Fight for Democracy, Part 19: One Person One Vote

If you look at the elections in 2014, 2016, and 2018 (projected), Democrats will have won more votes for every branch of government over those three elections. Close to ten million more Senate votes, about five million more House votes, and 2.9 million more Presidential votes. Yet it is entirely possible the Republicans will still have control of all three bodies (and the judiciary because of bad luck/bad faith dealing for the Supreme Court). I find it impossible to look at that reality - the majority of people over the last three elections favoring Democrats but Republicans still controlling all branches of government - and see a working democracy. The reasons for such minority rule and unfairness are many, but let’s address the major ones.

The first thing to look at is our structural set-up. Senators are elected state by state and the electoral college operates on a state by state mechanism as well. Since states have different populations, these elections ultimately give smaller population states greater voting power than larger population states. That’s exactly as it was intended in the Constitution - a compromise largely designed to insulate smaller, slavery-dependent states against the larger, more anti-slavery states at the time the Constitution was written. And at the time the discrepancies in the populations were much smaller, and Senators were chosen by state legislatures and not voted on by the people. Nowadays we see the fairness in letting people elect Senators but do nothing about the fact that a Senator from North Dakota represents less than a million people and has the same power as a Senator from New York who represents twenty million. On the electoral college side of things, a Wyoming voter has four times the voting power of a California voter. There may have been a purpose to this unfairness when originally conceived, but that time has long passed. We need a fairer system.

The electoral college is particularly egregious because the reason for the voting structure has for all practical purposes been co-opted in practice so it has no real value. The electoral college was designed as a check against populism, as a way to avoid having an ill-informed electorate choose their President directly. The college was to be made up of more reasoned and knowledgeable political appointees who would not be swayed by the cruder arguments that might whip up popular sentiment. But our current party system of primaries and caucuses has turned the electoral college into a rubber stamp of voter will, and any suggestion it operates otherwise would be met with derision and hostility (see: superdelegates). The discrepancy in state voting power has grown out of proportion because through population increases and the electoral college now serves as a means for the minority populist to win over a majority party representative. There is no greater proof that the system is flawed than our current President, an ignorant, inexperienced nationalist who did not have the support of his party, lost the popular vote, yet won the election BECAUSE of the electoral college, the situation the college was designed to prevent.

While there’s no easy or likely remedy for the problems of the electoral college, the other main driver of minority control is gerrymandering. For those not familiar with the problem, it comes from the fact that state legislatures get to decide the voting districts and by carefully selecting district boundaries you can rig a system in your favor. Here’s a nice pictorial representation: https://www.vox.com/cards/gerrymandering-explained/how-does-gerrymandering-work. Both parties do this to some degree, but the Republicans are more successful at it, mostly as a result of their victories during the 2010 elections.

The third most prevalent way to create unfair elections is to attack the voters themselves. Republicans do this through restrictive voter ID laws which disproportionately affect demographics (the poor, minorities) who tend to vote Democratic (in spite of the fact that in-person voter fraud is basically non-existent - https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth). They do this by placing unfair restrictions on voter registrations that target minorities (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/10/supreme-court-makes-it-harder-for-tribal-north-dakotans-to-vote/).They do this by purging voters from registrations if they haven’t voted recently (https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/08/09/many-states-are-purging-voters-from-the-rolls). They do this by disenfranchising convicted felons even after they’ve served their sentences. They to do this by limiting the number of polling stations in minority areas and by the very fact we hold elections during the work day so it’s harder for the poor working-class to vote. None of these are huge by themselves, but all of them go to the same purpose: make it hard for people to vote, particularly those likely to vote for Democrats.

The reason is clear: Republicans are not supported by the majority. The elections show this. Every survey of political issues shows this (https://www.businessinsider.com/american-public-opinion-on-major-issues-institutions-2017-2). The majority of Americans support the right to legal abortions. They believe climate change is caused by human activity and needs to be addressed. They believe wealth inequality is a problem and the rich should be taxed more. They believe marijuana should be legalized. They believe guns should require permits and background checks. They think Social Security and Medicare are good things and that people have a right to health care. They think we should spend more on education. They think we should protect the environment. They think immigrants are good for our country. These are all Democratic positions, most of which the Republicans fight strongly against. These numbers are different among people who actually vote and that is why Republicans fear more voters and why they fight so hard against democracy.

It’s entirely obvious that the minority who have control through unfair measures will do their best to maintain the status quo, but if you have any sense of fairness, if you really believe in the principle of one person, one vote, and that our government should represent the people, the only ethical thing to do is to fight to return power to those who not only deserve it but will also do more to create more fairness in the system. Our country is Democratic, even if our government isn’t. We need to correct the government part.