Superdelegates and democracy

The Primary Contest Rules

I hate to get embroiled in a topic that is so ancillary and overrated, but when has that ever stopped me? I keep hearing about the supposed problem the Democrats have with deciding their nominee, to the point of hearing on the News Hour tonight that there is no principled way the Democrats will be able to select a nominee because both candidates will have strong claims, such as Hillary Clinton's having "won more big states" and Barack Obama's having "won more delegates" (each a presumed outcome that has not yet come to pass because the nominating process is not yet over). Other factors offered are most pledged delegates, most states, most popular votes, and of course, most meritorious candidate. Hmmm. How can one possibly resolve this conundrum?

Well, as an attorney, I might instinctively be drawn to the rules, which say the most delegates wins, and mentions nothing about big states or any of the other factors. As I have also noted, the whole idea of states won is all or mostly just an arbirary media invention. The states are not won or lost except to the extent they send any at-large delegates. I don't actually know of any states that do this, but I don't want to presume out of ignorance that the idea is completely meaningless or fabricated, since it might actually exist as a minuscule factor under the rules.

The argument has been made that following the rules, and thus not abiding strictly to measures like poplar vote, is undemocratic. That's true, at least in some technical sense. But I would not jettison the rules as undemocratic in the middle of a contest unless the undemocratic nature of the rules were really severe. Otherwise, one would trade a small evil for an even greater one: abandoning the order of rules altogether, changing the rules in the middle of the game, and raising the spectre, which would taint the entire process, of whether the criteria ultimately chosen at the end of the day to select the victor were not actually reverse-engineered to produce the desired result.

I think the idea of seating Michigan and Florida delegates on the directive that they vote 50/50 for Obama and Clinton, or vote in the rough proportion of the final outcome among the remaining delegates, is absurd, as is the notion of pressuring superdelegates to vote along similar lines. The short version of this standard would be, you can vote as long as your vote does not count.

I don't think there's any excuse for Michigan and Florida to participate on the basis of the "contests" they've held so far, which did not reflect anything close to the will of Florida or Michigan party members or eligible voters. These were meaningless non-contests, because there was only one major candidate for the nomination contesting them. Have a do-over, or forfeit the seats. Again, the rule may have been dumb, but it would be worse to change the rules after the results are in.

On the power of the superdelegates, I don't think it's by any means antidemocratic that they should get to vote and potentially shift the result from that which would come from a vote conducted exclusively among the pledged delegates. That's what having a vote means: that you can potentially influence the result. One could say against any bloc of voters: how dare you vote against the majority selection of the voters outside your bloc? The answer is, because our votes should count. Superdelegates' votes should count. You can argue about how much, but it is not an undemocratic mechanism to have a set of trusted party figures exercise a role in the outcome. There are two reasons for this:

First, this is not a complete national polity, but a political party, which is like a private club, which has an internal heirarchy and a set of gatekeepers. If you don't like what the party stands for or how it operates, you always have the solution of starting your own party. (In contrast, if you were disenfranchised from a general election, you could not just start your own country, at least not without a war.) The party would rather see some people go than participate, anyway, because they are not sufficiently bound to the party, do not share its interests, and may vote to defeat its interests, which is why some places have closed primaries, and will not let Republicans express a binding preference on whether they'd rather see Clinton or Obama in the general race.

Second, even if the nominating process were not in the domain of a private voluntary association, there is some rationale to letting some delegates cast votes without being bound by the results of primaries and caucuses. This is because those delegates will have some advantages over the primary voters. Not only is their dedication to party presumably more reliable because of their longstanding affiliation and contributions, and their interests in its success correspondingly higher, but they have advantages of expertise, and hindsight over the entire election process, which is to say, a superdelegate from Iowa might have a viewpoint closer to what Iowan voters overall express on nominating day than the voters themselves did way back on the day of the Iowa caucuses, when a third were still voting for Edwards. New Hampshire democrats might now favor Obama who previously used their votes to garner delegates in a different primary for Ron Paul.

