Reflections on Election Practice

The election is over and I think it's time to start thinking about what lessons we can take from the experience.  Many have already tried to draw conclusions about the political prospects for the next cycle of elections or even the next presidential election.  At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I think there are far greater concerns that our most recent election highlights.  Specifically, the problem is the way American elections work in the first place.

To put it succinctly, American election campaigns are way too long, but the elections themselves are way too short.

If we first examine the length of the campaign, we quickly see that the voting population (and the non-voting population as well) grows fatigued with the incessant campaign ads long before it is time to vote.  Our experience in Wisconsin is one where Eric Hovde started running campaign ads for his senate campaign nearly a year before the election.  This problem is compounded by the ridiculous amount of money that can be dumped into a particular election by outside parties thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.  Any television viewer or radio listener in a swing state is probably all to familiar with the compounding effects of the length of the campaign cycle and the copious amounts of ad spending.

We're already seeing this repeat itself.  The election is not even a week old and already people are talking about the next election.  You do not hear Republicans talking about their legislative agenda (because I do not consider "impede everything Obama does" to be an actual legislative agenda).  Instead, you hear them talking about their political agenda, how they will fight with the President, how they will retool for the next election and how they can reach voters who want "things" as Bill O'Riley so bluntly put it during Fox News coverage of the election.

Conspicuously absent is a legislative agenda.  Republicans in Congress are setting up to do exactly what they tried to do for the last four years: dig their heals in on every conceivable issue and then blame the President for not getting more stuff done.  What we have is a bicameral body of 435 people whose full time job is to win their next election, not to govern a massive and powerful country responsibly.

If it is clear that the campaign is too long, it should be equally clear that the actual election is too short.  It is way too difficult for way too many Americans to find the time to stand in line (in many cases) during one 12 hour window in November.  Real people have real jobs, they have kids, they have responsibilities that have a much more immediate impact on their every day lives than casting their vote in even a Presidential election.  Why does the single mother have to chose between voting and making dinner for her children?

The myriad of early voting options has certainly made things better as of recently, but that will only reach so many people.  If you want to make sure that everybody is able to vote, you have fundamentally change the way we conduct elections in the United States.  First, voter registration needs to be automatic and mandatory.  Second, elections cannot be held during the work week.   Elections should either be moved to the weekend when people are more likely to actually have the time to engage in the process.  Failing that, election day needs to be made a national holiday where EVERYBODY is given the day off.  Obviously there would be some exceptions out of necessity, but the national business of the day needs to be the election and the election only, as far as is feasible.

If you give people an adequate opportunity to vote, coupled with the incentive to do so, people will engage.  Right now we have a system where voting is too much of a hassle, and they are desensitized to the process by an over-saturation political advertising that deals in nothing but generalizations and scare tactics.  Perhaps a shorted campaign season would force candidates to make a more logical case for their candidacy, rather than relying on the power or repeating simple ideas over and over until they sink into people's brains.  If more people felt like they were being  persuaded rather than talked at, they might be more willing to engage in the process.

Do Political Parties Matter?

I've heard people say that it doesn't matter who you vote for, that you're just shoveling the same garbage in and out.  At first glance, it seems to hold up.  We continue to elect different people and yet we continue to deal with the same conflicts and gridlock.  So far, the theory checks out.

The problem comes when we realize that divides on contested votes in congress happen very much along party lines.  Filibusters happen along party lines.  We vote for individuals, but what we're really getting is party votes.  The truth is that political parties are all that matter.  The individual you are voting for hardly makes a difference.  For the most part, swapping one Democrat for another, or swapping one Republican for another is not likely to generate a different result.

So, why don't people realize this?  In large degree, they do.  The problem is that a large portion of voters don't think this generalization applies to their elected representatives.  Approval ratings for congress are consistently in the gutter, yet incumbent reelection rates remain high.  That is because people do not view their own representatives as part of the rot at the core of the body they are a part of.

Nobody wants to view themselves or their representatives as part of the problem, but until people start to pay attention to who they're voting for and the system they exist within, political parties will continue to dominate the political system.  That domination comes at the expense of the actual voter.