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TechnoratiMost of the country was captivated on Tuesday night, June 3, by the apparent nomination for the first time of someone other than a European-American man as a major party presidential candidate. Here in Los Angeles, however, we had a very consequential and quite captivating election of our own taking place on the very same night.
Unfortunately, due to the profound structural flaws in the way America's antiquated electoral system operates, it ended in a fizzle.
The race was for one of the five seats on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Since more than 10 million souls reside now in Los Angeles County, that means that each supervisor represents some two million constituents. That is more than twice as large as the size of the average congressional district in the United States. The county supervisors, largely under the radar screen of the public in this age of extreme civic disengagement, grapple every day with crucial if unsexy issues. Like law enforcement. Prisons. Fair elections. Homelessness. Trying to build and expand a workable transit system -- to ease, if only a bit, LA's perpetually gridlocked traffic (but having little success in an era when so many American taxpayer dollars end up in the black budgets of the Pentagon or the deep pockets of defense contractors). And, perhaps most crucially, the LA County board of supervisors tries bravely to improve a woefully insufficient local public health system, in an effort to provide a modicum of care to the millions who cannot successfully navigate America's hyper-profit health care obstacle course.
In addition, because of the overwhelming power of incumbency in American electoral politics today, Tuesday's race was the first real contest for a single county supervisorial seat offered to Angelenos since 1992.
No less than nine candidates had filed to run. Nevertheless, most local pundits agreed that it was a two-man race, between State Senator and former LA City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, and Los Angeles City Councilman and former LA police chief Bernard Parks.
Almost all of my politically savvy friends held strong opinions about the race. Many put in long volunteer hours of blood, tears, toil, and sweat on behalf of one or the other of the candidates. Several ponied up cash donations out of their finite financial reservoirs as well. My wife and I received two or three flyers in our mailbox, every single day, for the last 2 or 3 weeks before the election.
Mr. Ridley-Thomas even showed up knocking on my door on Election Day, two hours before the polls closed, working assiduously to get out every last vote ... and caught me watering the garden. I had met him several times before, but never before wearing rainbow-colored flip-flops, Bermuda shorts, and a ridiculous floppy hat. Two million constituents - what are the chances?
At least I was able to tell him that I had already voted.
Several hours later, on election night, in very dramatic fashion, Senator Ridley-Thomas pulled out a solid, hard-fought, five-point victory over Councilman Parks, 45% to 40%.
His reward?
He gets to run against Mr. Parks in November, all over again.
Because this was a non-partisan race, not a party primary -- and the winner failed to secure more than 50% of the vote. Therefore, under LA County rules, the top two candidates have to face off again, in a runoff election this fall.
And the only people less enthused than all my politically active friends about going through the same thing all over again are probably Mr. Ridley-Thomas and Mr. Parks themselves.
The democracy fatigue that so many of us are experiencing this week in Los Angeles could have been remedied with one easy modification to the electoral system -- instant runoff voting.
The seven lesser-known long shot candidates all undoubtedly possessed imaginative platforms and fine reasons for running. (I did that once myself -- put forth a dazzlingly imaginative platform and ran for a rare open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, along with no less than a dozen other long shots, against a sitting Los Angeles city councilman, a sitting state senator, and the former state senator who won the seat, Diane Watson.) The 15% of voters who chose one of the seven long shots in this race all presumably had fine reasons for doing so.
However, those 15% all, presumably, also had second choices -- probably, at least if their mailboxes were as full as mine, Senator Ridley-Thomas or Councilman Parks. I am no expert on electoral reform, but I think the way instant runoff works is pretty simple. After pulling the curtain behind oneself in the booth, a voter does not just pick one candidate, but actually gets to ranks them in order of preference.
On election night, then, the first choices are all tallied. Just like they were in this race.
