[EL] If it were a World Cup of Democracy....
JBoppjr at aol.com
JBoppjr at aol.com
Thu Jul 10 07:01:24 PDT 2014
Regarding this:
Many just don't see elections as worth the time
This does seem to be a rational decision for several reasons. One reason is
the growth in power of the federal government and the fact that one vote
has no chance to effect who is elected President or controls Congress. The
Framers concept was as much power as possible at the lowest level.
So I wonder if there are any statistics on historic voting rates in local
communities and/or for state elections when relatively they had more power?
Logically, people should think they have more influence on local elections
in most communities and, if local governments have real power, it is worth
one's time voting in the election.
But I doubt we can figure this out, since one cannot do a truly scientific
study since one cannot control all the other variables. Over time lots of
the factors that can influence voting rates change and many vary from
election to election - some increasing turnout and some decreasing it. It is
just speculation on which factor was most important -- if any one was --
over time or in any particular election and it cannot be scientifically
determined.
Jim Bopp
In a message dated 7/9/2014 4:56:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rr at fairvote.org writes:
In answer to Larry, Australia made it to the final in our World Cup. Not
only does it have high turnout, largely due to compulsory voting ,but it
rates well on other measures.
We updated the piece. It turns out the version I linked to on Thursday had
accurate data in the spreadsheet and write-up, but an error in the graphic
that was based on changes to the indices being incompletely updated. Ilya
will be happy to know that Russia indeed rated poorly, well behind the US.
See the corrected version here, with some additional text that tries to
anticipate the kinds of concerns raised on this list:
http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/blog/world-cup-of-democracy-go
es-to-the-netherlands/
The final four nations are all ones that are well-respected nations and
strong democracies -- Germany, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Interestingly, three of these nations made the final eight in the real World Cup.
The US still legs, however. Its low turnout might not bother Brad, but it
does raise questions about the health of our electoral democracy in our
eyes -- especially when those not showing up to vote do not correlate with
people who are necessarily content. Many just don't see elections as worth the
time, which I don't see it is as good in the long-term.
Rob
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
_rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org) (301) 270-4616
_http://www.fairvote.org_ (http://www.fairvote.org/)
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On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 1:26 PM, Larry Levine <_larrylevine at earthlink.net_
(mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net) > wrote:
I recently served as a member of the City of Los Angeles Election Reform
Commission. Our charge was to explore ways to increase turnout in municipal
elections. The factors of disproportionately low turnout in
under-represented communities was part of our work. You can see the official commission
report at the link below. It recommends moving elections to November of the
even numbered years to coincide with Presidential and gubernatorial
elections. There also is a minority report in which I was involved. It argues that
the date of the election is the least impactful factor in determining
turnout and that voter interest in the issues and the candidates is far more
important. In my oral argument against the official report I said: you could
put the repeal of Proposition 13 (property tax reform) on the ballot on
Christmas Day and get a big turnout, but you could put a lackluster
gubernatorial Primary Election on the ballot June 3 and get a 20% turnout. I think the
chart of turnout in Los Angeles Mayoral elections over the last 44 years
is worth a look. It is in the main body of the commission’s report.
http://electionscommission.lacity.org/html/documents.html
Larry
From: _law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_
(mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu)
[mailto:_law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_ (mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu) ] On
Behalf Of Zachary Roth
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 9:16 AM
To: Smith, Brad
Cc: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] If it were a World Cup of Democracy....
Thanks for these responses. It seems like these arguments don't have much
to do with how this actually plays out. In reality, low turnout usually
means a turnout that skews white, upper-income, and well-educated (at least in
federal elections, but I think also in others). So when people worry about
low turnout, that's sort of a shorthand for worrying about an electorate
that doesn't accurately represent the voting-age population, leading to a
government that doesn't pay attention to the interests of marginalized
groups.
Maybe that's not something people here see as anything to be concerned
about (would love to hear that argument, too). But it seems worth being clear
on what I think most people mean when they worry about low turnout.
On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 7:00 PM, Smith, Brad <_BSmith at law.capital.edu_
(mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu) > wrote:
I think, Sal, you should try to answer this question yourself. I mean this
seriously: think, why would a person suggest that the fact that a near
majority of voters can sometimes elect a usually narrow majority of the
legislature is a strength, or at least not a weakness.
Consider things such whether there are any merits to federalism; to
representation based on geographic districts with winner take all; or to having
districts drawn with purpose rather than randomly, for starters. Then
compare a system that yields such results not to an idealized version of
competing systems, but to their actual reality.