The votes of pledged delegates have their own weaknesses from a democratic perspective because viewpoints change, new facts and arguments emerge, problems facing the nation evolve, and political options narrow. Nothing in the mechanism of election was so pristine anyway. They have any number of problems ranging from disparate access to the polls, unreliable voting machines, and disproportionate exposure to the messages of the candidates who had by then raised more money from large contributors.

If the unelected elites of the party had no mechanism of accountability, and accounted for more than 50% of the power over the nominating decision, then one could certainly argue that their disproportionate voice was undemocratic. But where they stand poised to decide the outcome only because the pledged delegates are breaking close to 50/50, meaning that neither Obama nor Clinton is the decisive choice of the party, then certainly recourse to the party leaders at least as legitimate as flipping a coin. And many, albeit not all, have some direct accountability to voters because they continue to hold elected positions or future electoral ambitions, which they would not want to jeopardize by going against their constituencies.

Of all the problems in our democratic processes, the use of superdelegates is one of the least pressing. Certainly, the notion of changing the rules in the middle of the game is much more disturbing, or should be.

The More General Problematology

Electoral systems are of necessity imperfect. On one level, there is simply the mathematical issue of it being impossible to construct a set of rules that will always find the best preference in a multicandidate race. People's potential rankings and weightings of candidates are too complex and may produce conflicted rankings in which no candiate is clearly the optimal pick by any means of calculation.

But in the practical world, it is seldom that the necessary minimum imperfection is even an important consideration, because the real and avoidable problems in voting systems are always so much greater. I once commented that the Communist Party of the USA would be advancing its principles greatly if it undertook a serious study of polyarchy and its defects in the US. (Most people do not know, because the communists are such an insignificant force these days, that they bill themselves as the party of "Bill of Rights socialism" and include a streak of libertarian philosophy that defies the popular expectations still held of a group that continues to honor Lenin and historically had lauded Stalin as well.)

The problems are many and diverse and go well beyond what can be attributed to Diebold.

The first category of problems comes from the representative system of indirect decision making. There are advantages in this system (the specialization of representatives leads to development of greater activity and expertise than could be expected through direct democracy) but it is nevertheless essentially antidemocratic, and its antidemocratic tendencies should be ameliorated as much as possible, but intstead are exacerbated by the existing system. Having a representative rather than a direct system opens the door to poor representation and essentially doubles all other problems by their appearance in two venues: voting on representatives and then on policy. In some cases, the problem is at least tripled because of multiple tiers of representation. For example, the system of setting presidential policy is threefold: voters select electors, electors select a president, and the president sets policy. Unless the president delegates, in which case the connection to the demos is even further attenuated. When representives act on behalf of voters, it intensifies problems of influence because representatives, more than their constituents, may be in fear of lobbies that exercise disproportionate power, or bought off by special interests (a bribe to electors is arguably not even a deficiency, but it certainly is one when an a representative views the harm to his constituents as an externality hence dramatically reducing the cost to the special interest of buying him off). Representatives may grow socially and culturally distant from their constituents and merge to form a nomenklatura class, as is found now in the "beltway."

Another problem inherent in all competative systems, and exacerbated by a rung of representation between voters and issues, is that parties do not equally fight dirty or with requisite intensity. The worst are full of passionate intensity while the ethically immaculate refuse to fight back because it would compromise their standards to do what would be necessary to win. There can be little doubt that the Republican Party, at least on the level of its national representatives (I hesitate to smear the millions of innocents who vote Republican because they fairly have not recognized this pattern), has become the party of graft and knife-fight rules when it comes to their competitive conduct. The unsavory tactics explored by Republicans have included simple kickbacks and virtually open bribery, to physical threats and psychological abuse to enforce party discipline, simply ignoring laws that do not suit them, and lying without remorse. They simply value winning more and past standards of decorum less, and are more willing to resort to threats or actual executions of fillibuster, impeachment, anonymous holds, earmarks, interim appointments, manipulation of rules, and any number of aggressive tactics which Democrats excessively eschew in the vain effort to keep up a nonexistent standard of comity.

