By Krist Novoselic
Published November 1st 1998 in The Velvet Revolution
I'm here tonight to talk about an inclusive democracy. I want to speak
about the universal democratic value of inclusion. I want to expose the
real crisis of taxation without representation that millions of Americans
suffer from. If we are truly lovers of liberty and democracy, we must
reject the indignity and inequity our current exclusive democracy thrusts
on us. Let's look to proven and successful electoral methods that give
all Americans a voice in the only true democracy; an inclusive democracy.
Things are happening in regards to rethinking democracy, even in light of everything going on. There is legislation in Congress on national standards in regards to voting machines. In the wake of the Florida recount fiasco, The National Commission on Federal Election Reform, Chaired by Presidents Ford and Carter, respectively, has put forth some proposals like making election day a national holiday and making felons eligible to vote. While these are all issues worth considering, single seat, winner take all elections, the core of the problem, is still nowhere to be found in the course of these considerations.
Single seat, winner take all elections is to the two party system what the pincer move is to a successful military campaign. Our current electoral system is basically, divide and conquer.
Our leaders beat the drum of freedom and democracy but keep the dirty little secret of American democracy to themselves. You see, in the United States we do not choose our leaders, our leaders choose us. Every 10 years, elected officials in nearly every political jurisdiction in the nation carve up the political landscape into new legislative districts. Some cities and states have procedures to promote public interest in this redistricting process, but most do little to prevent the creation of a hodgepodge of gerrymandered districts. With increasingly sophisticated computer software, polling results and demographic data, incumbent legislators quite literally choose the voters before the voters have a chance to choose them. As a result of the redistricting process, most voters are locked into one-party districts where their only real choice at election time is to ratify the incumbent or heir apparent of the party controlling that district.
The exclusion I find most disturbing is when a candidate winning just 50.1% of the vote gets to represent 100% of the district or state. In a three-way race the winner doesn't even need a majority of the vote to win. The people who voted for the losing candidate receive the bitter pill that they will not have representation. They will not have representation and still pay taxes. Voters sense this, and so often we do not vote for a candidate we like, but rather the one who realistically stands the best chance of winning 'you know- the "lesser of two evils." Or, all too often, we don't bother to vote at all. No wonder the United States lags far, far behind the modern democracies of the world in voter participation.
The list goes on with the indignities Americans suffer at the hands of our exclusive two party system.
$1,000 a plate, major party fundraisers are exclusive to the overwhelming majority of Americans who canít shell out that kind of cash. Multi-million dollar election campaigns financed with candidates own money are exclusive, as it gives the wealthy an unfair advantage.
A campaign contribution to a candidate or party is too many times an investment protecting financial interests. Special interests, many times, hedge their bets by contributing to both major parties. With our current system, successful third party candidates are the rare exception and not the rule. This situation makes no incentive to most corporations and high donor individuals to contribute to third party campaigns. This fact is the foundation of our American political duopoly.
An exclusive democracy is when our election structure creates the conventional wisdom that voting for a third party candidate will be a wasted vote. Remember the last presidential election when some people told voters not to throw away their votes on Ralph Nader and to vote for Al Gore? This kind of rationale is nothing less than admitting that the voting booth is a garbage can. (Or if you are a Green voter, a recycling bin.) Our last national trauma, the Florida recount, was a glaring example of our obsolete and broken democracy. (Did you know that the vote count in New Mexico and Oregon was so close that, if we assume Buchanan voters would have voted for Bush, those votes would have made the difference in regards to the electoral college counts and the whole Florida mess wouldn't have even been necessary?)
Some people see this whole 'spoiler vote' phenomenon as an opportunity. In Washington State, a Republican Party operative went as far as to recruit Green Party activists to run for office. He called up these Greens and offered to shepherd them through the whole process of getting on the ballot; even paying filing fees and all. The Greens said that they started to notice something was fishy when this person would invite them to business lunches at greasy spoon diners, smoke cigarettes and order roast beef sandwiches. He was found out and the Greens gave the money back.
Politicians lament voter cynicism, but I believe that the cynicism is coming from the top down and not the other way around.
