Via Yglesias come this paragraph in the Nation: Large debt–and the fear it creates–is a pacifying force. There was no tuition at the City University of New York when I attended one of its colleges in the 1970s, a time when tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to […]
Author Archives: JD
Internet voting and turnout
Via Election Updates, comes this story out of Virginia,
Many county and state election officials often lament of low voter turnout, but Surry County, Va. is anticipating 100 percent voter turnout for an upcoming Republican Primary — or a zero percent turnout. A quirk in redistricting means that the county will have to open a polling place for one voter for the upcoming primary. It will cost the county approximately $2,000 to open the polling place for the day and even if the lone voter shows up in the early moments of election day, the county must keep the location open till polls officially close across the state. Registrar Lucille Epps said she contacted the Virginia Board of Elections to ask if the lone voter could be sent to the next closest precinct but was told that was not possible.
Paul Gronke astutely adds:
This is a fun and silly story that Mindy Moretti dug up, but there is a very good reason beyond cost that the voter should be sent to another precinct–privacy! Obviously, Registrar Epps can not report returns for this precinct, but notice that the Registrar CAN’T REPORT PRECINCT LEVEL RETURNS FOR THE OTHER PRECINCTS EITHER, because a simple calculation will reveal the single voter’s choices.
Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development
This is a good point, and I wonder about it in a few other contexts. In Norway, for example, the country will be piloting an internet voting system for ten municipalities in their upcoming September local elections. If internet turnout matches that of Estonia’s first trial with i-voting, i-voters would be somewhere around 2 percent. Combine that with the low number of people per municipality, and the low number who vote in local elections, and it’s somewhat possible that you could have an extremely small number of internet voters per area. Maintaining transparency requires the government to post who voted via each method (paper ballot, early voting, internet) as well as the results for each method, so there could be a theoretical risk of being able to identify internet voters’ decisions. In most cases this isn’t that big of a risk, but it’s just a reminder of the many things that have to be considered when developing such a complex system.
The Party Still Decides…continued
Jonathan Bernstein probably doesn’t read my blog, but I was happy to see him repeat some of my recent arguments in his New Republic piece.
The key to grasping the place of Ames in the Republican nomination process is that it occurs right in the middle of the invisible primary—that portion of the process that takes place before voters are involved. During this period, candidates aren’t seeking the support of rank-and-file Republicans; they are appealing to party insiders of various kinds: party-aligned interest groups and media; governing and campaign professionals; formal party officials; and activists. From the point of view of those actors, the invisible primary is a time to sort out conflicts and coordinate action.
Read Bernstein’s piece (and his great blog!) and mine. Horse race narratives are generally not important, but elite signaling is. What’s happening now in Iowa is actually extremely important.
Institutions still matter
I try not to stray too much in US politics on this blog, only because that information is so easily obtained elsewhere. With that being said, party and electoral systems are well within the scope here so please read Hans Noel and Seth Masket’s new article in the Los Angeles Times. The arguments shouldn’t be novel to readers of this blog but apparently it’s possible to be very successful while making the opposite points, so it’ s good to get this out there.
I think the key parts here aren’t the explanation for why we only have two major parties, but the defense against those who see parties as the problem.
All of this seems unfair. Why should these two parties have such an advantage? That’s the wrong way to look at it. The Democrats and the Republicans are not our overlords. They are us. They are the natural creations of politically concerned citizens who want to make a difference. And because in a democracy, the more people you have, the more chance you have of making a difference, parties organize together to have strength in numbers.
That is democracy: people joining together, compromising among themselves to arrive at policies, and trying to get those policies enacted.
If you’re not content with the way this country is being governed, one of the best ways to change it is to get involved with one of the existing parties and work to nominate and elect candidates at all levels of government who will fight for the things you care about. Odds are, one of the parties will want much of what you want. Pining for an independent, third-party dictator is not only a waste of your time, but if you somehow got what you wanted, you’d quickly find it wasn’t what you wanted at all.
Pretty much my thoughts. Organized people, elected by citizens, debating policy in deliberative bodies is a wonderful thing. People who like democracy should not get so upset when they see it in action.
The Party Still Decides
The Party Decides
Walter Shapiro has an article in the New Republic about the overhyping of the Iowa Straw Polls.
Over the years, I have reached a different conclusion: The Iowa Straw Poll is one of the most insidious events in politics. Even though the straw poll is about as scientific as sorcery, political reporters over-hype the results and pretend that they mean something.
