Twelve people stood on stage last night, each trying to explain why they should be the next President of the United States. But after yet another three hours of back and forth between a dozen candidates, have we learned enough to choose a president?
We were in a similar situation four years ago. At that time, we were fairly certain that Hillary Clinton was going to be the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, the Republican race, with its multitude of characters, seemed like a farce. No one really stood out. At the time, Donald Trump has a substantial following, but not a majority of Republican voters. He gained his support mostly do to name recognition, and turning the Republican debates into Jerry Springer-like events, that many found entertaining.
Over the next few months, as primaries and caucuses were held, the experienced politicians in the Republican field found that they could not put their egos aside, and Trump racked up the delegates, based on name recognition and his entertainment value. By time the dust settled, and the two major candidates selected, many in the electorate asked, is this the best we could do.
That questions haunts the process of selecting a president to this day. Is this the best we can do? The process is easy to criticize. It takes too long. It’s tiring for potential voters. It’s superficial. It’s too expensive. It’s too divisive. It gives a small minority of people way too much power in influencing the outcome. And in the end, it is just way too possible for the choice of most American voters to be ignored, as the person losing the popular vote can still wind up being the president.
It’s no mystery why in many elections, voters complain that they are choosing the lesser of two evils.
Surely, we can do better.
While the Democrats were engaging in their debates here in the United States, a fascinating crisis of leadership unfolded in the United Kingdom. A new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has failed to convince fellow members of Parliament that leaving the European Union without concluding a deal upon which both the U.K. and the E.U. could agree would be a satisfactory outcome of Brexit. As a result, Johnson lost vote after vote in Parliament, and even saw enough of his party’s members defect to the opposition to rob him of a majority in Parliament. There was discussion of holding an election to choose a new Parliament. What was astonishing was that no one in the United Kingdom even questioned that such an election could be completed in five weeks.
Five weeks to choose an entirely new government in the U.K.; meanwhile, the campaign to choose a new president in the United States persists for more than two years. How can that possibly be? Do we really need all that time to make a reasoned decision? Some might even argue that the U.S. presidential campaign is never-ending. Indeed, President Trump continued to hold political rallies almost immediately after being sworn into office.
Is this really the best we can do?
Richard Nixon once said of running for president, that first one had to run to the right as far as he could to court Republican voters to nominate him. Then, during the general election, that same person had to run to the center as fast as he could, to convince independent voters to choose him over his Democratic rival.
It’s no wonder why American politicians are accused of flip-flopping.
To fix the system would go beyond tweaking what the United States already has. Indeed, simply abolishing the Electoral College would not be enough. The problem with the U.S. system includes our primary system, which takes too long, gives too much influence to two states with small populations, entrenches the two party system, and leaves a large number of voters without a voice in nominating the presidential candidates.
The first big contest of the nomination season is the Iowa Caucuses. Iowa represents less than one percent of the total U.S. population. Yet, presidential candidates flock to Iowa early every four years to court the state’s voters. Especially when a candidate trails in the national polls, if that candidate can somehow convince Iowa voters to choose him or her, that candidate can experience a huge burst in popularity and news coverage. At times, a win in Iowa can create enough momentum to propel a candidate to the nomination.
Similarly, the first primary election takes place in New Hampshire, where the population is roughly one-third that of Iowa. An victory in the first election of the primary season can be as equally powerful, especially for a dark horse candidate.
But why do states with such small populations have such a big influence over the major parties’ nomination? The short answer is tradition. Other states have tried to schedule their contests before Iowa and New Hampshire. But each time, the major parties threaten to discipline those states if they do so. For example, the major parties have threatened not to recognize any delegates selected in contests that occur before Iowa and New Hampshire.
The argument is that small states would otherwise get lost in the shuffle, if states with larger populations, such as California and Florida, have all of the influence over the nominations. But why is that a good thing? Some may even argue that giving states with lower populations so much influence over the presidential nominations goes against the democratic principle of majority rule.
Moreover, the current nomination system is built around the assumption of two major parties: Democrats and Republicans. Democrats, of course, tend to lean left, or liberal, in their political views, while Republicans lean right, or conservative. But in the last few decades, the number of U.S. voters who identify themselves as either Democrats or Republicans has fallen. A 2017 Gallup poll showed 31% of Americans identified themselves as Democrats, 24% as Republicans, and 42% as independent of any political party. Confining the nomination process to just the Democratic and Republican parties means an extremely large percentage of the U.S. electorate has no say in that process. Moreover, because each party has a definite leaning on the political spectrum, this means the more extreme voters in each party have a disproportionate say in who gets nominated. The nominees, then, tend to be more liberal or more conservative than the population at large. Centrist candidates are at a big disadvantage in the current system, even though most American voters tend to be more moderate than liberal or conservative.
It’s no wonder, then, why there is often wide-spread disappointment in the two major nominees for president.
Those who may favor third party candidates get ridiculed. A nominee from the Libertarian or Green Party has no chance to win. So why waste your vote on a third party the argument goes. And so, independent voters, who make up the largest block of voters, are the ones who have to compromise the most when choosing between the two major parties’ nominees.
Why does it have to be like this?
Of course, the final blow to democratic principles occurs when in the end, the choice of most U.S. voters is ignored, and the loser winds of becoming the president. This is the result of the Electoral College. To summarize, the reality of the presidential election is that there are 51 separate elections, one in each state and one in the District of Columbia. Each state is given an amount of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives that states send to Congress, with the District of Columbia receiving three. The result of this system is to give voters in states with smaller populations a greater say in who becomes the president. Thus, the loser of the popular vote can still become president provided he or she can win in enough states. This has happened five times in the history of the United States. But the last two times have happened within 16 years of each other. With Republicans having appeal to many of those smaller states, they have something of an advantage in the Electoral College system. Therefore, what was once thought of as a rare oddity of the American system threatens to become the norm in elections to come.
In sum, for a country that prides itself on being a democratic republic, its method of choosing a chief executive goes against many democratic principles.
In recent years, there has been a growing cry to eliminate the Electoral College. Some states have passed laws to give their states’ electors to whomever wins the national popular vote. The problem with concentrating on the Electoral College is that it fails to address all of the issues with the entire process.
A far more satisfying approach is to do away with the entire nomination system and Electoral College. The United States should adopt a system much like Louisiana’s non-partisan primary. In such a system, two elections are held. The first is a primary, in which every candidate runs, regardless of party affiliation. If somebody receives a majority (greater than 50%) of the vote, then we have our winner and the second election is cancelled. But if no one wins a majority in the primary, then the top two candidates face each other in the general election, held about one month later. Several countries, such as France, employ a system like this.
Such a system cuts down on the length of the presidential campaign, thus ending the non-stop campaigning we have today. Because it is a national election, no one region would have greater influence over the others. Because it is non-partisan, centrists and third party candidates have a greater chance of winning, meaning voters can freely vote their conscience, instead of choosing the lesser of two evils. It is a more democratic system, and likely to result in candidates that reflect the views of a larger proportion of the U.S. population.
By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.
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