The majority in Majority Rule

Change in voter turnout over time for five selected countries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Proficiency in basic math may not be universal among adults living in the United States, but it should be relatively close.  Despite this fact, it continues to amaze me how few people question or challenge elected officials who claim to have a mandate from the people despite never actually winning a majority of the votes.  I know what you may be thinking: that elected officials, by definition, have won a majority of the votes cast, otherwise they would not be in office.  Okay, hold that thought while I explain why I believe most elected officials should not claim such a mandate.

Start with voter turnout in ANY election.  In local elections around the country voter turnout can be as low as ten to fifteen percent.  Even in presidential elections we are lucky to get anywhere near sixty percent—great.  Let us focus on the big ticket race, the presidency.  If sixty percent of eligible voters vote in the election that means forty percent did not vote for any candidate.  Now, if the winner of the election wins with fifty-five percent of all votes cast (to be generous) he or she gets the job with a majority of the vote, right?  I get that, but that’s not my point.  I’m saying they can’t claim to represent a majority of the people.  In my estimation the winner of the election only had around thirty-three out of every one-hundred votes possible if you base your analysis on all eligible voters.  In defense of my point of view you can’t discount the significance of non-voters with the argument that they didn’t vote so they don’t count.  Not voting is a choice in most cases, similar to voting “none of the above.”  I also don’t accept the argument that those who do vote somehow represent those who do not (usually based on surveys of non-voters), therefore the results of the election are representative of the people.  If that argument had any validity we should just replace elections with some representative sample from a survey and save everybody a lot of time and money.  In my estimation, everybody that wins an election should be wary of hubris, and assume their seats with a measure of humility.  I would like to know what you think about my argument as it is played out here.  Does it hold water?

–DENNIS FALCON

Related articles

• Should Voting Be Mandatory? (ideas.time.com)
• Light voter turnout expected as Fla. polls open (miamiherald.com)

Voter Turnout—Come Rain, Shine, or the Victory of Voter Suppression

voting day in a small town (Photo credit: Muffet)

Elections in a winner-take-all system award victory and the spoils of victory to the candidate who collects the most votes.  Given the simplicity of the process it is easy to forget that there is more than one way to skin a cat—whether the cat is a Democrat or Republican.  Winning more votes than an opponent doesn’t always mean going out and exciting your base, registering new voters, or actually driving voters to their polling places.  To put it another way, winning more votes than an opponent doesn’t even mean effectively collecting more votes at all—not in the common sense.

Voter suppression campaigns have been a part of Democracy in the United States since the very beginning.  And that doesn’t even include the periods of time when certain people were denied the franchise (women, men who didn’t meet property requirements, slaves, former slaves, etc.).  Voter suppression refers to purposeful activities intended to dissuade otherwise eligible voters from voting; voting for your opponents.  Classic yet contemporary voter suppression activities include negative campaigning or mud-slinging (you may not have received a person’s vote but you’re going to do everything you can to keep them from voting for your opponent).  The most current form of voter suppression to be in vogue seems to be the move to require government issued identification at the polling booth (photo IDs in particular).  The need to prevent fraud is a legitimate, but policies that are intended to prevent fraud cannot be legitimate if they have the effect of suppressing legitimate voting by citizens of the United States.  Preventing one’s vote from being diluted because of fraudulent voting cannot be defended if it denies one American his or her entire vote.

What’s next, seeding clouds to make it rain on election-day in the red or blue state of your choice?  What do you think?  How does voter suppression impact democracy?

–DENNIS FALCON

Related articles

• No Taxation Without Representation! A Field Guide to Voter Suppression (motherjones.com)
• GOP Voter Suppression ID Laws May Affect Millions of Legal Voters (alternet.org)
• Voter ID laws suppress legitimate voters (thegazette.com)

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