But then, with instant runoff, the last place candidate is thrown out, and all the voters who chose that candidate have their second choice vote tallied instead. Then the places are tallied again, then the same thing happens with the new last place candidate again, then the process keeps going ... until some candidate secures a vote total that exceeds 50%.
The winner then can get busy planning to govern, rather than planning to run yet another campaign.
The county (or city or state or whatever) can save the cost of running the same election all over again -- and devote those finite resources instead to real constituent services and governance.
The voters get to express their real preferences without having to worry that they are "throwing away their vote." This could allow insurgent political newcomers perhaps not to win, but to gauge a true level of support for innovative ideas. All the voters who endorse those ideas could vote for those candidates first -- and then know that their second choice vote would ultimately count in choosing the ultimate winner.
And, perhaps not least important, all of us can then get busy with the rest of our lives.
Several American cities have already adopted instant runoff voting, including San Francisco, Oakland, Minneapolis, and Santa Fe. Ireland has elected its president using the method for 70 years. As it happens, even before the Ridley-Thomas vs. Parks debacle, the Los Angeles City Council began to consider placing a proposal to institute instant runoff voting on the November 2008 ballot. The idea is being pushed right now, both in Los Angeles and nationwide, by groups such as the New America Foundation, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the National Latino Congress, the LA Chamber of Commerce, fairvote.org, and lavotefire.org.
Oh, there is one more problem caused by the absence of the simple little democratic innovation of instant runoff voting.
This November, because of America's anachronistic and obsolete Electoral College, all my political savvy friends and I are going to have to choose between participating intensely in this crucially important race for Los Angeles County Supervisor, or participating instead in the crucially important race for president of the United States.
Because California is not a "swing state." California will almost certainly end up as a blue state in November 2008, as it has been since 1992. So working to get out the vote for a presidential candidate here -- either candidate -- will make as little sense as it would in the reliably red state of Texas.
That is why so many of my politically active friends, in the weeks before the November 2004 election, either called voters in places like Nevada or New Mexico or Ohio, or actually made road trips to such swing states, to walk swinger precincts and to knock on swinger doors.
But in November 2008, every call I make to a swing state voter is one less call I can make to a Los Angeles County voter. The anti-gay marriage initiative that just qualified for the California ballot, too, is one on which most of my political compadres will want to work -- and again, we will be forced to choose between working on one or the other. For those of us who do not live in swing states, the only way we can participate in the presidential election in a meaningful way is to reduce our participation in the many local elections that most directly affect the communities where we live.
A problem that could be remedied by the simple little democratic innovation of selecting our presidents by nationwide popular vote. Which would allow me instead, in November 2008, to call Los Angeles County voters and to knock on Los Angeles County doors, exclusively. And then to work to persuade those voters regarding whom I think they should choose as the next Los Angeles County supervisor, and perhaps regarding how I think they should vote on the anti-gay marriage initiative, and also regarding whom I think they should choose as the next president of the United States.
You know -- the United States. The oldest, and greatest, and most representative, and most sophisticated democracy in the world.
At least that is what I was taught in school.
Tad Daley, www.daleyplanet.org, is Writing Fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, www.ippnw.org, the Nobel Peace Laureate antinuclear organization.
31 Comments so far
Show All"Ought small states to have more influence in government relative to population?"
I think that was the idea, regarding both the electoral college and senate setup. Whether it's right or not is another issue.
Thomas More wrote:
"The electoral college is to protect the minority and since we are a Republic the popular vote used to determine an election wouldn't be reasonable."
This is gibberish. I have no doubt that the electoral college does function to "protect the minority", but which minority exactly is being protected? Ought small states to have more influence in government relative to population? Even if we assume that democracy is tyranny of the majority, giving small states proportionally more influence simply establishes a new majority and thus a new tyranny. Except in the new tyranny, fewer than 50% of the population might find themselves on the exploited end! Really, what you wrote is absurd. Small states don't even have an obvious shared demographic or common interest with one another, other than protecting their unfair advantage in our electoral process. Would you be in favor of granting the votes of minority citizens more weight to compensate for the fact that they might belong to a group which the majority might exploit? How about 5 votes per black, 5 votes per latino, 10 votes per gay, 1000 votes per billionare, 1 million votes per media mogul.... really, wtf are you smoking. You are a shill, since no person is so stupid as to utter the nonsense you put forth here.
