Backslide, American-style

Monday’s Supeme Court upholding of Indiana’s voter ID law deserves comment on a blog about comparative democracy.

The short story: you cannot vote in Indiana unless you present valid, state- or federal-issued photo identification. The longer version: there is a fairly narrow list of accepted forms. If you don’t have one, you can fill out a provisional ballot and sign an affidavit as to your identity. If you want that vote to count, you have to go to the county seat within 10 days and sign another affidavit.

I have nothing against voter ID, even if solves a problem that doesn’t really exist. Except for people who don’t want their pictures taken, there nothing intrinsically wrong with voter ID…

…as long as the state accepts responsibility for issuing IDs to all citizens in an equal and accessible manner.

The social inequality of the policy as-is will be clear to anyone with SES columns in his spreadsheet. To vote without ID, you need a car and/or public transportation and considerable free time to dance with bureaucracy. To get a free ID, you need a car and/or public transportation and a valid birth certificate, which, if you don’t have one, means you need a car and/or public transportation and the free time to go get all this stuff.

This certainly will not increase turnout in the world’s most low-turnout established democracy. Especially among the poor and elderly – those without cars, mobility, free time, money or jobs that give them time to vote.

But these old arguments will be familiar to TDP’s Americanist audience. Rather than rehash the projected effects and underlying methodologies, I want to make three comparative points.

One. If the US constitution contained an equal and affirmative right to vote, no amount of judicial balancing would have produced this outcome. Unlike in the world’s other, established democracies, no such right exists. As such, SCOTUS has opened the door to similar policies in states itching to promulgate them.

Two. Even right-to-vote countries risk social inequality spilling over into political inequality. That’s why Canada’s electoral management body goes to people’s houses registering voters. With its policy of compulsory voting, Australia is similarly proactive about filling its rolls.

Three. Some say voting is a right, not a responsibility. If you want to vote, get off your lazy duff and make the preparations. That argument is a mask – one that secures buy-in among libertarian-oriented masses – for systemic efforts to steal elections where technology and learning make overt fraud obsolete. Around the world, parallel vote counts and international pressure have forced authoritarian leaders to “upgrade” their methods. By squeezing participation, restrictive electoral laws let dictators steal elections long before election day. As the number of competitive federal jurisdictions in America drops, state-level entry barriers make electoral conclusions more foregone in all but the most competitive years.

American democracy will survive voter ID, but it’s a step in the authoritarian direction. The short-term solution is affirmative state action to issue those IDs. In the long term, we need a federally guaranteed, equal right to vote.

Domestic observers will monitor PA primary

According to a press release I just received (emphasis mine):

Common Cause’s election reform team will monitor voting problems and concerns that may arise tomorrow during the Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania, where an unprecedented turnout is expected, including a huge surge of new voters.

Some 7 million Pennsylvania voters are expected to vote tomorrow on paperless electronic voting machines that lack the ability to do a recount. Common Cause will help monitor problems reported to the Election Protection Coalition’s national voter hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Pennsylvania election officials are bracing for unprecedented turnout in a state with a recent history of voting machine problems, and where voter registration and registration changes have surged in recent months.

How will PA affect the big picture? Not very much, according to PoliBlog:

I must confess, it is difficult to get too excited about the Pennsylvania primary, given that no matter the result, we will be in basically the same position: Obama with more popular votes and pledged delegates, and therefore on the surer footing for the nomination.

Another part of the big picture concerns close elections. As Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 taught, close elections strain the legitimacy of rules otherwise considered minutiae. Will voting equipment and voter rolls join Michigan and Florida as flash points in the Clinton-Obama saga?

Assessing American Democracy on April 3

We are holding a symposium on Thursday called Assessing the State of Democracy in America: Is This the Best We Can Be?

Panelists from the academic, democracy promotion and U.S. political reform communities will discuss current work by Freedom House on American democracy, the presidential nominating system and what types of political reform the next administration should champion.