I’m normally very sympathetic to these arguments, and I get what Shapiro is getting at. Unfortunately, I have to disagree with his premise, and I wonder if he secretly does too. Shapiro starts by noting how unrepresentative of the larger Republican party the Straw Poll is:
In November 2008, 682,000 Iowa voters cast their ballots for McCain. The 119,000 Republicans who participated in the 2008 caucuses were the party stalwarts. But the 14,000 Republicans who voted in the 2007 straw poll were a microcosm of that microcosm—just 12 percent of the caucus attendees and a microscopic 2 percent of McCain voters. N
Yes, the event may only be made up of the most hardcore Republicans, but who does Shapiro thinks decide primaries? I’ll again encourage people to read my professor, Hans Noel’s book, The Party Decides, to get an idea of how modern presidential primaries really work. Events like the Straw Poll are a good way for party elites to test the loyalty of candidates to their policy preferences, while simultaneously examining their electablity. These events may play a large roll in the “invisible primary” that is actually quite crucial in determining who winds up getting the party’s nomination.
But my problem with Shapiro’s argument is not just that these elite events matter, it’s that he himself seems to admit that in his piece, which at times almost contradicts itself. As an example, Shapiro states:
Given the skewed nature of the event, you might think journalists would ignore the results. But, on the contrary, too many of my colleagues in the press inflate the straw poll’s significance, because they are desperate for any tangible numbers to enliven the long wait until convention delegates are actually selected.
Then, in the very next sentence!
And so the consequences of failure at the straw poll can be dramatic. In 1999, a disappointing sixth-place finish at Ames forced Lamar Alexander out of the race immediately after the results were in. The poll also fatally damaged the campaign of Elizabeth Dole, who dropped out two months later.
Ending the campaigns of two candidates doesn’t sound like an insignificant event. I sympathize with Shapiro’s frustration over something that’s important only because we say it’s important (cable news with its small audience comes to mind), but that doesn’t mean it’s not important! One could make the same argument about overstating importance to a wide number of things such as the Iowa Caucus itself. After all, it’s only so many delegates, but we make it out to be a big deal! For better or worse, it is a big deal and I think it would be wise to pay attention to what happens there.
What’s the status of subnational government in Egypt?
I finally have a reason to post one of my photos from Alexandria
Via Heba Fahmy, comes this story regarding the appointment of Adel Labib as Governor of Qena.
CAIRO: Most residents of the Upper Egyptian city of Qena welcomed the decision to appoint Adel Labib as the governor for the second time, while others called for a new civilian governor…
Labib was previously the governor of Alexandria, where residents strongly opposed his decisions and hindered his development projects, according to Mahmoud.
…“Labib will try to prove that Alexandria’s residents were wrong about him,” Mahmoud said, adding that Qena’s residents will also try to prove that Mikhael was the wrong governor for them.
A governor isn’t liked in one area, so he’s simply moved to another. Imagine Scott Walker getting dumped on Minnesota because they didn’t complain enough!
I’m not going to address the politics of the appointment, or the considerable controversy that recent appointments have caused in the past few months. But I would like to know: has there been any talk about changing the system of local governance in Egypt? Governors are currently appointed by the president, which isn’t an unheard of system, but it’s not very accountable either. (Indonesia recently moved from central appointments to direct elections for its governors, although the execution hasn’t been flawless).
Egypt last held local elections in 2008 and the old rules had them staggered for four year terms. Local elected officials didn’t have much power (shocking!) although the elections still had some importance due to the potential impact they had on presidential elections. (In order to qualify as an independent for the presidency, potential candidates had to collect 250 signatures from elected officials, who could be from both the local and national level).
Obviously a lot of important stuff needs to happen first, and local government elections aren’t considered that important when building a narrative about different factions vying for control of the country. When it comes to actually governing the country well, however, local government can be extremely important. Hopefully the attention stakeholders are committing to the current electoral system will extend to subnational government as well.
Egyptian alliance demands changes to election laws
In Egypt, people still aren’t happy with the details of the new electoral law. This is a pretty impressive list of players who are unified in opposition:
The alliance refused the law earlier and gave the SCAF and the government two weeks to modify it.
The SCAF law states that 50 percent of the seats will be elected through the individual system and 50 percents through closed party lists, while the Democratic Alliance law suggests the latter system be applied exclusively.
The Democratic Alliance, called for by Al-Wafd and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), comprises 28 parties from the left and far right, bringing together proclaimed liberals and Islamists.
It includes Al-Wafd, Nasserist, Al-Ghad, Al-Karama, Al-Tagammu, Labor, FJP, Al-Geel, Al-Ahrar and the Egyptian Arab Socialist parties, as well as the Salafi Al-Nour, Al-Fadila and Al-Tawheed Al-Araby parties….
The meeting was attended by presidential hopefuls Amr Moussa and Hisham Al-Bastawisy, Nasser Abdel Hamid, member of Revolution Coalition Youth, and deputy Prime Minister, Ali Al-Selmy.