Then consider again the merits of a system that ranks Argentina and Russia
ahead of the United States as a democracy, and consider what flaws there
might be in that model.
Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
303 E. Broad St.
Columbus, OH 43215
_614.236.6317_ (tel:614.236.6317)
http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
____________________________________
From: Salvador Peralta [_oregon.properties at yahoo.com_
(mailto:oregon.properties at yahoo.com) ]
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2014 8:01 PM
To: Smith, Brad; Rob Richie
Cc: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] If it were a World Cup of Democracy....
The ability to manipulate districts to enable a minority of voters to win
a majority of seats in our legislature is a strength of our electoral
system?
How so?
____________________________________
From: "Smith, Brad" <_BSmith at law.capital.edu_
(mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu) >
To: Rob Richie <_rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org) >
Cc: Election Law <_Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_
(mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) >
Sent: Thursday, July 3, 2014 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [EL] If it were a World Cup of Democracy....
What's interesting is that there are very strong arguments that all of
these things represent the strength of American democracy and our electoral
system. The absurdity of a ranking putting Argentina and Russia ahead of the
US may be evidence that the raters do not understand what their data means.
Bradley Smith
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 3, 2014, at 6:59 PM, "Rob Richie" <_rr at fairvote.org_
(mailto:rr at fairvote.org) > wrote:
Not to bore the list, but just briefly, the FairVote crew used four
different measures. One is based on the Economist's "Democracy Index", which
measures overall democratic health -- court system, press, etc. The US does
pretty well there, ranking 7th among the nations, with countries like Algeria
and Russia far behind. So good for us there, even if we're a good bit
behind countries like Australia, Netherlands, and Switzerland.
But they did want to make this more heavily focused on elections. And
there, Americans do have to face up to a few facts like:
- Voter turnout in the US is exceptionally low in internal norms
- Representation of women in Congress is very low, which we see as a
window into other limitations in how well we represent the electorate.
- Congress can have an approval rating around 10%, yet more than 98% of
House incumbents almost certainly be returned to office this November -
returning us to the four elections from 1998 to 2004 where each year more than
98% of House incumbents won even in years like 2002 when more than half of
states switched parties in gubernatorial elections. (Note that FairVote will
be able to call winners for November 2016 in close to 90% of races just
two days after this November's election using a methodology that is quite
likely to be 100% accurate.)
- Republicans won 54% of seats in 2012 with 48% of votes, and likely would
not lose control of the House this year without dropping below 45% of
votes (and this can happen to the GOP in some states, like in NJ, where its
assembly candidates won only 40% of seats with 50% of votes in 2013). So we
don't do seats-to-votes very well for the major parties, and of course not
all for emerging parties seeking to hold the major parties accountable.
On some of these electoral measures, generally less democratic nations
like Russia and Argentina do a lot better than us. And we think that matters,
even if we recognize the Economist measure as critically important.
Onward,
Rob
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
_rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org) _(301) 270-4616_
(tel:(301)%20270-4616) _http://www.fairvote.org_ (http://www.fairvote.org/)
Social Media: _FairVote Facebook_
(https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform) _FairVote Twitter_ (https://twitter.com/fairvote) _My Twitter_
(https://twitter.com/rob_richie)
First Million Campaign Thank you for considering a_ tax-deductible
donation_
(http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2495/t/10346/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=5643) to support FairVote's _Reform2020.com_
(http://reform2020.com/) vision. (Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 6:25 PM, Ilya Shapiro <_IShapiro at cato.org_
(mailto:IShapiro at cato.org) > wrote:
Um, Russia is tied with the US and Argentina is way ahead. Time to go back
to the drawing board on that ridiculous measurement.
Ilya Shapiro
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies,
Editor-in-Chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review
Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001
tel. _(202) 218-4600_ (http://urlblockederror.aspx/)
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Bio/clips: http://www.cato.org/people/shapiro.html
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matics-for-the-people---ilya-shapiro---jackie-hilly
____________________________________
From: _law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_
(mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu)
[mailto:_law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_ (mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu) ] On
Behalf Of Rob Richie
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2014 6:20 PM
To: Election Law
Subject: [EL] If it were a World Cup of Democracy....
Some soccer fans at FairVote are also fans of representative democracy.
Even as they get ready for the quarterfinals this weekend, they decided to
compare nations according to measures of their level of electoral democracy.