Our American democracy is an exclusive democracy. I believe that calling for a more inclusive democracy is one of the most patriotic things an American can do these days.
So what is an inclusive democracy?
The inclusion I'm talking about is using a Proportional Representation electoral system. Proportional Representation can also be referred to as PR. PR makes it so a party or candidate need not come in first to win seats A voter constituency that shows even ten percent at the polls could merit representation. Where our current system has small, winner take all districts, PR systems have larger multi-member districts where the votes are distributed proportionally. Where our current system makes losers out of millions of hard working Americans, PR can make most voters winners.
Proportional Representation is truly an inclusive form of democracy and there are different methods to go about it. The majority of democracies around the world use Instant Runoff Voting and Party List Ballots in various versions. They are proven and work.
With Instant Runoff Voting or IRV, you vote for candidates in order of preference. IRV works good for executive positions like president or governor. Say, in a field of four candidates, you get to vote for each candidate in order of preference. You mark the ballot with a first choice, second, third and fourth. As with any ballot you can choose not to vote for a candidate or candidates. If a candidate wins the majority of first choice votes, the election is over. If not, the instant runoff goes into effect and, in a nutshell, the candidate with the most first and second choices wins the elections. Some people ask if this method violates the principle of one-person one vote? Primary elections are a process of elimination. I've voted for a different candidate in the primary than in the general before. That was effectively, two votes in the same election. What IRV does is fold the primary into the general. IRV makes campaigns less expensive because a candidate doesn't have to effectively run two campaigns. Mud slinging is reduced because candidates not only compete for first choice votes, they go after second choice votes too.
Party List ballots are more for legislative bodies. They work better with the multi-member districts. With this method, you don't vote for a candidate as much as you vote for a party. Each party publishes a list with the names of its members that could be elected to the legislature. In a ten seat district, ten names would be published. Subsequent names are listed in order of potential succession. The proportion of seats won are determined by an allocation formula. So in a 10-seat district, a party that pulls in forty percent of the vote wins four seats and the top four names on the list get elected.
These are the systems that the majority of democracy's around the world use. Indeed, many of these democracies use a parliamentarian system. People always talk about fractionalization of multi party systems when criticizing Proportional Representation. They accuse multi party systems of instability because coalitions collapse. These are problems associated with the parliamentary system. I want you to know that I'm not proposing a parliamentary system. In a parliament, when the majority coalition collapses, the Prime Minister, or the head of that legislative body and country is ousted. PR can work very nicely in the three branches of elected government we use federally, and in our states. It can work in municipal elections. There is no need to amend our Constitution.
When Sen. Jim Jeffords left the Republican party to become an independent, the result was a power change in the Senate because the newly independent Jeffords formed a coalition with the Democrats. That's not to say that Jeffords can't vote with Republicans as he sees fit. The Arizona state senate has no majority in that chamber because it is tied fifty-fifty down the center. Legislators are getting things done with loose coalitions formed around an issue. In our federal and state government, legislators cross party lines all the time. PR will not cure partisan bickering and procedural maneuvers that law makers use to stall legislation. If you can think of something that will, please let me know.
Minority or splinter parties can have a disproportionately louder voice in a majority coalition, especially if they threaten to leave and lose the majority for that coalition. The proven remedy to minimize this is to have a threshold to qualify for election. The threshold can be a minimum of five, ten, fifteen or twenty percent of the vote to get your party elected. Thresholds have served stable PR democracies well for years.
FIVE REASONS WHY PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WILL IMPROVE OUR DEMOCRACY
In these heady times, there's much talk of freedom and democracy. The sad truth is within the past twelve months we've seen freedom and democracy contract. These two core principals of our nation are not mutually exclusive.
Remember that last November the world laughed at us and our crazy electoral system. I would be content if people just were to start talking about Proportional Representation as an electoral reform. As I said, it is nowhere on the radar screen.
In closing, I hope that I have made the case tonight for a more inclusive democracy, and I hope that in the process, I have made the case for a stronger America.
