7 January 2001
ON DEMOCRACY AND COUNTING BALLOTS
Ronald J. Glossop
I. Introduction
A. The Presidential election just completed has called attention to
the process by which we select the top leader of our country.
B. Much of the attention has been focused on how votes did or didn't
get counted, especially in Florida.
C. Today I want to take advantage of this controversy to discuss the
even larger issue of what democracy is all about as well as the more
specific issue of what kind of changes are needed in the way we in this
country elect our President.
II. The general principles of a democratic system of governance
A. For much of human history, the leaders of the tribe or the village
achieved their position of leadership by means of a contest with each
other, a contest in which some individuals would establish their dominance
over other would-be leaders.
1. To some extent, this struggle for predominance was a purely
physical contest. Who would prevail and who would back down in a
head-to-head contest? This struggle to be Number One in the group takes
place in many animal groups, and is at least parly a matter of superior
fighting ability.
2. As has been often observed this struggle for dominant status is
mainly a male thing, but females may also have a pecking order, and often
the status of a female will depend on the status of her male mate.
3. It is worth noting that this competition also exists with
regard
to which smaller group within the larger group will be dominant. In the
ongoing struggle for pre-dominance among nation-states, our own country
now
ranks Number One. At least part of this dominance is based on military
superiority, the capability to win in a physical fight. Let us not forget
the 1991 Gulf War. There were other countries fighting alongside the
United States in that military campaign, but they were obviously dependent
on the U.S. The lesson to the rest of the world in that war was, "Don't
mess with Uncle Sam."
4. This system of a physical competition between individuals for
leadership is a "natural" alternative to democracy as a method of leader
selection.
B. Still it is worth noting that even with other animals such as
chimpanzees other factors besides pure physical strength enter into the
establishment of dominance. A leader needs followers, and there are some
would-be leaders who can't attract followers. There are cases where a
physically dominant individual will not be accepted as leader by the
group,
and in fact extremely aggressive individuals may even be driven out of the
group by collective action.
1. This can also happen in competition for leadership among
nation-states which seek military dominance as is evident by what happened
to Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin.
2. Might this also happen to the United States? Some of our
European allies are now becoming uneasy about U.S. military dominance and
how it is being used.
[Point made by Ted Loucks during discussion: Another system of selecting
the leader of a society without having a physical contest for control is
an
hereditary system where the descendents of the ruler become the ruler, a
system which ideally should avoid continuing contests (wars) to determine
who becomes the leader.]
C. The word "democracy" literally means "rule by the people." It
refers
to a system of governance where the group as a whole selects the leader.
It is totally different from a physical contest among the would-be leaders
or an hereditary system.
1. It is well to remember that for the Greek aristocrat Plato
"democracy" meant rule by the unqualified, by the mob. He had, after all,
seen Socrates condemned to death by the masses.
2. The Founding Fathers, who were also a bit concerned about what
the
masses might do, intended that the U.S. Constitution would establish a
system of governance based on balancing three different styles of
government.
a. The House of Representatives was to represent "the people."
It reflected the democratic principle.
b. The Senate was to represent the upper classes or aristocrats.
It reflected the oligarchic or aristocratic principle.
c. The President was to be the single leader of the whole
society. That position reflected the monarchical principle.
D. Because of this balancing of different principles some people
insist
that the United States is not a democracy but a republic.
1. But in fact the U.S. is also a democracy because all the
leaders, including the President, are selected by voting. All the rulers
rule for limited terms of office with the consent of the governed.
2. The system of voting has been developed as a way of determining
who has the support of the people rather than just relying on who in the
crowd shouts the loudest.
3. This reliance on the consent of the governed is to be
contrasted
with the earlier system in which the rulers were determined by who could
win in a mainly physical struggle against each other. Those being ruled
had little say in the outcome.
4. Once voting is instituted, an important issue to be addressed
is
which individuals in the community have a right to participate in this
selecting of the leaders. This right to vote has slowly been extended to
more people living in the community. At one time only certain males with
substantial property were allowed to participate.