Spoiler alert: the US wouldn't even have advanced to the round of 16 based
on this measure.
Happy July 4th - -a good time to mull over how well we're measuring the
"consent of the governed."
- Rob Richie
##############
http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/blog/world-cup-of-democracy-go
es-to-the-netherlands/
World Cup of Democracy Goes to the Netherlands
by _Anthony Ramicone_
(http://www.fairvote.org/list/author/Anthony_Ramicone) , _Nicholas Golden_
(http://www.fairvote.org/list/author/Nicholas_Golden) , _Bogdan Popescu_ (http://www.fairvote.org/list/author/Bogdan_Popescu)
// Published July 3, 2014
The FIFA World Cup is underway in Brazil. And while that tournament will
eventually crown the best national soccer team in the world, we wondered
what it would look like if it was crowning the best democracy in the world.
With that in mind, we decided to put together an index that compares
democracies across countries and then apply it to this year’s World Cup field.
In the end, the Netherlands came out on top, defeating Australia in a
fairly lopsided final. You can see how the whole tournament played out in the
graphic above. As to the United States, it didn’t even escape its “group
of death” in our Democracy World Cup and ranks 17th among the 32 nations
overall.
But what does it mean to have the world’s best democracy (or at least the
best out of World Cup entrants)? Here is what went into our calculation:
1) Turnout
If a lot of people don’t bother to vote, your democracy is probably not
healthy. Political participation is at the root of representative democracy,
and voting is perhaps the most basic form of participation. Our turnout
metric is an average of the turnout of the last two nationwide elections as a
percentage of the voting age population, _as reported by IDEA_
(http://www.idea.int/vt/index.cfm) .
2) Fair Representation of Political Views
How likely is it that your vote will elect someone? Do political parties
receive a share of the power equal to their share of support? These
questions are at the heart of measuring fair representation, or “proportionality”
in political science terms. If, for example, one third of the voters
support a particular political party, they should not be excluded from the
system. To measure this, we use the _Gallagher Index_
(http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/staff/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/Docts/ElectionIndices.pdf) ,
which calculates the overall difference between how many votes that different
parties get and how many seats they receive in a country.
3) Women’s Representation
Is your democracy inclusive of underrepresented groups? While an ideal
calculation of this would include racial, ethnic, and religious measures,
what constitutes a minority is so varied across countries that it is too
difficult to encapsulate in a single metric. Instead, the percentage of women in
government serves as a good barometer for understanding how well a
democracy represents those who are traditionally excluded. In particular, _drawing
on the Inter-Parliamentary Union_ (http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm)
, we use the percentage of women in the lower house of the legislature,
since almost every lower house is directly elected.
4) Legitimacy
Is your democracy a sham? It doesn’t matter how inclusive your legislative
chamber is or how many people show up to vote if your elections are
rigged. We use the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, which measures
the robustness of democracies, as a multiplier in our calculation. This
ensures that superficial democracies, which look good on the surface, or not
rewarded.
You can find all of our _sortable data and calculations here_
(http://www.fairvote.org/assets/World-Cup-Democracy.xlsx) which allow you to see
which nations are best in each category. We hope that this serves as a
foundation for building an index that serves to compare democracies around the
world, not only measuring how free or fair they are but also how successful
they are at representing the people they serve.
Some might be surprised to see that the United States did not make it past
the group stage. Not even Tim Howard could save the US from its weak
turnout and poor representation of women in Congress. You can read more about
FairVote’s proposed reforms that would _enhance women’s representation_
(http://www.representation2020.com/) , _increase voter turnout_
(http://www.promoteourvote.com/) and _improve fair representation_
(http://www.fairvoting.us/) .
Stay tuned for our next edition of _Dubious Democracy_
(http://www.fairvote.org/assets/Uploads/DubiousDemocracy2010.pdf) , where we have rated states
in congressional elections. Historically we have done a relative index,
but the method presented here is a step towards an absolute measure that will
allow for more meaningful comparisons.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
_rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org) _(301) 270-4616_
(http://urlblockederror.aspx/) _http://www.fairvote.org_ (http://www.fairvote.org/)
Social Media: _FairVote Facebook_
(https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform) _FairVote Twitter_ (https://twitter.com/fairvote) _My Twitter_
(https://twitter.com/rob_richie)
First Million Campaign Thank you for considering a_ tax-deductible
donation_
(http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2495/t/10346/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=5643) to support FairVote's _Reform2020.com_
(http://reform2020.com/) vision. (Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)
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