I don’t know how much control other States have over their parties.
Scott Hughes 03.13.08 at 4:33 am
I’ve heard some people use this as an example of the problem with popular votes, preferring caucuses which bring a more definitive decision. Seems to me a nation-wide popular vote would be simplest and fairest.
SG 03.13.08 at 5:19 am
John, does that mean you think the preferential voting systems of Australia needs to go? We have had a variety of very close elections (1998 particularly sticks in my craw), but never have we had the level of debate or response seen in the US, Kenya, etc. Maybe the problem is not the simplicity of the system? Maybe Kenyans just aren’t apathetic enough…
Also, is this close primary really damaging the Democrats? I would have thought (as an outsider looking in, obviously) that the first and obvious conclusions one would draw from such a contest are that the democrats have two very good candidates, and given turn out is so high, their base are more than a little interested in the candidates and the election. If I were a Republican strategist watching that, I’m not sure that I’d be crowing, especially considering the level of division amongst republicans even though they have a clear front-runner.
Random African 03.13.08 at 5:25 am
Confining attention to democratic systems (broadly defined), I’d argue that there are substantial benefits to simple and definite procedures. If US national elections (including primaries) were based on popular vote (whether first-past-the-post or instant runoff) the likelihood of a result so close as to permit serious dispute would be very small.
Why ?
Kenya and Mexico, your two other examples of recent serious electoral dispute had close results in a simple TPTP popular vote system.
Random African 03.13.08 at 5:32 am
John, does that mean you think the preferential voting systems of Australia needs to go? We have had a variety of very close elections (1998 particularly sticks in my craw), but never have we had the level of debate or response seen in the US, Kenya, etc. Maybe the problem is not the simplicity of the system?
or may be stakes are higher in presidential systems ?
Lee A. Arnold 03.13.08 at 5:46 am
John, The question itself is a toss-up, and every four years for decades in the US, people talk about reforming the system. But USians tend to develop very strong statehood identities, (probably a good thing,) and it won’t be streamlined in our lifetimes. In some ways the vagaries of the U.S. system give the voters a chance to see the different sides and exertions of the candidates, (although a more uniform system might quickly point up their essential sameness, and spare us lots of blather.) In this election, my own sense of it is that most Democrats would secretly be happy to see Hillary thrown overboard, because although she would make a competent technocrat in the White House, McCain is probably the one Republican she loses to. About half of the Democratic men I’ve talked to (here in Santa Monica Ca.) won’t vote for her in almost any case — and it’s a curiously unarticulated and personal response. I’m guessing it’s largely sexist, or they might have to start listening to their wives. On the other side, I just spoke to a well-heeled older Republican woman who finds Obama surprising and attractive, and thinks he might be good for the country. You could even argue that prolonging the Democratic selection means McCain can’t initiate a winning strategy against a candidate certain, although that may not matter much. After all, most people have no long-term memory, I’m guessing too much sugar or the bad American diet, and their emotional states can be overturned or inverted regularly, about every three months or so. (Precisely how public relations on Iraq has been managed.) So what is happening now, even the Democrats’ internecine nastiness, is likely to be almost entirely forgotten by November.
John Quiggin 03.13.08 at 5:50 am
SG, the 1998 election suggested that the rules were unsatisfactory in the sense that Labor lost despite getting nearly 51 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. But there was no doubt that, given the rules, the Liberal-National Coalition won the election, with a clear majority of seats. The last really close federal election was 1961. The majority in the decisive seat was 130 votes or about 0.3 per cent, which is close but probably not close enough to make the outcome turn on “hanging chad” votes that really can’t be determined either way.
On the Democratic primary, I hope you’re right, but it certainly seems to me to that the benefits have been exhausted while the costs are still increasing.
Random African, there are a couple of points to consider. The US electorate is much larger than in either Mexico or Kenya, so even a narrow margin in percentage terms translates into hundreds of thousands of votes.
Second, in a long-standing democracy like the US, the extent to which violations of procedure can affect (or be plausibly alleged to affect) the results is smaller than in a country with only a short history of competitive elections.
