[EL] This is the highest turnout of voting age citizens in American history
Braden Boucek
braden at beacontn.org
Sat Nov 7 08:03:58 PST 2020
Thanks for the responses. Good points all the way around. To address the
biggest one first, "informed voting" is a subjective term only if by
"informed voting," one means "votes I prefer." Defined that way, it is a
useless term. We can erect actual objective definitions of "informed." For
instance, under 40% of Americans do not know the three branches of
government. Pew research consistently shows that numbers of Americans
vastly misunderstand how the federal government spends its money--for
instance, largely underestimating the funds spent on Medicare or Social
Security and overstating the funds spent on foreign aid. One might struggle
to erect actual metrics for "informed/uninformed." But it's indisputable
that a voter that cannot name the three branches of government, or thinks
50% of our funding goes to foreign aid would fail under any definition of
an "informed voter." This is not an argument for disenfranchisement. To the
contrary, my point is that if that voter chooses not to vote, it's may be a
rational choice. It also be beneficial (to the "bad voting" question). A
poorly informed voter tends to vote for incumbents based on a short term
evaluation of their personal circumstances that either overstate or have
nothing to do with policy choices. As stated by Professor Somin:
On average, those who choose not to vote are even less well-informed about
politics and public policy than current voters are
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/03/19/president-obama-endorses-mandatory-voting/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3>.
If they are forced to go to the polls, they will exacerbate the already
severe problem of political ignorance
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/11/03/what-no-one-talks-about-during-election-season-voter-ignorance/>.
When relatively ignorant voters go to the polls, they aren’t doing the rest
of society a favor. They are instead inflicting harm on us by making poor
choices and incentivizing politicians to cater to their ignorance.
By "turnout" as an end to itself, irrespective of whether voters are well
informed, politicians, but especially incumbents who come in with built in
earned media, are incentivized to cater to emotion (xenophobia, bigotry,
class envy, etc.). Some might say this is already a problem that has
manifested itself.
I don't know exactly how I come down on RCV. I do know that (to Rob's point
above) majoritarianism is not a point in its favor. The Founders feared
majoritarianism like nothing else, including a monarchy. The
anti-majoritarian aspects of the Constitution are its best features (bill
of rights, SOP, federalism, etc.). My mind remains open on RCV. Although my
first impression is to say that if uninformed voting is a concern, the last
thing we need to do is add algebra to the mix.
Thanks for the lively discussion,
Braden H. Boucek
__________________
[image: Braden_EmailSig_2018.png]
This email may contain privileged and confidential information and is
meant only for the use of the specific intended addressee(s). Your receipt
is not intended to waive or create any applicable privilege or
relationship. If you have received this email by error, please delete it
and immediately notify the sender by separate email. This email does
not otherwise create an attorney/client relationship when one has not
been previously entered into expressly in writing. Gal. 5:1.
On Sat, Nov 7, 2020 at 9:39 AM Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:
> A good question, Jon: "informed voting" could be in the eyes of the
> beholder. While I agree with Braden that turnout alone is hardly the only
> barometer of democratic health, I would disagree in saying that it's not a
> valuable one.
>
> I did want to lift up a state-based fact
> <http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data>from
> Michael McDonald's invaluable US Elections Project: when all the tallying
> is done, there's a good bet that the single highest turnout state in
> voter eligible population in the country this year will be Maine. It was a
> few points behind Minnesota in 2016, but should end up above it this year,
> nearing 80% of voter eligible population (80%)
>
> Maine for the first time had ranked choice voting ballots for president
> and U.S. Senate along with a big uptick in voting by mail due to the
> pandemic. There are those out there that worry RCV may hurt turnout, but
> we keep getting evidence like this to the contrary (both in absolute
> numbers and in declines of undervotes in down ballot RCV races held at the
> same time with more prominent races). While use of RCV didn't affect an
> outcome this year, it was a backup to uphold majority rule and played a
> fascinating role in the positive relationship between the Democratic
> nominee for U.S. Senate and a progressive independent that usually would
> have been toxic.
>
> I would also suggest RCV is a better alternative to Georgia's
> post-November runoff solution to non-maroity outcomes that this year that
> will - incredibly in a reflection of what has to be one of the absolute
> worst election policies in modern American history -- almost certainly
> result in a statewide runoff election on December 1st for a Public
> Service Commission seat 4 (with the GOP frontrunner right now sitting at
> 49.96% of the vote and a Liertarian having earned over 3%) and then the two
> separate U.S. Senate election runoffs on January 5th. For those Georgia
> policymakers thinking that separate statewide runoff in December and
> federal runoffs in January was a good idea, let's see what turnout it gets
> compared to its VEP turnout this week of 68% (up from 59% in 2016).
>
> Rob
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2020 at 10:12 AM Jon Sherman <
> jsherman at fairelectionscenter.org> wrote:
>
>> Can you define “bad voting” or “informed voting”?