Thank you,
Krist Novoselic
Things are happening in regards to rethinking democracy, even in light of everything going on. There is legislation in Congress on national standards in regards to voting machines. In the wake of the Florida recount fiasco, The National Commission on Federal Election Reform, Chaired by Presidents Ford and Carter, respectively, has put forth some proposals like making election day a national holiday and making felons eligible to vote. While these are all issues worth considering, single seat, winner take all elections, the core of the problem, is still nowhere to be found in the course of these considerations.
Single seat, winner take all elections is to the two party system what the pincer move is to a successful military campaign. Our current electoral system is basically, divide and conquer.
Our leaders beat the drum of freedom and democracy but keep the dirty little secret of American democracy to themselves. You see, in the United States we do not choose our leaders, our leaders choose us. Every 10 years, elected officials in nearly every political jurisdiction in the nation carve up the political landscape into new legislative districts. Some cities and states have procedures to promote public interest in this redistricting process, but most do little to prevent the creation of a hodgepodge of gerrymandered districts. With increasingly sophisticated computer software, polling results and demographic data, incumbent legislators quite literally choose the voters before the voters have a chance to choose them. As a result of the redistricting process, most voters are locked into one-party districts where their only real choice at election time is to ratify the incumbent or heir apparent of the party controlling that district.
The exclusion I find most disturbing is when a candidate winning just 50.1% of the vote gets to represent 100% of the district or state. In a three-way race the winner doesn't even need a majority of the vote to win. The people who voted for the losing candidate receive the bitter pill that they will not have representation. They will not have representation and still pay taxes. Voters sense this, and so often we do not vote for a candidate we like, but rather the one who realistically stands the best chance of winning 'you know- the "lesser of two evils." Or, all too often, we don't bother to vote at all. No wonder the United States lags far, far behind the modern democracies of the world in voter participation.
The list goes on with the indignities Americans suffer at the hands of our exclusive two party system.
$1,000 a plate, major party fundraisers are exclusive to the overwhelming majority of Americans who canít shell out that kind of cash. Multi-million dollar election campaigns financed with candidates own money are exclusive, as it gives the wealthy an unfair advantage.
A campaign contribution to a candidate or party is too many times an investment protecting financial interests. Special interests, many times, hedge their bets by contributing to both major parties. With our current system, successful third party candidates are the rare exception and not the rule. This situation makes no incentive to most corporations and high donor individuals to contribute to third party campaigns. This fact is the foundation of our American political duopoly.
An exclusive democracy is when our election structure creates the conventional wisdom that voting for a third party candidate will be a wasted vote. Remember the last presidential election when some people told voters not to throw away their votes on Ralph Nader and to vote for Al Gore? This kind of rationale is nothing less than admitting that the voting booth is a garbage can. (Or if you are a Green voter, a recycling bin.) Our last national trauma, the Florida recount, was a glaring example of our obsolete and broken democracy. (Did you know that the vote count in New Mexico and Oregon was so close that, if we assume Buchanan voters would have voted for Bush, those votes would have made the difference in regards to the electoral college counts and the whole Florida mess wouldn't have even been necessary?)
Some people see this whole 'spoiler vote' phenomenon as an opportunity. In Washington State, a Republican Party operative went as far as to recruit Green Party activists to run for office. He called up these Greens and offered to shepherd them through the whole process of getting on the ballot; even paying filing fees and all. The Greens said that they started to notice something was fishy when this person would invite them to business lunches at greasy spoon diners, smoke cigarettes and order roast beef sandwiches. He was found out and the Greens gave the money back.
Politicians lament voter cynicism, but I believe that the cynicism is coming from the top down and not the other way around.
Our American democracy is an exclusive democracy. I believe that calling for a more inclusive democracy is one of the most patriotic things an American can do these days.
So what is an inclusive democracy?
The inclusion I'm talking about is using a Proportional Representation electoral system. Proportional Representation can also be referred to as PR. PR makes it so a party or candidate need not come in first to win seats A voter constituency that shows even ten percent at the polls could merit representation. Where our current system has small, winner take all districts, PR systems have larger multi-member districts where the votes are distributed proportionally. Where our current system makes losers out of millions of hard working Americans, PR can make most voters winners.
Proportional Representation is truly an inclusive form of democracy and there are different methods to go about it. The majority of democracies around the world use Instant Runoff Voting and Party List Ballots in various versions. They are proven and work.