SG 03.13.08 at 5:51 am
well it’s true, random african, that over in “democratic” Australia (and NZ and the UK) we don’t vote for our head of state, so we are only scrabbling over the prime ministership, I suppose.
But isn’t the problem in Kenya and the US not so much the system itself, but accusations that the victor rorted it? Obviously no system is going to work if the president stacks the votes, or stacks the court and then challenges the vote in that court…
Random African 03.13.08 at 6:21 am
I thought about the size argument. I’m still not sure that totally discounts the possibility of a dead-end. After all, the popular vote percentage margin in Gore-Bush was smaller than in Mexico.
That said, it would be harder to rig elections by slightly altering results here and there since the total number of voters is so large. But then again, the 50 states-winner-takes-all system makes the type of rigging used in Kenya or Mexico useless since falsifying the turn-out in favorable constituencies doesn’t change much.
I thought you guys were scrabbling for parliamentary majorities !
SG 03.13.08 at 6:41 am
well, usually we end up with a parliamentary majority, but a lot of time over the last 30 years has been spent scrabbling for majorities in the Senate. And a lot of effort has been spent in Australia scrabbling to be able to vote our own head of state… I certainly don’t think Australia’s problems would boil down to our proportional representation system, so I’m eager to see how John thinks the two situations compare.
Random African 03.13.08 at 8:00 am
Well, I said for instead of over. Which means I still believe defeat in parliamentary systems is easier to cope with.
Another interesting thing Kenya, Mexico and Gore-Bush had in common was how the results were announced. Which is slowly, as they were coming. And the looser was leading for a long while.
That may be an even harder pill to swallow.. Thinking for hours or for days that the election was won before a narrow loss is announced.
Bruce Baugh 03.13.08 at 8:45 am
I think it’s probably worth distinguishing between the potential problems of, say, the US-style system with competent and honest officials overseeing elections and an actually independent, competitive media environment on the one hand, and on the other hand, media coverage given strong central shaping toward predetermined narratives and massive organized sabotage of the election process, both in unjust application of eligibility standards beforehand and in vote manipulation at election time. Reporting in the US colludes toward horse-race narratives, and the vote stealers are determined fellows who’d find other ways to go about it if these particular ones weren’t at hand.
But the lesson “governments are better when not run by amoral power-obsessed fools and villains” is sort of structure-independent.
novakant 03.13.08 at 10:13 am
it’s clear that the vast majority of Democrats would be happy with either candidate and likely that the majority would prefer an immediate end, regardless of the choice, to a continued contest.
Rather than reflecting deeper underlying problems (…)
I think you are severely underestimating the divisions among Democratic voters here: this battle is about the decision to go to war with Iraq, the Clinton legacy, the DLC establishment, the “serious foreign policy establishment”, health-care and a bit of sexism and racism thrown in for good measure.
All these are deep, underlying problems.
sanbikinoraion 03.13.08 at 10:57 am
Obama would not be favourite to win now if the Democratic candidate was decided on by a single popular vote. As it is, Obama has managed to beat Clinton’s name recognition by proving that he can run a really well organized grassroots campaign.
Tom T. 03.13.08 at 11:18 am
I think John Q’s got the analysis of the Electoral College backward. More often than not, the Electoral College magnifies the margin between candidates, such that most state-level dead heats won’t matter to the ultimate outcome. Florida 2000 was unique in that it occurred in a large enough state and a close enough election that the margin mattered.
Moreover, while it does seem true that the likelihood of a dead heat result is less likely in a nation of 300 million rather than a state of 20 million, it strikes me that in both cases the likelihood is vanishingly small. Any infinitesimal advantage in avoiding a close vote must also be balanced against the greater difficulty in holding a nationwide recount, rather than a state recount, when a close vote does occur.
Finally, I don’t see why uniformity of voting procedures among states would do anything to reduce the likelihood of very close elections.
Slocum 03.13.08 at 11:58 am
We do have to keep in mind that the form primaries take are not just under the control of individual states but state parties. Some states have primaries, others have caucuses, and there’s no national law requiring a political party to hold a primary or a caucus.