5. One development totally unforeseen by the Founding Fathers was
the develop-ment of political parties. They viewed democracy primarily as
a matter of choosing certain individuals to be in charge but with little
concern about what views about society they would promote. Political
parties soon formed, however, on the basis of opposing ideologies, and
they
should have known that that would happen.
a. Those who favored protecting the privileges of the upper
classes tended to unite in one party while those who favored more equality
for everyone tended to unite in another party.
b. The coming to the fore of particular issues have from time
to time caused shifts in the issues promoted by one political party or the
other, but there is a natural division in society between those who
emphasize preserving the privileges of those in power on the one hand and
those who emphasize moving toward more equality for everyone on the other.
This is an issue which I intend to address at length in March.
III. So what is needed for the good functioning of a democratic system
where the people determine who the leaders will be?
A. One obvious principle is that the system of balloting must be
secret
so that others cannot coerce voters into voting one way or the other.
This
is a well-established principle in most democratic systems, but some new
democracies have not yet realized how important it is to implement voting
systems where privacy is protected.
B. Another obvious principle is that we must have a good system for
counting the votes. If we are relying on balloting to determine who has
the support of the public, we need to be able to count these ballots
accurately. It is extremely embarrassing that the country which prides
itself on being one of the leading technologically advanced democracies in
the world cannot satisfactorily do what seems to be a relatively simple
task.
1. This issue has not been too controversial up to now partly
because there is a tradition of regular elections, and the losers this
time
know that they will have another chance in a few years. Gore and the
Democrats are counting on this, which is why there is not more of a fuss.
This kind of assurance does not exist in totally new democracies.
2. This matter of accurately counting votes has not been a very
important issue in the past because for the most part the elections have
not been very close.
3. I expect a concerted move to improve the counting of votes on
the
part of all. The need for reform is obvious, and no one gains from having
an unreliable system.
IV. A real danger is that the present focus on getting the votes counted
accurately will divert attention from some other issues that very much
need
to be addressed.
A. One issue which Senator John McCain is determined to keep in the
forefront is that of campaign finance reform. The amount and influence of
money in elections in the U.S. is outrageous, and the movement to change
it
has some momentum. It is my view that Gore might have won the election if
he had put more emphasis on it. Unfortunately, the effort to cut the
influence of money in elections has some very powerful enemies, especially
in the Republican Party. It remains to be seen whether this much needed
reform in our elections can be implemented.
B. A second issue which needs attention is why such a small proportion
of people vote in our elections.
1. One possible factor is the matter just mentioned, the influence
of money in elections. Some people don't vote because they believe that
it
won't make any differ-ence anyway. Unfortunately, this reaction just
allows people with money to have even more influence! The closeness of
the
most recent election might change attitudes about the importance of
voting,
but the fiasco with regard to vote counting will not help.
2. Another factor is that generally people are personally rather
satisfied with the way the society is being governed because their own
lives are going well.
3. Another factor is that many people are ignorant of and
indifferent to pubic issues. It may be just as well if they don't vote.
But another issue is why so many people are ignorant and indifferent.
Isn't this a matter our educational system needs to address? A good
democracy requires an educated citizenry, access to information, open
discussion among those with different points of view, and freedom to form
associations to promote certain viewpoints.
C. A third issue that needs attention is the control of the media by a
smaller and smaller group of people who use that control to determine what
issues get attention and what views are presented. The internet may help
a
bit to counter this trend, but the influence of the major media is still
very great.
D A fourth issue that needs to be addressed is the process by which the
nominees are selected.
1. Consider the fact that George W. Bush collected so much money so
early that other Republicans had little opportunity to challenge him for
the nomination. Is this a desirable situation? What does it bode for the
future?
E. A fifth issue that needs to be addressed is whether to eliminate the
Electoral College and institute a system where whichever candidate gets
the
most popular votes is the winner. This suggestion looks good until you
get
into the details of how it could work and how it could lead to problems.
1. If only the total popular vote mattered, there would be a problem
of making the requirements for voting exactly the same in all states so
that some states would not lower requirements simply to have more voters.
