Sunday, January 24, 2016
letter from a philosopher, reprinted here without permission:
One of the Volokh conspirators, perhaps Ilya, has been writing about the problem of political ignorance, which is what you are describing.
One of the main solutions to this problem is party labels. In this model, voters decide which party reflects their values. They then either vote those party candidates or just hit the big green button if the machine is so equipped.
The party chooses its candidates in a primary, where a smaller number of better informed or otherwise motivated voters do the choosing. In my county, the primary is proceeded by a slating convention, at which precinct captains vote on who to slate. Normally, the county chair tells the precinct captains how to vote. Normally, the slated candidate wins the primary. There are occasional exceptions,and occasionally an independent candidate has enough of a following to overcome the party advantage.
Additionally, many voters are motivated by machines. The machine does a favor for the voter, and in exchange for the favor, the constituent is expected to vote. At one time, the favors came mostly from the party itself. Post-LBJ, the favors were more likely to come from the government, as controlled by the party. Tammany Hall was a pioneer of how this works. Plunkett of Tammany Hall is a book, free online, that talks about this.
When I ran for a non-partisan school board office, there was great public interest, several debates and extensive news coverage, because the usual signals were missing. When I ran for the legislature, there was no coverage, because we all knew it was a safe seat for the incumbent. He did go out and knock on doors and shake hands.
We all knew and liked John. The book "Positioning" talks about signals that lead people to vote a certain way or buy a brand of a soap. Richard Winger has shown that having the top line on the ballot is good for about 3%.
Names can be signals. I had a client who won a congressional primary as "Bob Kern" who had previously lost running as "Bobby Hildago." My friend Tony Garcia did pretty well running for Lt. Governor in Texas, Although he doesn't look much like what you'd expect a Tony Garcia to look like, the voters didn't know that.
Voter guides help solve the voter ignorance problem. One of our list members, Jim Bopp, has done valuable litigation over voter guides. Signs are another factor. In Indiana, and many other states,, you can go to jail for putting up a sign like "Vote for Smith." I challenged this twice, winning in Stewart v Taylor but losing in Majors v Abell. (Recently cited in Van Hollen v FEC.) I am semi-retired but remain interested in working with people willing to litigate these disclaimer-type cases. .
As a political junkie, I know how to go to my county clerk'soffice website, enter an address, and pull up a sample ballot, but very few people know how to do that, all it gives are the names,and there's no one national site to do that.
It would be feasible for somebody with deep pockets to do a national version. The two big political parties could do this, perhaps only listing their own candidates, or the Koch brothers could do this. I'm not sure common cause or ballotpedia has the resources. I suppose Google could.
The question you've raised is a deep and valuable one. Philosophers have their uses.
All,
I'm new to the list. Apologies if this is covered in the archives...
I'm a "concerned citizen" without training in law or political science (my Ph.D. is in philosophy). I'm just interested in the following special issue. I was talking to a list-member about the problem and he recommended I check this list out.
I'm trying to understand a problem I encountered last Nov. 4: not being able to find my complete ballot, in advance, including all down-ballot races. I live in an exurb of Columbus, Ohio, in a mostly rural county.
The problem: There were races on my actual ballot that I never saw on the sample ballots I found, I couldn't do my due diligence and make my mind up about the candidates before I stepped in the voting booth. My immediate reaction was: WTF? How is this even possible?
I'm trying to find out how widespread and serious this problem is.
(In case you're curious, here's how it shook out for me. I had moved from a locality that sent voter guides regularly to one that did not. I knew an off-year election was coming up, so I looked on vote411.org and Ballotpedia and a few other places for what would be on my ballot. I even went to the county Board of Elections website (Fairfield County, Ohio), but I couldn't find my ballot there. It turns out it was there, but the procedure for extracting it from the website is so arcane that I couldn't figure it out.)