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 7, 2020 at 9:44 AM Braden Boucek <braden at beacontn.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I appreciate your perspective. I do, however, respectfully disagree that
>>> turnout alone is a laudable metric or even useful. 90% turnout doesn't mean
>>> that good policy will result or vice versa. Oftentimes the electorate takes
>>> a look at the two candidates on offer and exercises a reasonable choice to
>>> not vote for either (or cast a gesture vote for a third party). That is a
>>> valid choice that *itself* sends an important political message to the
>>> political parties--not interested, do better. Conversely, widespread
>>> political ignorance is already a problem and bad voting can be worse than
>>> no voting, as Professor Illya Somin has capably argued here
>>> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/03/the-ongoing-debate-over-mandatory-voting/>
>>> and here
>>> <http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Ignorance-Smaller-Government/dp/0804786615>.
>>> The ideal should be informed voting, something that turnout does not
>>> measure.
>>> I appreciate the chance to dialogue.
>>> Braden H. Boucek
>>> __________________
>>> [image: Braden_EmailSig_2018.png]
>>>
>>> This email may contain privileged and confidential information and is
>>> meant only for the use of the specific intended addressee(s). Your
>>> receipt is not intended to waive or create any applicable privilege or
>>> relationship. If you have received this email by error, please delete it
>>> and immediately notify the sender by separate email. This email does
>>> not otherwise create an attorney/client relationship when one has not
>>> been previously entered into expressly in writing. Gal. 5:1.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Nov 7, 2020 at 8:26 AM Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I keep seeing references to our turnout being the highest "in the
>>>> modern era", as in Farhad Manjoo's valuable New York Times lead commentary
>>>> today, or since some specific election before the 19th amendment a century
>>>> ago extended suffrage rights to voting-age women.
>>>>
>>>> In comparisons across countries, like this useful one at the Institute
>>>> for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
>>>> <https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-turnout>, the most basic
>>>> measure of degree of relative democratization is the percentage of the
>>>> voting age population that casts ballots. To be sure, one can also measure
>>>> turnout by looking at percentages of the vote of the population allowed by
>>>> a nation to vote, but prioritizing that measure can mean ignoring
>>>> undemocratic practices like disenfranchising women and racial and ethnic
>>>> minorities.
>>>>
>>>> So... two cheers for the US having its highest turnout ever among our
>>>> voting-age population, which is about 62% according to the United
>>>> States Election Project <http://www.electproject.org/2020g>and
>>>> approaching 67% of citizens of voting age citizens who are eligible to
>>>> vote (with the difference largely due noncitizen residents and
>>>> disenfranchised citizens with felony convictions, with citizens and
>>>> residents in American territories like Puerto Rico not part of the
>>>> denominator.)
>>>> .
>>>> Being a democratic idealist, I'll reserve three cheers for when we can
>>>> approach Malta, which has had only one election with less than 90%
>>>> turnout <https://www.idea.int/data-tools/world-view/40?st=all#rep>of
>>>> its voting age population in the past 25 years --and regularly has the
>>>> highest turnout among democracies without compulsory voting and uses the
>>>> ranked choice voting form of proportional representation (the
>>>> candidate-based "single transferable vote") contributing to a highly
>>>> competitive electoral culture.
>>>>
>>>> Rob
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>> Rob Richie
>>>> President and CEO, FairVote
>>>> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
>>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/6930+Carroll+Avenue,+Suite+240+Takoma+Park,+MD+20912?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>> Takoma Park, MD 20912
>>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/6930+Carroll+Avenue,+Suite+240+Takoma+Park,+MD+20912?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>> rr at fairvote.org (301) 270-4616 http://www.fairvote.org
>>>> *FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>* *FairVote
>>>> Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>* My Twitter
>>>> <https://twitter.com/rob_richie>
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for considering a *donation
>>>> <http://www.fairvote.org/donate>. Enjoy our video on ranked choice voting
>>>> <https://youtu.be/CIz_nzP-W_c>!*
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Law-election mailing list
>>>> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>>>> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Law-election mailing list
>>> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>>> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>>
>> --
>> Jon Sherman
>> Senior Counsel
>> Fair Elections Center
>> 1825 K Street NW, Suite 450
>> Washington, D.C. 20006
>> Phone: (202) 248-5346
>> jsherman at fairelectionscenter.org
>> www.fairelectionscenter.org
>>
>
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Rob Richie
> President and CEO, FairVote
> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
> Takoma Park, MD 20912
> rr at fairvote.org (301) 270-4616 http://www.fairvote.org
> *FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>* *FairVote
> Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>* My Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/rob_richie>
>
> Thank you for considering a *donation
> <http://www.fairvote.org/donate>. Enjoy our video on ranked choice voting
> <https://youtu.be/CIz_nzP-W_c>!*
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20201107/bb77e0fc/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Braden_EmailSig_2018.png
Type: image/png
Size: 9208 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20201107/bb77e0fc/attachment.png>
View list directory