Since different states now have different requirements for voting for
their
state officials, great confusion would result in some states if individual
voters were eligible to vote for state officials but not for President or
vice-versa. The alternative would be to institute the same requirements
for voting for all officials in all states, a move that would tend to
eliminate our federal system in favor of a uniform national system.
2. There would be a danger that a sectional candidate could be
elected by getting almost all the votes in certain parts of the country
and
almost none elsewhere. It was in fact this very concern which led to the
institution of the Electoral College in the first place.
3. There would be a danger that weather could have an undue
influence
on the outcome of an election. For example, suppose that a giant
snowstore
hits the northern part of the country on election day. If only popular
vote counts, these parts of the country would be greatly underrepresented
in the vote just because of bad weather (or some other natural disaster)
on
election day. That does not happen with the Electoral College.
4. If only the total votes counted, it could be expected that
candidates would concentrate all their campaigning in areas of dense
population and would make policy proposals favorable to these parts of the
country.
F. A sixth issue that needs to be addressed is whether the two-party
system needs to be opened up so those outside of the two parties have a
better chance of getting votes.
1. Consider the role played by Ralph Nader in this last election.
Some people who favored him didn't vote for him on grounds that doing so
would help Bush rather than Gore, and they were more opposed to Bush than
Gore. On the other hand, did Nader's candidacy in fact enable Bush to win
the election? Did Perot's candidacy help Clinton defeat the previous
President Bush in the 1992 election? Is there a need to change the system
so that third party candidates do not harm the candidate of a major party
whose views are closer to their own? Is the present system tending toward
a situation where third party candidates will have greater bargaining
power
than other persons who do not choose to establish third parties?
2 One proposal for dealing with this issue is to have some kind of
system proportional representation instead of a
winner-takes-the-whole-state system within the electoral system. Under
the
present system getting 49% of the vote in a state gets you nothing if
another candidate got 50%. Why not proportion the electoral vote of the
state in accord with the percentage of votes each candidate received in
the
state?
a. But this suggestion or any other proposal that gives a third
party candidate a greater chance of getting some votes in the final count
raises the issue of what to do if no candidate gets a majority of the
votes. Should a candidate be allowed to be a winner if that individual
gets only 40% of the vote? What percentage should be required? Should
there be one or more run-off elections until some candidate gets a
majority
of the votes?
b. The "Instant Runoff" ballot (IR) is a way of dealing with this
issue. Though complicated, it may well be receiving more attention in the
future. This IR system allows voters to indicate their order of
preference
for different candidates. No separate run-off election is necessary since
computers are used to first calculate first choice votes. If no candidate
gets a majority, another calculation is made where any ballot where the
first choice received less than 10% of the vote has its second choice
counted since its first choice has been eliminated. If still no candidate
gets a majority, another calculation is made where any ballot where the
first choice received less than 20% of the vote has its second choice
counted because its first choice has been eliminated. This process is
continued until some candidate receives a majority of the votes. That
individual is declared the winner. A majority has been achieved without
additional rounds of voting.
G. A seventh issue that needs to be addressed is whether voting should
take place on some other day than a workday and possibly even on a couple
of days. The present system makes it difficult for some people to get to
the polls because they must be at work a substantial number of hours on
election day.
H. An eighth issue that needs to be addressed is whether a system needs
to be instituted where the polls open and close throughout the country at
the same time so that no one is voting after the polls have been closed
farther east. For example, if polls opened on Saturday at noon Eastern
time (dawn in Hawaii) and closed on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time
(Sunday afternoon in Hawaii), everyone would have a day and a half in
which
to vote. Another option along this line would be mail-in ballots where
the
deadline would be the same throughout the country.
V. Conclusions
A. A democratic system for choosing leaders is a great improvement over
a system where individuals compete with each other for control of the
society, largely on the basis of fighting ability.
B. On the international level it would be desirable to institute a
democratical political system rather than having control over global
policies based on military superiority and the capability of winning a
war.
C. There is much room for improvement in the democratical political
system in the United States. Counting votes more accurately would be a
good beginning, but that issue should not distract us from other kinds of
improvements which are also needed.