I gave a 11 minute talk on voting in the US and it’s issues last night at the Urban Hive in Sacramento. This was to a very small audience and was something I threw together at the last minute.
These are my notes for the talk:
voting in America - epic FAIL
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intro
* not well prepared speech - expect a very bad talk on a very important topic
* goal is to make people think about democracy in US and whether it
works / could be improved
principals of democracy
* choice by people
"Democracy is a system of government in which people choose their rulers
by voting for them in elections."
root demos = people
FAIL: $ in politics, single winner districts, gerrymandering,
2 party system due largely to plurality voting
* representative democracy (vs direct democracy)
* communication more effective (direct democracy does not scale)
* specialization (reps are knowledgable about issues)
* delegation
* representative
FAIL: unrepresentative representatives, in pockets of large special interests,
gerrymandered to get reelected
* consent of governed
FAIL: see representative democracy list
current #s: 26% approval rating for congress, 49% for president
* accountability
FAIL: unrepresentative representatives
* transparency
FAIL: voting machines, lack of publicly observed counting, vote by
mail to a degree, blind trust in election results
* US specific concepts:
* federalism for national powers
FAIL: In my view this is inappropriate; people should be
represented nationally rather then states
* Separation of Powers - legislative vs executive vs judicial
OK
off-topic:
* majority rule vs minority rights
* - democracy not necessarily enough and/or need for compromise
*unless* people moderate their views to respect the minority
problems with US system:
* single winner districts => unrepresentative representatives.
In extreme only 50%+1 represented
* gerrymandering => representatives choose voters instead of vice versa.
In extreme only 25%+1 represented
* money in politics, money as 'speech', corporate personhood under the law
=> corporate money as speech
"A bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the government may
not ban political spending by corporations, labor unions or other organizations
in elections. The court’s majority in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
swept aside a century-old doctrine in election law, ruling that the campaign finance
restriction violated the First Amendment’s free speech principles"
* national government is a federation in which *states* are represented NOT people
* eg. senate weighs each state equally
* house of representative does not weight states fully equally - rounding errors,
formula for # of reps, etc...
* president elected by electoral college - not national popular vote
* single winner election systems - plurality voting. lesser of 2 evils.
Bush v Gore v Nader
* => 2 party system - systemic issue
we can do better
* takes political will
* understand that there are proposed reforms and that some have obstacles
or are contradictory
* some are worse then what we have currently!
what you can do:
* donate to relief efforts in Haiti - not strictly related but important :)
* read and be aware of the recent news on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
* sites and organizations to check out:
$ in politics: "changeCongress.org" "maplight.org"
and "Center for Political Accountability"
voting systems: "score voting.net aka rangevoting.org"
general: "allaboutvoting.com" - my site
* terms to research:
"election reform"
"asset voting"
"approval voting"
"score voting" aka "range voting"
"delegatable proxy"
Q&A
I’m thinking about applying to be on CA’s prop 11 redistricting commission. In the unlikely event that I become part of the commission this would necessitate a 9 month commitment to work full time on commission business (compensated $300 per day involved in commission business – but still). Anyone want to talk me into/out of applying?
Prop 11 is not perfect but I do support it as significantly better then the previous highly-partisan approach.
To me, an ideal solution would be to use good multi winner winner election methods to select a body of representatives rather then using single winner districts. Ideally representatives would be chosen in a way that each person is equally represented by someone they (helped to) choose and whose political viewpoints closely resemble their own. This could be achieved through proportional representation or, even better, asset voting.
Where single winner districts are needed I would prefer that they be selected in an automated fashion – without much human input.
…but the voting rights acts (both federal and state) apparently requires the creation of minority-majority districts – which effectively requires gerrymandering
Given these constraints, an independent redistricting commission approach seems to be the only viable option. Prop 11, although flawed creates such a commission.
So… should I apply for the commission? Do I have enough to offer? Is the potential time commitment worth it?
A great video about how instant runoff voting (IRV) works.
Be sure to watch through to the end so that you can see how it falls apart when a candidate convinces voters to vote in a manner that ought to improve that candidates results.
An injunction in the case is forcing Madera Unified, which is 82% Latino, to change the way it elects its board.
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The latest step along that road was a ruling in September by Madera County Superior Court Judge James E. Oakley, who invalidated, in advance, the results of the November school board election. Oakley said Madera’s at-large voting system, in which all voters in the district cast ballots for all board members rather than for a candidate representing their section of town, violated the Voting Rights Act.
Relying on the remedy suggested by the law, he called for the district to be divided into seven trustee areas, with candidates to run in each.
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The state’s Voting Rights Act, enacted in 2002, bans at-large voting if there is evidence that it “impairs the ability” of a minority group “to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election.”
Other jurisdictions are paying heed. In the wake of Oakley’s order, the Madera City Council decided to switch to district elections, City Councilman Robert Poythress said. And in neighboring Fresno County, where 28 of 32 school boards use at-large elections, all 28 decided to follow Madera’s lead and switch to district elections, county schools Supt. Larry Powell said.
And this gem:
Deciding not to fight the ruling, the school board drew up a map in which three of the seven voting districts have Latino majorities. In a delicate exercise in gerrymandering, each of the incumbents was given a separate district.
I’m no fan of at-large voting but imposed gerrymandered districts is a remedy that is worse then the previous situation. There should either be a process to ensure that the districts are not gerrymandered (such as algorithmic redistricting) or use of a decent multi-winner election method.