It’s also worth noting, too, that had the U.S. had a runoff system (either instant or two-round), it is quite likely that Bush I would have beaten Clinton in 1992 (recall that Ross Perot received 19% of the vote, while Clinton’s margin was less than 6%).
Alex R 03.13.08 at 1:04 pm
Slocum, exit polling in 1992 found that Perot voters were very evenly split on who they would have voted for had Perot not been on the ballot — 38% for Clinton, 37% for Bush, with the remainder saying they would have stayed home. A state-by-state analysis which did *not* use this data, but looked at previous election results. found that even if every state that were remotely in play shifted from Clinton to Bush, Clinton would still have won, though by a more narrow margin. EJ Dionne, quoted here, said that a state-by-state analysis that *did* use the exit poll data showed only Ohio as a possible switch, leaving Clinton with a huge win.
So given the data, it is in fact very *unlikely* that Perot’s presence in the election was responsible for Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory.
HH 03.13.08 at 1:07 pm
I believe that the concern for structural reform is misplaced. It is the competitive equilibrium of media propaganda that is causing the close races that endanger political legitimacy.
The commercialization of political propaganda has led to the perfection of methods for equalizing the persuasive impact of opposing candidates, leaving low-information voters evenly split in their preferences.
Nothing short of a ban on television campaigning will change this unhappy state of affairs.
Matt McIrvin 03.13.08 at 1:42 pm
Obama would not be favourite to win now if the Democratic candidate was decided on by a single popular vote. As it is, Obama has managed to beat Clinton’s name recognition by proving that he can run a really well organized grassroots campaign.
That may be true today, but it’s not clear. The national polls of Democrats on Clinton vs. Obama have them very, very close with the lead changing places frequently from poll to poll; I’ve seen many with Obama ahead.
As for national popular votes in general, while the chance of a margin close enough to leave the result uncertain might be lower, the chaos if such a thing actually happens would be much, much greater, since irregularities would matter even in local races that were highly lopsided–every vote in the country would be subject to question, not just in one or two crucial swing states. In 2000, most people agreed that Gore won the popular vote, but there were some people claiming that he didn’t (similarly for Bush in 2004), and if the popular vote had actually counted, there would certainly have been some questions over the matter.
I used to think this was a deal-breaking objection to a national popular vote, but I’ve come around to thinking that you don’t keep people’s votes from counting just in case they might be somehow corrupted. It does mean that such a system would be best accompanied by standardization and improvement of the voting system.
Glen Tomkins 03.13.08 at 1:59 pm
Feet of Clay
Only monarchies have succession crises. If the US truly had the “government of laws, not of men” that it says, right on the label, that it has in its republic, it would be a matter of no great consequence which individual happened to fill any particular office in our republic at any given time. We only have a succession problem because we have let the presidency become a quadrennially elected monarchy.
We don’t at all like to admit that we have abandoned the republic we gave ourselves in the Constitution. Because of this, we will never be able to reform the procedures for succession to the presidential monarchy, because we will never get the people in this no-longer-republic to admit that we are no longer a republic. Look, we wouldn’t have ceded public power to a monarch-president in the first place were it not the case that we found even the everyday issues that arise in the conduct of a republic to be too fraught to be decided in public by the representatives of the people. The people certainly aren’t going to take on the burden of reworking the very framework of government.
This is a very old story. Power concentrates because a people (or peoples) find it too burdensome to manage their own affairs. But the institution or office into which the power concentrates wasn’t designed to bear all of the weight of the state, and certainly no human can live up to the god-like demands of being the philosopher-king that the falsely inflated institution demands of the incumbent. More and more weight is put on a person and institution that grows increasingly incapable of bearing any weight as that person and institution is distorted away from its original function as a mere part of the greater whole of public governance, and takes on sovereignty itself. The Leviathan, after all, is a monster, and any human who becomes Leviathan becomes subhuman as he pretends to superhumanity. Thus Dubya. A subnormal can maintain the pretenses of god-emperorhood better than all the more self-aware competitors, so a subnormal is what succeeds to the throne of the god-emperor.