2 unmentioned reforms taken together would overnight transform the whole electoral process:
1- Mandatory Voting
2- A binding None Of The Above
If NOTA wins, a new election is called.
By making everyone "go to the polls" suddenly EVERY candidate has to sell to ALL voters. We would go from a system based on reducing turnout to just "your own folks" to one that requires you to speak at least civilly to everyone, and address issues that actually concern the voters.
For the overly libertarian folks whose hackles go up with the word "mandatory", remember you have been pretty much forced to pay taxes, and they have mandatory car insurance. With voting as a "duty," just show up and vote, even if it is for NO one or for "NOTA (None of the Above). It works in our favor. All opinions, even contrary ones, are tabulated.
I'd be very careful, even leary of a constitutional convention in the present political climate. Wait 'til we've driven a stake through the heart of this fourth branch beast.
IRV is the way to go! It's a tested and proven system and it means that there is a definite result from an Election Day. The savings in municipal money to run the elections and campaign money and time make it worth it by themselves.
But the real benefit is that it opens up the elections to smaller parties and individual candidates.
In Winner Take All, you end up with unopposed incumbents and two-candidate races, because the threshold is so high, at least 50%+1, it takes a mass market, mega-dollar campaign to get in. People who would like to vote for an independent do so at the risk of ending up with the worser of two evils, a la Nadir 2000. With IRV, Nadirites could have put him as first choice and maybe Kucinich as second choice and Gore at third choice, neither of the single digit candidates would draw off Gore's votes by the third round, those votes don't become spoilers because those voters had a fallback that insured, at bare minimum, it wouldn't be Bush.
From a third party perspective, IRV is a godsend. To get a permanent ballot line, a party has to poll a nominal amount, like 5%, otherwise they have to scare up a large number of petitions for each candidate they are running. That doesn't sound like much, but in WTA/2Party, getting a consistant 5% is very hard. With IRV, single digit third party votes still count toward that 5% threshold even though the candiate didn't prevail. It allows Third Parties to get a foot in the door, adding diversity to the choices.
Another nice biproduct is that campaigns don't get as mean on each other because they cross campaign for second and third picks. Candidates that have shared views also share potential supporters so ad hominem polarization is suicidal, politically.
As for the electoral college, It would be nice to scrap it, but don't hold yr breath. Proportional alotment rather than WTA would be a decent reform if it's nationwide.
One of the problems with comprehensive election reform is that currently, every state is different. And often, every county within each state is different. And that plays h3ll with keeping things straight. This is a place where States' Rights must give over to a Federal standard. The current systems are chaotic and rife with corruption, the Electronic machines are a Shazzam! to make it easy for the Thugs to steal votes and hard for US to track them. We are in need of real reform and so far, not much action.
Let's see what a new WhiteHouse and a new Congress do.
"By law the people are allowed to call for a constitutional convention under article V. They have done so repeatedly and it has been repeatedly ignored."
Could you please be more specific regarding the second sentence?
Sorry, mudman, I disagree. I live in Oregon and I can tell you there is a profound flaw in "all-by-mail" voting. It means having total trust in a machine count far away with no local oversight. No one really knows how many ballots were mailed in from each precinct. It sure would be nice to at least have that sign-in register to fall back on to verify that much.
As it is, a few thousand ballots can be added (or disappeared) here and there and no one can prove otherwise. Genuine recounts are impossible.