What’s truly amazing is nobody knows how the districts will be drawn; that’s pretty essential knowledge for a party that wants to be competitive nationwide. Of course every party will share this disadvantage, which probably means the major impact of the delay will be to weaken the already fragmented party system while strengthening the hands of local elites.
Latvia referendum will result in snap election
Unity (Vienotība) Party
Latvian voters on July 23 overwhelmingly voted to dissolve parliament in a special referendum. The referendum was called by then-President Valdis Zatlers in May after their parliament, the Saeima, blocked an anti-corruption investigation against a prominent politician. The results set the stage for snap parliamentary elections on September 17.
Latvia has a unique provision where the president, who is elected indirectly by the Saeima, can call for a special referendum to dissolve the body. If the referendum fails, however, the president must step down. This became a mute point for Zatlers as the Saeima voted him out of office in response to the referendum. Zatlers called the poll just days before the Saeima was scheduled to hold its vote on the next president, and they apparently didn’t respond very well to his move.
Zatlers has already formed a new political party, The Zatlers Reform Party, which is apparently doing quite well in initial polling. A party this large emerging in a few months is likely to shake up the country’s party system, which has already undergone some major shifts in the past few weeks.
In a direct reference to the country’s most popular political force, meanwhile, LPP/LC — also center-right — has officially renamed itself Slesers’ Reform Party. Ainars Slesers, widely known as one of the country’s three “oligarchs”, is also the party’s candidate for prime minister. The ruling Unity political coalition, meanwhile, has officially declared itself a single party and re-nominated current Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis as their candidate for the next head of government.
Other parties and alliances in Lativa include Harmony Centre, which mostly represents ethnic Russians, and The Union of Greens and Farmers, who are a rare alliance between a Green movement and populist agrarians that actually place them on the right of the political spectrum.
Egyptian SCAF unveils new electoral system
Egyptian Army council General Mamdouh Shahin announced on Wednesday final amendments to the country’s electoral law. The new system has a lot in common with what I previously wrote about, with some key changes. Under the new system, fifty percent of seats in the lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly, will be awarded through closed-list proportional representation, while the other half will be awarded in two-seat districts. This is a change from the draft law the SCAF put out where only one third of seats would be PR. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the extremely low threshold for entering parliament, which was placed at 1/2 of all national votes.
The new law also abolishes the 64 seats reserved for women, which was instituted before the last election in 2010. In its place is a provision that mandates every party list must include at least one female. Other changes in the law include lowering the age for candidate eligibility from 30 to 25, and stipulating that elections take place in three stages.
I can think of three major implications of the new laws. Let’s start with the new PR tier. The ordinal tier of seats will be divided into 58 constituencies, which for 252 seats (half of the 504 elected members) will create an average district magnitude of 4.3 That’s not very proportional; combined with the two seat districts this system still looks very majoritarian. This makes the .5% threshold all the more bizarre. As far as I know this would make Egypt’s threshold the lowest in the world, even more so than neighboring Israel. While Israel’s one nationwide district allows for extreme party fragmentation, however, I don’t think Egypt’s threshold will have much impact. Maybe Egypt’s planners read Carey and Hix’s recent paper, The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low-Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems. In the paper, the authors, find an optimal district magnitude – around three to eight seats – which produces low party fragmentation while still retaining a level of proportionality associated with higher seats per district. This sort of assumes, however, that the other half of seats aren’t awarded in the strange two-seat districts that Egypt’s will be.
The second, somewhat related point, is the impact this system will have on women’s representation. Mandating one candidate per list be female is a weak stipulation. With no requirement for where on the list the women has to be, it will be easy for a party to bury women at the bottom of their lists. This incentive will only increase in small magnitude districts as it will become more likely that only the top one or two candidates will be elected.
As far as the three stages for elections go, I think this is also a bad idea. The fear I have with this is it will give parties an incentive to call for a boycott after the first stage if they don’t like the results. This could have the effect of delegitimizing an otherwise well-conducted election. (I’m not assuming it will be of course).
Presidential elections in Sao Tome and Principe
Manuel Pinto da Costa, the former one-party ruler of Sao Tome and Principe, captured enough votes last Sunday to move on to the second round of the country’s presidential election. Costa, who is running as an independent candidate, will face Parliamentary speaker Evaristo de Carvalho in the runoff. Costa ruled Sao Tome and Principe from the country’s 1975 independence from Portugal, to 1990. Carvalho, a former prime minister, is the candidate of the Independent Democratic Action (ADI) party, which won last year’s parliamentary election. The runoff will be held on August 7.
Ahwa Talk 