We have put all the weight of governance on an office that we have structurally distorted and weakened in the very act of that transference. The vast composite statue will fall because some insignificant disturbance, some tiny pebble thrown by a hand unseen, will strike it in its feet of clay.
You didn’t hear it here first.
James Kroeger 03.13.08 at 2:25 pm
I don’t know if it is a matter of institutional design as much as it is a matter of institutional intent.
Those who have some knowledge of political history ought to be able to see that the whole point and purpose of Democracy is to pacify minority factions. When Democratic institutions work as intended, the losers are confronted with compelling evidence that they do not have the support of the majority of the population that they would like to have. (On a visceral level, people tend to respect the principle that ‘the majority rules.’) Without compelling evidence, a [large] minority faction could easily persuade itself that they actually have the right to govern, that they actually represent the will of the majority of the population. When serious doubts about the fairness of an election exist and the losing faction represents close to 50% of the population the risk of civil war increases dramatically.
Civic leaders who possess some wisdom should be able to recognize that nothing can be more important than reassuring the losers of an election that they lost fairly. If the losers cannot be reassured after a close election that they lost fairly, large numbers of the population can be expected to lose their faith in the integrity of their national institutions and perhaps even their respect for the rule of law. If they perceive their rulers to be illegitimate, then why wouldn’t they also begin to see the laws enacted by those fraudulent rulers as equally illegitimate?
When the members of a political party believe that they lost an election fairly, they are far more likely to focus on their own inadequacies and on ways to improve the persuasiveness of their message. Respect for national institutions is maintained. Civic leaders who value domestic tranquility, the rule of law, and peaceful transitions of power need to understand that it is not just a good idea to ensure that all voting practices & procedures are absolutely transparent; it’s a matter of vital cultural importance.
All voting outcomes must be provable, not to the satisfaction of the winners, but to the satisfaction of the losers. Indeed, it ought to be important to the winning party that the losers are completely reassured that they lost fairly, for the winners will have a much better chance of governing successfully if they are not dealing with the passionate fury of people who believe they were cheated out of their fundamental rights.
Any time the outcome of an election is close, an extraordinary effort must be made by both sides to provide satisfactory evidence of the legitimacy of the results. If this means a do-over, then a do-over should be happily embraced. If the do-over is still accompanied by claims of cheating or irregularities, then another do-over should be arranged, this time with an even more thorough effort to ensure pure transparency and accountability and security in the handling/counting of ballots. However many times it takes to perfect the election process, that’s the number of times the election should be re-run. After a while, the administrators of the poll will make sure that all parties go the extra mile to eliminate all doubts.
When an election result is not all that close, many claims of irregularities can be reasonably ignored. But when an election is close, no effort should be spared to perfect the ‘institutional design’ that society follows in pursuit of its democratic ideals. That means: using paper ballots, and willing spending the extra money needed to guarantee the security of the ballots and the legitimacy of the count. In economically advanced democracies, the extra cost of ‘old-fashioned’ elections should be no concern whatsoever.
sdh 03.13.08 at 2:45 pm
Confining attention to democratic systems (broadly defined), I’d argue that there are substantial benefits to simple and definite procedures.
A counterfactual to your argument is the Venetian Republic–one of the longest lasting and most successful republics in world history. Venice had a notoriously opaque and byzantine protocol for electing their Doges.
ajay 03.13.08 at 2:47 pm
Obama would not be favourite to win now if the Democratic candidate was decided on by a single popular vote. As it is, Obama has managed to beat Clinton’s name recognition by proving that he can run a really well organized grassroots campaign.
Not sure I follow this. Surely Obama could have run his grassroots campaign just as well in the runup to the National Primary as he did in the runups (runsup?) to all the individual primaries? What you’re saying would seem obviously true only if there was a national primary with no campaigning time before hand; a) Clinton’s name recognition would certainly be a killer advantage here but b) that’s not going to happen.
Or are you saying that his early smallscale victories were essential to his later success (by maintaining momentum)?