With Instant Runoff Voting or IRV, you vote for candidates in order of preference. IRV works good for executive positions like president or governor. Say, in a field of four candidates, you get to vote for each candidate in order of preference. You mark the ballot with a first choice, second, third and fourth. As with any ballot you can choose not to vote for a candidate or candidates. If a candidate wins the majority of first choice votes, the election is over. If not, the instant runoff goes into effect and, in a nutshell, the candidate with the most first and second choices wins the elections. Some people ask if this method violates the principle of one-person one vote? Primary elections are a process of elimination. I've voted for a different candidate in the primary than in the general before. That was effectively, two votes in the same election. What IRV does is fold the primary into the general. IRV makes campaigns less expensive because a candidate doesn't have to effectively run two campaigns. Mud slinging is reduced because candidates not only compete for first choice votes, they go after second choice votes too.
Party List ballots are more for legislative bodies. They work better with the multi-member districts. With this method, you don't vote for a candidate as much as you vote for a party. Each party publishes a list with the names of its members that could be elected to the legislature. In a ten seat district, ten names would be published. Subsequent names are listed in order of potential succession. The proportion of seats won are determined by an allocation formula. So in a 10-seat district, a party that pulls in forty percent of the vote wins four seats and the top four names on the list get elected.
These are the systems that the majority of democracy's around the world use. Indeed, many of these democracies use a parliamentarian system. People always talk about fractionalization of multi party systems when criticizing Proportional Representation. They accuse multi party systems of instability because coalitions collapse. These are problems associated with the parliamentary system. I want you to know that I'm not proposing a parliamentary system. In a parliament, when the majority coalition collapses, the Prime Minister, or the head of that legislative body and country is ousted. PR can work very nicely in the three branches of elected government we use federally, and in our states. It can work in municipal elections. There is no need to amend our Constitution.
When Sen. Jim Jeffords left the Republican party to become an independent, the result was a power change in the Senate because the newly independent Jeffords formed a coalition with the Democrats. That's not to say that Jeffords can't vote with Republicans as he sees fit. The Arizona state senate has no majority in that chamber because it is tied fifty-fifty down the center. Legislators are getting things done with loose coalitions formed around an issue. In our federal and state government, legislators cross party lines all the time. PR will not cure partisan bickering and procedural maneuvers that law makers use to stall legislation. If you can think of something that will, please let me know.
Minority or splinter parties can have a disproportionately louder voice in a majority coalition, especially if they threaten to leave and lose the majority for that coalition. The proven remedy to minimize this is to have a threshold to qualify for election. The threshold can be a minimum of five, ten, fifteen or twenty percent of the vote to get your party elected. Thresholds have served stable PR democracies well for years.
FIVE REASONS WHY PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WILL IMPROVE OUR DEMOCRACY
- Voter participation will increase. Research around the world has shown when voters feel they have
real choices and are not just voting for the lesser of two evils, they
will be more inclined to vote.
- This country was founded on the notion that taxation
without representation is wrong. PR will reduce the great shame of taxation without representation.
- Big money, special interest campaign contributions have created
a lock out on our electoral system. Third parties are shut out because of the high cost of campaigns
alone. PR encourages grass
roots efforts because the goal of becoming elected can be within reach. PR invites diversity.
- PR does away with, costly, mostly redundant and low turnout
primary elections. Taxpayers
will save time and money.
- PR will eliminate the problem of spoiler candidates. No more
wasted votes. No more voting for the lesser of two evils. It ensures
majority rule by proportionally reflecting the ideological make up of
the electorate.
In these heady times, there's much talk of freedom and democracy. The sad truth is within the past twelve months we've seen freedom and democracy contract. These two core principals of our nation are not mutually exclusive.
Remember that last November the world laughed at us and our crazy electoral system. I would be content if people just were to start talking about Proportional Representation as an electoral reform. As I said, it is nowhere on the radar screen.
In closing, I hope that I have made the case tonight for a more inclusive democracy, and I hope that in the process, I have made the case for a stronger America.
Thank you,
Krist Novoselic