[EL] If it were a World Cup of Democracy....

[David Ely]

I have looked at municipal elections in many different jurisdictions, and cities with council and mayoral races consolidated with even year November elections in LA County have had far higher participation in those contests in recent years than LA City has in its municipal elections. For example, Pomona had 3 council races on the Nov 2010 ballot. Contest participation ranged from 36.4% to 48.5%. A municipal ballot measure had 42% participation. Inglewood Mayoral race on the same ballot had 46.8% participation. Countywide turnout in that election was 53.8%. Even Long Beach, which holds its own even year April primary gets better participation for the June runoff which is held concurrently with the Statewide primary (same polling places, different ballots, limited drop-off). In Long Beach Council District 4 in 2012 turnout was 15.5% in April, 21% in June Municipal election and 24.4% in Statewide Primary.

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Larry Levine



 

In the report of the L.A. Commission cited in the link below there is a discussion of variant factors that impact turnout in L.A. Mayoral races over the last 44 years.

Larry

 

From: JBoppjr at aol.com [mailto:JBoppjr at aol.com] 



 

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-goes-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




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Rob Richie



 

 

On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 1:26 PM, Larry Levine <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

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