Keynote: Tom Melia, Freedom House

Panelists:
Algernon Austin, Economic Policy Institute
Patrick Basham, Democracy Institute/Cato Institute
Doug Chapin, electionline.org/Pew Charitable Trusts
Ryan O’Donnell, Common Cause
Rob Richie, FairVote
Mark Rom, Georgetown Public Policy Institute

Moderators:
Dan Brumberg, Georgetown Democracy & Governance
Barak Hoffman, Center for Democracy and Civil Society

Join us at the Carnegie Endowment off Dupont Circle on April 3 from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. Come a little earlier for continental breakfast.

For more information and the RSVP address, see the listing on Georgetown’s site.

Gravel joins the LP

Via Richard Winger, Mike Gravel has joined the Libertarian Party.

On the face of it, this is odd from a guy, ostensibly left of center, who nominally sought the Democratic nomination just months ago.

Then again, Gravel’s self-interest calculation probably has shifted to long-term instrumental. The Dems having rejected him, he has to seek voice through other channels. One is electoral reform. Closely related, another is a minor party. If one wants to effect reform or party-building, one should join a relatively viable organization. That gives him a choice between the LP and Greens. In that case, this is not so odd.

Playing the Momentum Game

The big news out of Wisconsin and Hawaii is that Barak Obama won in two states that he was expected to win. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whether or not you are “on the hope train,” this news is not very big at all. In fact, most news outlets have decided to focus their articles on Obama’s win streak or what the exit polls tell us or both.

I’d like just to pause for a moment and bask in the meaning of Wisconsin and Hawaii. The fact that Obama won these states expectedly, particularly Wisconsin, which is seen as a swing state, is a very big deal. Had Hillary won, or even come close, the tenor of the post-February-19th-primary news cycle would have been entirely different.

Because Obama won Wisconsin and Hawaii, two weeks of news will focus on the despair and frustration of the HRC campaign rather than the hopeful optimism that might have been. She will fuel this descent by truncating her articulation of purpose and harping the urgency of her cause. Her message of hope, which was over matched by Obama’s in the first place, will be replaced by attacks on his. Hillary will blame the media for taking her statements out of context and for siding with Obama. No, it couldn’t be her fault that she’s struggling to hang on. Maybe she needs a new campaign manager.

Of course, most of the things I’ve written above have been characteristics of Hillary’s campaign for quite some time. They are more descriptive than predictive. Wisconsin and Hawaii prove that Hillary began digging her grave prematurely: despair became her story even though destiny was still something she could control.

Now, all she has is despair. She may want to make some campaign visits to churches, where maybe she can pray for a prayer.

Utah RNC delegate: GOP needs PR too

Utah’s rep to the Republican National Committee Rules Committee, Nancy Lord, is calling for proportional representation in the GOP primary:¹

“Mitt Romney is the poster boy for what can happen to someone when you have an unrepresentative system,” Lord said.

Some states say having a winner-take-all primary, like Utah did this time around, makes them more relevant. But Lord says what it does is squash grassroots campaigning. She also says it’s not fair in a tight race for the person who gets one more vote to get all the states delegates. Just look at Mitt Romney and Florida.

For Democrats, I suspect the combination of (1) PR, (2) a competitive race and (3) media attention to the delegate allocation rules made voters more relevant. That could explain the especially high Dem primary turnout we’ve seen.

Some commentators bemoan the Democrats’ delegate allocation system for not having produced a front-runner sooner. (Emphasis intended.) I’m not sure how speed in nomination is desirable with so much time left and so many persons still to vote.

1. Hat tip to the proportionalvoting listserv.

Facebook thoughts on the 2008 contest

Facebook asks:

Does McCain being the leading Republican candidate influence whether you support Clinton or Obama as the Democratic nominee?

Paraphrase: 4% for Clinton

16% for Obama

52% no effect [implies "decided Democrat"?]

