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Convened by the American Association
for the Advancement of Science
Main | Participants
- Electoral form follows function here in the U.S. - unlike other countries,
which operate parliamentary democracies with strong parties, our system
is a good old-fashioned republic where representatives really do represent
that patch of land from which they are elected. [This is why I describe
Congressional majorities as “accumulated” rather than “elected.” – an
important distinction from most party-list parliamentary democracies.]
Consequently, the mere existence of diversity nationwide in the method
of electing our representatives is neither surprising nor necessarily
a source of concern.
- Moreover,
because of the relatively low priority traditionally placed upon election
administration at the state/local level, election officials have always
had to make difficult resource allocation decisions about technology,
procedures, and the like. In other words, we simply cannot divorce discussions
about election improvements from an assessment of what resources are
available to election officials to do this work.
- The
presence of different systems across the nation provides us with valuable
data about what works and what doesn't (i.e., the "laboratories
of democracy" argument) and offers communities the opportunity
to match their needs to their resources. Voters in downtown New York
City have very different needs than voters in rural Montana -- but they
also share key needs, such as the desire to have their vote counted
as it was cast. The trick, therefore, is to empower election officials
to make empirically-based decisions about what sort of system they should
employ in their jurisdiction.
- I think the best way to do this is twofold:
- provide election officials and other policymakers
with the information they need (relying more on empirical information
than laws, regulations or rules of thumb) ... right now, we know almost
nothing about the election process (e.g., how long do voters need
to use a machine - and whether that time varies by type of machine)
and in many cases that leaves officials flying blind when it comes
to administering their elections. With apologies to Donald Rumsfeld,
we are awash in a sea of "known unknowns" that could inform
decisions at all levels were we to set about learning them; and<
- establish a national community on election administration
-- informed by scholarship and disseminated through professional education,
model rules, regulations, etc. -- that will inform election officials,
policymakers and all other stakeholders of certain "national
standards" of election administration (akin to medical standards
of care or legal professional responsibility standards) that individual
jurisdictions can adopt or modify to their particular needs. These
national standards would then require inter- or intra-state variation
to be empirically based ("we differ from the national standards
because of local needs X and Y") rather than an accident of local
practice ("we do it this way because we have the authority to
do so"). Such standards would also provide election officials
with a response to charges of partisanship and, in the worst cases,
a reason to resist entreaties by fellow partisans to "game the
system" to one side's advantage ("I'd love to help you,
but if we do that we'll get pilloried for deviating from national
standards without justification").
- I
don't think this necessarily has to be a regulatory regime to work ...
although plaintiffs, legislators and even candidates could use adherence
or deviation from the standards to enforce its standards. The good news
is that we already have the building blocks in place - the EAC, the
blogosphere, electionline.org, professional organizations such
as NASED, NCSL, the Election Center and IACREOT, and a larger research
community chomping at the bit to dive into the data. All that's needed
is an effort to organize the community and begin the debate over what
the standards should be.
In conclusion, I realize this is all easier said than done, but I think it's
important, necessary and doable to consider a "third way"
between the current decentralized system of "let every flower bloom"
and proposed calls to nationalize elections in the manner of other democracies
worldwide.
P.S. We also need to think about how to find enough new election officials
to succeed the current generation - who won't live forever ... We need
to think about where these people will come from and how can we train
them to do the work we think needs to be done.
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