James Wimberley 03.13.08 at 3:06 pm
The unique early Ottoman solution to the succession problem deserves a mention. The Sultan was to a first approximation an absolute despot, so it was critical to secure a capable incumbent. Sultans were forbidden from marrying, so as a rule each one had many sons by different concubines. At his death the adult sons fought it out, and the winner killed the unsuccessful rivals. This brutal scheme more or less guaranteed that sultans would be able and unscrupulous. Eventually (why?) the Ottomans got soft and merely locked up the losers. This was disastrous, as it mean that the outcome of a succession struggle between palace factions could well be a harmless and ignorant middle-aged lifer.
idlemind 03.13.08 at 3:55 pm
James Wimberley notes that for despotism to be successful, it requires a despot. Amusing, that.
ajay 03.13.08 at 4:23 pm
24: primogeniture wasn’t universal; in mediaeval Scotland, if I remember Barrow’s “The Bruce” correctly, anyone with a king as a great-grandfather was eligible, and the decision was taken by the Community of the Realm of Scotland (ie the nobles and other dignitaries).
Eric Finley 03.13.08 at 4:23 pm
I’m not at all sure the conclusion here follows from the premise. I would concur that there is indeed a question of poor institutional design here, but that the fact that some overcomplex systems are poor does not imply simpler is better.
Picture the U.S. with a combined primary/general presidential election where after a small amount of winnowing, the remaining dozen or so candidates from both parties combined were put on a solid Condorcet preferential ballot. This is ostensibly more complex, of course, but would have the advantage that the Condorcet principle directly and specifically addresses the question of close elections between any two candidates, and the wider field should reduce the odds of a near-tie.
c.l. ball 03.13.08 at 4:57 pm
Re 17, you’re missing the point. Clinton did not gain 50% of the popular vote in 1992 (or in 1996). If the US had a 2-round national system, Clinton and Bush would then have had a run-off against each other. Likewise in 2000, Gore had less than 50%, so Bush and Gore would have faced a run-off.
But the 2006 Mexican election is still a strong counter to Quiggin’s conjecture. Mexico had a much praised electoral commission. In 2000, Mexico was helped up as an example to how the US should manage its counting. In Mexico, part of the controversy was that the court only ordered recounts in certain areas. Indeed, one of the key problems with most electoral systems, including the US and Mexico, is that it is difficult to obtain a national recount. In the end, the actual number of ballots recounted was only 9% of the polling places in Mexico because specific legal complaints had to be filed for each polling place.
Quiggin is correct that if it were popular vote only and with national controls on the polls that the significance of narrow state margins would decline (remember the question about how many votes Kerry lost the election by: by the popular vote, 3 million, but he lost OH by only 118,000 and a victory there would have given him the presidency). But narrow votes nationally (less than 1% will still raise questions about how votes were tabulated).
KCinDC 03.13.08 at 6:45 pm
Momentum may have been important, but I think more important was Obama’s initial victory in Iowa, which reassured black voters that whites were willing to vote for him. Before that the black vote was more evenly split between Obama and Clinton.
Angry African on the Loose 03.13.08 at 7:13 pm
Democracy – good old democracy. It’s been the hot new ideological toy everybody wants for the last few decades. Just make sure you check the back of the pack for the small print. Will your operating system handle it? And what version do you have or want? Democracy – but not as you know it on my blog at http://angryafrican.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/its-democracy-but-not-as-you-know-it/
abb1 03.13.08 at 7:32 pm
Parliamentary system with proportional representation and weak executive is the solution. Simple majority “winner takes all” kind of representation is simply undemocratic.
Adam 03.13.08 at 9:46 pm
A pure popular vote as a means of avoiding questions of legitimacy? Don’t be silly.
The vote differences between candidates percentage-wise are tiny. Very rarely do candidates get more than 60% of the vote. Politicians will always hug the center — that is the central concept of a democracy. Winning 52% of the popular vote (as Obama probably will in the primaries) means nearly half the country didn’t vote for you.
Furthermore, as we are seeing in the democratic primary, political divisions often reflect demographic divisions. However, demographics is destiny: friendship circles, where one lives, and the media one pays attention to all correlate. The like minded cluster.
The typical voter may be surrounded entirely by supporters of one candidate. The impression generated by such unanimity can be so strong that even when the voter’s candidate loses, that loss is perceived as illegitimate. People simply refuse to see themselves in the minority.