CA prop 11, ‘Redistricting’ is one of the 12 state propositions in this election cycle. This proposition is also known as the ‘Voters FIRST Act’.
I support it. Please vote yes on 11.
I’ve written a fair amount about redistricting approaches so I’ll reference some of these posts in my explanation for why I support prop 11.
The problem
Currently the legislature is responsible for drawing districts in which those same legislatures are elected. This creates a clear conflict of interest. This conflict currently occurs in that:
legislators want to protect their own seats
legislators want to maximize the seats that their party gets
In CA I would describe the current status quo as a ‘bipartisan gerrymander’ in that the problem is more characterized by seats being protected then by a power grab where one party has a disproportionate number of seats and controls the redistricting system to maximize the number of seats controlled by that party. (I may be wrong in this regard; If you have evidence to the contrary please leave a comment.)
The result of this gerrymandered system is that rather than having voters selecting their representative we frequently have representatives choosing their voters via partisan or bi-partisan gerrymandering.
Gerrymandered districts yield a highly predictable outcome for who will be elected. Prop 11 claims that 99% of incumbent politicians were elected in recent elections
An excellent tool for understanding how redistricting can be used to control who will be elected see the Redistricting Game
My ideal solution
In my view the problem of redistricting is best handled in two ways.
1. Use a multi-winner election method with larger (or state-wide) districts. Election methods that do this are known as proportional representation systems.
2. Where districts are used have the method of creating the districts be automated by software without any human input once the algorithm is determined. This is called algorithmic redistricting.
Prop 11 proposes having an independent commission which is responsible for doing the redistricting. This is a considerable improvement over having the state legislators do it. Much of the proposition details how this commission is selected.
What I like:
The power to create and shape districts is taken out of the hands of people who have a direct stake in the outcome.
Prop 11 only addresses districts for CA legislators. It does not address districts for US House seats. This is important since other states (Texas notoriously) are known to gerrymander in favor of having more Republican US House members and some people opposed previous CA redistricting reform since they considered this to be ‘disarming’ relative to TX behavior. It is my view that national redistricting reform is needed to address how US house districts are selected.
What I dislike:
The independent commission that is created is designed to have a precise balance of Republicans, Democrats, and independents on it. I find it extremely distasteful to enshrine into law an assumption that there are two major parties and that the parties have an approximately equal power balance. This does not necessarily reflect future reality even if it closely resembles the current reality. (And it does not even represent the current reality in CA. The Pew Center reports that currently 39% of CA voters identify themselves as Democrats compared to 28% as republicans. (Pew Research citation) That is a 3:2 ratio not a 1:1 ratio.
See also:
Prop 11 is not perfect. It’s not how I would design a solution. But, on balance, it is a clear improvement over the current perverse system. I recommend voting yes on prop 11.
I know that I have not blogged lately and that this is way off topic. But it is just irresistible.
(This is reposted from the Brad Blog but I’m sure it’s circulating through the net. I humbly present, the fed’s bailout as a 419 scam)
Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson
Oh, wait, you want to know my thoughts on this bailout?
It’s disgusting. It’s short sighted. It’s idiotic. It’s socializing losses after privatizing profits. There may be merit to the taxpayers bailing out a private institutions but the way that this is being conducted acts as if no-one had a clue that these companies were in trouble until a few days before a bailout. Such a bailout using such huge amounts of public money (IIRC, this costs more than the Iraq war) is deserving of thoughtful debate, a non rushed time-frame, and almost certainly the imposition of regulatory framework on the failed institutions.
The page describes several election methods, describes several desirable properties of election methods and indicates whether each method passes or fails the method.
If readers wonder why I oppose instant runoff voting but like approval voting this page is a good start.
Personally I’m still conflicted on Voter ID. Loosely my position is that it is a good idea in principal but it must be implemented in a way that minimizes disruption to voters and partisan advantage. That certainly has not been occurring. You can read more at my post ’supreme court rules on Indiana Voter ID case’. In case I discuss this again, see all articles tagged ‘voterid’.
In 2006, North Carolina’s General Assembly approved a pilot program that allowed communities to test the use of the so-called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). IRV is a form of ranked-choice voting where voters casting a ballot to rank from one to three choices for each office in races with more than two candidates
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RV advocates want IRV to be an option for the future, and are asking the General Assembly to extend and expand the IRV pilot. Many of their claims about IRV are simply not true once you look beyond the hype and the sophistry.
IRV does not ensure majority winners in one single election. The winner of our state’s single “instant runoff” contest took office with 1401 votes – less than 50% plus one vote (1512) of the 3022 votes cast. Our state’s current election equipment won’t tabulate IRV ballots, so the IRV ballots had to be tabulated by hand with workarounds that violated state election laws. And one small error in that tabulation cascaded info a recount that was done another day when the public could not observe it. In the 20 IRV elections in San Francisco held since adopting IRV, any elections going into an IRV “runoff” were won with less than a majority.
IRV only saves money if you consider nothing more than a single IRV election being cheaper than two elections (original plus runoff). While runoff elections are very rarely needed, IRV would require new & more expensive programming, additional voter education and training for poll workers and election administrators, and increased ballot printing expenditures. Candidates would need to spend time and money educating voters. We might need to purchase new voting machines. All those costs would have to be paid for even if no races ever required an instant runoff!
Although I don’t live in NC I’ve signed the petition and composed a comment explaining my reasons. Unfortunately my name no longer shows up on their list; Perhaps it is restricted to NC residents only?