It turns out that not even the Columbus Dispatch (which I had neglected to check out) had all the downballot races on my ballot; the Dispatch lacked a library board race as well as two or three judgeship races, and possibly something else. The other ballot lookup sites had even less information. Ballotpedia had my school board races, but vote411.org didn't even have that, and neither had my township trustee race.
After my shock at having spent hours doing my due diligence, only to discover that I couldn't vote on the down-ballot races (not honestly), which I hadn't known about, I started checking out the problem. I ended up calling the guy who lost the township trustee race. I asked him if he felt disappointed that many if not most of the people who went to vote in the election didn't even know that an election was taking place. He said he tried to get the word out, but to little avail. I asked if he thought it was a failure of democracy, and he replied that he thought it was a failure of bureaucracy; we concluded by agreeing that bureaucracy had failed democracy.
Here are some of my questions for the experts on this list; any help would be greatly appreciated:
- Have I somehow misunderstood the situation? Is this somehow not a problem after all?
- Just how widespread is this problem? For what percentage of the American public is locating a complete ballot, including all down-ballot races, a serious challenge (as it was for me)?
- I grew up in a locality that supplies a fine voter's guide. This isn't a problem there. Where is it a problem? (Maybe rural or semi-rural places, like mine?)
- How do local candidates feel about this problem? Surely they realize it is a problem...when it is.
- And more of a philosophical question: In your expert opinion, does this represent a serious failure of democracy?
- And if so, why haven't we solved it??
- Where can I read more about this problem or otherwise get insight?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Larry Sanger
Notes on a response:
One of the main solutions to this problem is party labels. In this model, voters decide which party reflects their values. They then either vote those party candidates or just hit the big green button if the machine is so equipped.
The party chooses its candidates in a primary, where a smaller number of better informed or otherwise motivated voters do the choosing. In my county, the primary is proceeded by a slating convention, at which precinct captains vote on who to slate. Normally, the county chair tells the precinct captains how to vote. Normally, the slated candidate wins the primary. There are occasional exceptions,and occasionally an independent candidate has enough of a following to overcome the party advantage.
Additionally, many voters are motivated by machines. The machine does a favor for the voter, and in exchange for the favor, the constituent is expected to vote. At one time, the favors came mostly from the party itself. Post-LBJ, the favors were more likely to come from the government, as controlled by the party. Tammany Hall was a pioneer of how this works. Plunkett of Tammany Hall is a book, free online, that talks about this.
When I ran for a non-partisan school board office, there was great public interest, several debates and extensive news coverage, because the usual signals were missing. When I ran for the legislature, there was no coverage, because we all knew it was a safe seat for the incumbent. He did go out and knock on doors and shake hands.
We all knew and liked John. The book "Positioning" talks about signals that lead people to vote a certain way or buy a brand of a soap. Richard Winger has shown that having the top line on the ballot is good for about 3%.
Names can be signals. I had a client who won a congressional primary as "Bob Kern" who had previously lost running as "Bobby Hildago." My friend Tony Garcia did pretty well running for Lt. Governor in Texas, Although he doesn't look much like what you'd expect a Tony Garcia to look like, the voters didn't know that.
Voter guides help solve the voter ignorance problem. One of our list members, Jim Bopp, has done valuable litigation over voter guides. Signs are another factor. In Indiana, and many other states,, you can go to jail for putting up a sign like "Vote for Smith." I challenged this twice, winning in Stewart v Taylor but losing in Majors v Abell. (Recently cited in Van Hollen v FEC.) I am semi-retired but remain interested in working with people willing to litigate these disclaimer-type cases. .
As a political junkie, I know how to go to my county clerk's
It would be feasible for somebody with deep pockets to do a national version. The two big political parties could do this, perhaps only listing their own candidates, or the Koch brothers could do this. I'm not sure common cause or ballotpedia has the resources. I suppose Google could.
The question you've raised is a deep and valuable one. Philosophers have their uses.
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