27% don’t support anyone [implies "decided Republican"?]

No information (yet?) on the sample’s traits.

Thoughts from Italy on Election ‘08

From Corriere della Sera:

Il repubblicano McCain vincerà sui democratici Obama o Clinton? [TRANS: Will the Republican McCain beat the Democrat, whether Obama or Clinton?]

No 65.2%
Sì 34.8%

There is nothing scientific about this poll. The paper is explicit: “[These polls] have the sole purpose of letting readers express their opinions on current events.”

Even so, the result is interesting. Is that margin aspirational or speculative? And note the indifference to pairwise contests.

Corriere’s readership is fairly centrist, but it endorsed Prodi’s center-left coalition in 2006. So comparison is in order. It’s difficult to find a comparable poll (especially from a more conservative paper), but Il Messagero has this one on the most likely contest:

Secondo voi quali di queste coppie sono destinate a sfidarsi nelle presidenziali americane? [LOOSE TRANS: Which pair is destined to face off?

Clinton-McCain 22.5%
Clinton-Huckabee 2.6%
Obama-McCain 67.4%
Obama-Huckabee 7.5%

Italy's own elections are in mid-April. [UPDATE: For a good account of the circumstances, see this thread at F&V.]

How did the pollsters botch New Hampshire?

DISCLAIMER: Credit for this discovery goes to an (as yet) unnamed friend.

Those following the US presidential primaries will recall that, just about 24 hours ago, Obama was predicted to beat Clinton by a landslide. McCain’s win was expected to be much narrower than it was. How did the polls miss Clinton’s win? How did they underestimate McCain’s lead?

One explanation is that politics move quickly during primaries. Preferences change literally overnight. Not only do candidates triangulate with breakneck speed. Note the TV commentators positing women were updating in response to Obama and Edwards’ “ganging up” on Hillary. But discrepancies between the actual and expected seem too large to confirm that story.

Another concerns survey methodology, namely, the double-counting of independents.

Pollsters sample within parties, but they do not separate Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters into discreet categories. To get the list of Republicans, they find all non-Democrats. To get the Democrats, they find the non-Republicans. Both samples can end up with the same independents.

So the same independents were asked whom they preferred in both fields. Their response: Romney among Republicans and Obama among Democrats. Problem one.

Yet New Hampshire’s primary (like most) is closed. Voters there must pick their party by October 12. In practice, not all independents with opinions were able to vote. Problem two.

So McCain voters were registering ‘in name only’ support for Obama, and vice versa. Meanwhile independents registering preferences in the polls were not going to the voting polls. Obama’s projected landslide rested on the preferences of non-Republicans, not Democrats, and McCain’s projected close call with Romney rested on those of non-Democrats, not Republicans.

Having just two viable parties makes it easier to do numbers work. As some of this blog’s readers have noted, though, the binary depiction of reality makes possible critical errors in measurement.

Keep eye on Illinois constitutional convention

Illinois voters get to decide in November 2008 whether to hold a constitutional convention. The last vote, in 1988, failed 2.7 to 0.9 million.

Under the state constitution, the General Assembly can call such a vote by 3/5 vote of each house. If there hasn’t been a vote in 20 years, one automatically goes on the ballot.

There isn’t much news about this, but some relevant blogs have popped up. For a skeptical and critical view, see Total Drivel. For a “Declaration of Independence” approach, see this website of a declared delegate candidate. For a PR booster, see this new blog.

This is an opportunity – we’ll see if it’s taken – to undo the Cutback Amendment. In 1980, that referendum ended a 110-year experiment with a semi-proportional voting system. Under cumulative voting, it was said, DuPage County elected some Democrats, and Chicago elected some Republicans.

It will take a lot of work to make anything happen. In the event of a positive vote, elections to the convention are held (two members per district, assuming FPTP). Then there are internal convention dynamics to surmount.

This is worth a Google alert nonetheless.