No machines!!! No punchcards!!! Too easy to jack around and make mistakes. Oregon method seems to work. All ballots are mail-in. Votes are cast by physically joining a broken arrow with a ball point pen. The security envelope must be signed. They are machine scanned to tabulate. People vote at their leisure and drop them off in a steel mailbox with the opening only large enough for the ballot or mail in. Ballots are picked up every evening & tabulated & kept for the record or recounts. The process takes 2 weeks but the voter turnout is one of the highest in the nation. No standing in line on a certain day etc. and you aren't putting $$$$ in the voting machine companies!
By law the people are allowed to call for a constitutional convention under article V. They have done so repeatedly and it has been repeatedly ignored. The problem,therefore, is not the constitution but a lack of respect for the law. The congress does not obey the law. This is a very serious problem. The congress is corrupt.
matti June 8th, 2008 3:27 am
We simply need to abide by the one we have.
"The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it." -- Edward Dowling, editor and priest
I think an honest look at all the problems and corruptions in our current federal system -the Whole thing, not just "elections"- would demonstrate that a new Constitutional Convention and a new constitution are what we need.
I'd suggest the U.S.I.N.A. or the United States and Indigenous Nations of America for the "new country"'s (Second Republic's) name.
Might as well start at the beginning of the Old USA's crimes, right?
For, those that think this kind of thing -A whole new Constitution, not just more Amendments- will never happen:
I invite you to imagine what could be done if those "politically savvy" folks the Author mentions -on the left and right- who know deep down that the Dems and the GOP are just corporate shills now, would get past the false, binary, "issues divide", work together to get the third of the People who don't participate now excited about the idea, and then everybody focuses only on this cause and boycotts the corrupted system till the Convention is held.
And anyway, the point isn't that this would be a "sure thing", the point is it may be a necessary thing, for the Old Republic is surely broken -don't we on the "left" say that all the time?
Maybe it'll take a lot of work over a long time to even get this rolling, maybe not even the "politically savvy" will be willing to be distracted from this year's elections, maybe, maybe, maybe.
But didn't the Gaffer used to say "It's the job that's never started, that takes longest to finish" or some such?
I think I'll start now.
You should to.
-matti.
The electoral college discounts the minority vote. If you are a Dem and your state is heavily 'red,' for example, this could well discourage you from voting at all. After all, why bother if you feel that your vote will not count? Just who or what does a representative republic represent, if candidates can lose against the popular vote?
homeward-angel sez: "...if we ever do get to that point, lets have electronic voting (easier to count) paired up with paper receipts (to ensure against fraud/hacking) ..."
Since the electronic voting will always (or SHOULD always) raise the specter of fraud, the paper "receipts" will always need to be counted to ensure accuracy.
Therefore, I suggest eliminating the electronic middleman, going straight to the paper receipts, and re-naming them "ballots".
A national popular vote would have ensured a clinton victory. no doubt.
Weighted voting of any sort would be an improvement, and it could be used in an electoral college system.
One would have a winner, and those electoral votes would be assigned.
Weighted votes allow candidates who many like but don't think can win, like Nader, to actually win.
A simpler voting algorithm is Range Voting. On a scale of 0-9, rank each candidate. Candidate with the highest average wins. Any candidate with blank score is counted as a zero. We all know how this works. Its your GPA from school! Check out http://www.rangevoting.org/ for all the details.
"Side note: Texas is far from reliably "red." It was all Blue until the early nineties, and continues to swing back to the Blue every day."
Two friends just got back from the state convention and they said we got no one from the DNC or the Obama's. Chelsea Clinton was there to thank her supporters.
You could be right Frank, but we all agree the party is too badly led to figure out that it might be a good idea to work in Texas this time.
Stop whining, dude - sometimes the stars line up together. All ya gotta do is get busy recruiting more volunteers to cover the extra workload. Who said you and your friends have to do everything? There's a ton of Angelinos ready and willing to help.
Side note: Texas is far from reliably "red." It was all Blue until the early nineties, and continues to swing back to the Blue every day.
