Can the Democracy Index cause election reform?

Posted on April 3rd, 2009 Jack 1 comment  Print This Post

There is much ado in the blogosphere this week about the Democracy Index. Briefly, Yale law professor Heather Gerken has proposed ranking US states by level of quality of election administration. Her proposed index includes framework-based indicators (i.e. voting equipment integrity and registration procedures) as well as implementation indicators (i.e. time spent waiting to vote).¹ Rick Hasen calls the book “highly recommended,” and it has drawn the attention of AEI, the Pew Center on the States and Brookings, among others.

Many believe the index will create incentives to reform election management procedures. While Gerken’s project portends the systematic gathering of useful data, I am less convinced by claims about its capacity to foment reform.

According to the authors, the index should advance change in three ways: giving policymakers an empirical basis for standards development, informing voters so they can hold politicians accountable, and making states want higher rankings. This last point is getting the most play.

According to Gerken:

[The index] should work for the same reason that college rankings have such a dramatic effect on university decision making: no one wants to be at the bottom of the list.

Ed Foley offers further thoughts on the university rankings analogy:

Building upon a similar call by my Moritz colleague Dan Tokaji for the collection of reliable statistics relevant to policy judgments about election administration (as Gerken graciously acknowledges), the piece seeks a hard-number formula that would embarrass states with low scores. This embarrassment, in turn, would generate momentum for reform that would feed on itself in a cyclical “race to the top,” as low-scoring states leapfrog over previously higher-ranking ones, which having now slipped in the rankings would undertake initiatives to reestablish their superiority, and so forth.

Anyone familiar with how similar numerical rankings exert competitive pressures on law schools (and universities generally) to improve their performances according to the criteria used to determine these rankings, a phenomenon Gerken herself invokes in support of her proposal, knows the power of these numbers and thus the truth of Gerken’s insight.

Andrew Gelman shares this optimism:

What makes Gerken’s proposal particularly appealing is its feature of using open sharing of information to create incentives for states and localities to improve their electoral systems, by setting up specific targets that voters can follow.

Because the average voter’s expected benefit from election reform is relatively low, election management quality rankings will not work the same way that university rankings do. Consumers choose universities² according to their rankings, but voters are unlikely to move to higher ranked states. First, the cost of exit is too high. Second, even if it were not, voters almost certainly choose where to live for other reasons: economic conditions, climate, proximity to family, et cetera.

Democracy rankings are similarly unlikely to cause voters to vote out politicians who are not progressive about electoral reform. Most people simply care more about other issues. Even in good economic times, taxes and gay marriage will be higher priorities than maximizing the ease of voting or, for that mater, the competitiveness of a state legislative district.³

Finally, thinking that states – or the politicians in them who actually make decisions – will maximize state rankings overlooks the extent to which election administration is politicized. In an ideal United States, the default would be for government to maximize everyone’s ability to vote. In a world without 100% turnout or valid ballot rates, however, affecting those rates often has partisan implications.⁴ Consider Bush v. Gore, which permitted Florida officials to stop counting votes to the benefit of George W. Bush. Or Ohio 2004, when officials set unreasonable paper weight requirements for voter registration forms. Or recent broils over voter ID, persistent opposition to more universal voter registration, and the Rhode Island governor’s repeated refusal to let high school students pre-register. In close elections, control of the system is control of the outcome. Most politicians maximize partisan control, not democracy scores.

That said, I share the passion of Prof. Gerken and the other commentators for data and research-based advocacy. I also share her passion for raising election reform in voters’ preference orderings. If the index does effect reform, though, it likely will be through those rare but crucial public officials whose charisma and agenda-setting ability sometimes result in fairer elections.

1. Andrew Gelman notes how it also could incorporate minor parties’ concerns about issues like ballot access.
2. Especially law schools, where rankings heavily influence the prospects for job interviews after graduation.
3. California voters’ passage of independent redistricting may seem an exception. However this did not depend on “throwing the bums out,” as the reform (narrowly) passed at referendum.
4. ADDENDUM 4/6/09: Simon Jackman has a good post arguing that compulsory voting is the main reason for Australia’s high-quality election architecture. Quote: “In short, if the state wants to make something compulsory, then it has to make compliance easy, and that is essentially one of the chief things the AEC does, and does pretty well.”