Geoff Robinson 03.13.08 at 10:45 pm
Isn’t the system of primaries akin to a form of deliberative democracy? Hillary would have easily won an early single national primary on name-recognition, having a strung out process meant a dialogue between candidates and voters that led to more considered judgments.
kyle 03.14.08 at 3:37 am
I think the answer to your question is, as abb1 says, “Parliamentary with proportional representation”.
If the US Elections were to be decided on the basis of the National popular vote alone, there would be no need for the Electoral College, nor the States which represent it. Once this happens, the question then becomes, “If the President shall be decided by National popular vote, then why not Congress too?”. This is where abb1’s idea immediately inserts itself.
mpowell 03.14.08 at 5:42 pm
I think I disagree that the US’s 50 state winner-take-all presidential election problem leads to greater succession issues. This could be the case in a weak state where the losing party, who might also happen to have a majority of the popular vote, refuse to accept the result. But obviously, that was not the case. And I think voter fraud is less of a problem when there are only a few places it can actually matter in any given election. As it is, we don’t need to worry about corruption in the deep south or Chicago, for example. Of course, a popular vote total might be more democratically legitimate, but that is a separate question.
The Democratic primary, on the other hand, is not a very good process for determing a clean succession. But it has a different goal. The primary as currently constructed gives the challengers a much better opportunity to make their case and develop support. Clinton would have been a lock this year if not for the early January states. Obama was able to establish that he was a viable candidate, which greatly helped him moving forward. Also, it provided him with funding momentum and more time to campaign in later states. In many states that Obama later won, polling in January had Clinton well ahead. Since we don’t want the primary to be a name-recognition process, it is structured in the fashion that it is. Occassionally this will give rise to the current scenario. But actually, the chance that the political party will be split 50-50 on two candidates is pretty low compared to the chance that the nation as a whole will be roughly 50-50 between the two major parties. So normally this structure would not be much of a problem.
piglet 03.14.08 at 8:48 pm
“Second, in a long-standing democracy like the US, the extent to which violations of procedure can affect (or be plausibly alleged to affect) the results is smaller than in a country with only a short history of competitive elections.”
That is a surprising statement to make given that the procedural problems that haunt US elections are pretty much unique in the developed world. That the US is the longest-standing democracy in existence today doesn’t prevent it from having massive reliability problems. I would even argue that these problems are due to the fact that the US constitutional system is so old, anachronistic in parts, and has never been overhauled. As has been pointed out by others, the electoral college system does not tend to produce close results. Rather, it usually lets the victory appear much clearer than it really is and it supports a media narrative in which the President “has won” this and that state, as if millions of dissenting voters didn’t exist.
One of the main problems of this system is the distortion that it produces by making the votes of some people more valuable than others. It should normally be an embarassment in a democracy to *not* count each vote the same. Yet Americans in general seem to be totally oblivious to this concern.
Dave Bell 03.15.08 at 10:25 am
I see two huge problems with elections in the USA.
First, they get run by politicians within the party system. Florida:2000 is an obvious example. Most of these people may be honest, but it only take a few to spoil things.
Second, many of the most debatable features of the Electoral College system are outside the Constitution. The Electoral College could still work, if people were electing an individual representative, rather than the whole state’s EC representation going for whichever candidate won the majority of the votes.
As it is, the value of winning a large state is so high that almost any skulduggery can be justified, and the election is being run by a person who can further their political career by putting their thumb on the scales.
John Quiggin 03.15.08 at 12:21 pm
Piglet, the US system is, as you say, unique in the developed world, and my post was very critical of the US system.
OTOH, the counterexamples being proposed, Kenya and Mexico, are not generally considered part of the developed world, and neither has a long tradition of genuinely competitive elections.
David Harmon 03.15.08 at 12:51 pm
piglet @#36:
Iceland might differ about the priority of the American upstarts… their Althing is not only the oldest democratic government, but the oldest continuously-operating human organization, beating out the Catholic Church by some centuries.
(It does help that they’re an island with a fairly homogeneous population!)
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