"delegates, super delegates"
I think you'll find that these are from the political parties. super delegates date from 1982.
The electoral college is to protect the minority and since we are a Republic the popular vote used to determine an election wouldn't be reasonable.
Its not the system thats malfuntioning, its us.
The post above was supposed to be a sample IRV ballot card. It blew apart when i pasted it in. I was not allowed to edit it.
Vote once for each candidate in order of preference. Darken the Circle under # 1 for your first Choice. Darken the circle under # 2 for your second choice, and so on until you have finished voting.
Candidate A 1 2 3 4 5
0 0 0 0 0
Candidate B 1 2 3 4 5
0 0 0 0 0
Candidate C 1 2 3 4 5
0 0 0 0 0
Candidate D 1 2 3 4 5
0 0 0 0 0
None of the Above 1
0
To vote for a person not listed above, Write in the persons name below (Please Print) and darken the appropriate circle.
_________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5
0 0 0 0 0
The voters may vote once for each candidate in order of preference. If one candidate does not receive a majority of votes after the first preference of every voter is counted, the second preference of the voters shall be tallied to the appropriate candidate, and so on until one candidate has a majority.
"However, a constitutional amendment ending winner-take-all and mandating proportional presidential voting in all states might have a tiny chance. "
Why not just let the states decide for themselves?
"The Electoral College was devised by the founding fathers as a way to abrogate a result from the voting masses they didn't like."
Who do you mean by "they"?
I like instant runoff voting, but we'll never get rid of the electoral college because small states would refuse to ratify an amendment ending their gross overrepresentation in presidential elections. However, a constitutional amendment ending winner-take-all and mandating proportional presidential voting in all states might have a tiny chance. That way, votes for a third or fourth party might have a hope of appearing in the electoral college. Unfortunately, the legislators in all states are overwhelmingly Democratic or Republican and have nothing to gain from changing the status quo. Politicians like winner-take-all. In the swing states, winner-take-all maximizes the state's influence and forces candidates to bribe the state for support. In states that one party dominates, winner-take-all erases the minority party. I've read several comments by Clinton supporters claiming that she would have won had the Democrats used winner-take-all for the primaries, as if that would have been a good thing rather than undemocratic.
"No more electoral college (ie fraud to the american voter) "
It's not a fraud, it's plainly spelled out in the constitution.
Aren't you glad that you live in a nation that proclaims itself to the whole world as the "greatest democracy on earth"? Try to imagine, if you can, the sheer horror of living in one of those lesser societies where citizens are actually allowed to choose amongst more than two pre-approved 'electable' alternatives and where the process is funded from the public purse rather than by judicially created 'corporate persons'. It must be an intolerably messy affair, unlike the neat and tidy regimentation of real US-style democracy.
Republicans don't win elections, they steal them.
Would a national popular vote simply vastly increase the election fraud in "safe" partisan areas like Texas and Utah? As it did in "rural" Ohio in 2004, but now everywhere Republicans control the machinery?
Just asking.
It'll never ever happen.
Americans have small brains and are easily fooled but it's still too risky to establish a popular vote. The oligarchy can't afford to do away with delegates, super delegates and electoral colleges, which have always been a scam designed by the founding fathers to keep power away from the masses.
The Electoral College was devised by the founding fathers as a way to abrogate a result from the voting masses they didn't like. If one looks at US history, this has happened several times before 2000: 1800, 1824, 1876 (which was even more corrupt than 2000), immediately come to mind. To achieve what is called for in Daley's piece would require a constitutional amendment.
YES! a nationwide popular vote! No more electoral college (ie fraud to the american voter) yeah, if we had that we would not have had bush for the past 7 years! How do i know that BOTH the Repukes and Dimocrates will be against it? Oh, by the way, if we ever do get to that point, lets have electronic voting (easier to count) paired up with paper receipts (to ensure against fraud/hacking) I think that would be win-win.