Stepping back from policy back to elections, there are various particular other distortions introduced by having layers of elections. The electoral college is a special case, because it artificially overweights small states to no good purpose (there was a reason to mollify Delaware back in 1789, but what possible good in multiplying the voting power of Nevada?), sets an artificial limit on the electors allowed to the District of Colombia, and codifies the disenfranchisment of U.S. dependencies.

Of course, the primary system is another level of decisionmaking between voters and the issues. This one distorts the process by artificially inflating the importance of certain unrepresentative early-voting states. Both the geographic and partisan modes of subdividing the electorate introduce distortions in the process, twisting the course to election through the endorsements of subgroups.

Many of the problems are variations on incumbency power. Those who have the vote already effectively determine who may have and may not be enfranchised. Even though the group of ligible voters for the presidency has expanded to include women, racial minorities, landless white males, and younger adults, excluded groups still include many current and past convicts, minors who would otherwise be deemed competent, the homeless (in practical terms), and resident aliens (who are stakeholders and previously had the franchise in many states). Of course, there are others subject to some form of U.S. jurisdiction or influence but lacking either citizenship or residency. While including such foreigners has obvious considerations weighing against it, from the perspective of democratic theory, it produces a situation where those unfortunate enough to have been born in the wrong place are rendered less powerful over their own affairs through the force of law, and it is not easy to fully justify the extent to which this takes place.

Likewise, those in power set the limitations on even standing as a candidate, most typically by age limits, criminal history restrictions, birthplace, residence, and success in garnering some predetermined level of past or present support. But it is not entirely alien to our system to ban, criminalize, or persecute particular parties or impose religious tests. Even if hurdles set up against third party canidacies are surmountable, the exclusion from debates, free media, and serious consideration by the political class usually operate as an overwhelming counterweight to independent efforts. The winner-take all system, unameliorated by any proportional or cumulative system, amplifies the power of majorities and pushes minorities o the margin, a problem that is vastly amplified by gerrymandering that produces safe seats for incumbent
parties, disenfranchising near-majorites of voters almost everywhere and rendering most local races foregone conclusions after the primary.

Incumbents naturally have the power to reward their supporters by policy decisions, and use their influence in the fields of gerrymandering and manipulation of voter laws. Some formal privileges are awarded by law, such as franking for members of Congress. Incumbents have an automatic advantage in their curricula vitae, and access to media, and, perhaps most important of all, fundraising.

Money is the key factor in elections (even if insufficient to save a Mitt Romney from himself). It's true that no amount of money will sell a horrible candidate to an unwilling public, at least not when there is a slightly less horrible candidate who meets the threshold to participate. But lack of money certainly can, and almost invariably will, effectively doom candidates who would otherwise fly to the top of the pack. Money is used to polish candidates, fund the distribution of the message, and buy top talent in all areas of the science of campaigning. It has an exaggerated effect because the knowledge that it is necessary to success spawns the self-fulfilling prophesy that the unfunded will fail. Because money is selectively available to the rich, the rich have exaggerated influence. Money and volunteer time are the only mechanisms under our current system for persons to express the intensity of their preferences by doing more than voting, but devoting free time to candidates in a society where time is money means that this too is the preferential domain of the wealthy (the modestly affluent may volunteer while the destitute
cannot; the very wealthy, to well remunerated to volunteer themselves, pay others to do it for them).

Most of the remaining distortions in the system arise from the (manipulated) behavior of voters. Part of this is whether they vote or not, since turnout ranges from a bit over half in a successful election, to a meager fraction in a small, off-year contest. Turnouts of less than one percent are not hard to come by in certain races in certain places. The main reason people do not vote is that they have no impression that their vote carries meaningful influence. Polls can be a culprit if they suggest the election will not be close. Some eligible electors are permanent non-voters; others are potentially persuadable, but the preliminary screening process has effectively prevented anyone who might appeal to them from presenting themselves. The election contest may manifest itself as something so overcomplicated or simply repellent that participation does not commend itself as something noble or profitable. Those otherwise interested are selectively dissuaded by legal threats, harassment, intentional misinformation, caging schemes, registration or identification requirements (and historically, poll tests and taxes), faulty election machines, and voter list errors. Inconvenience is a significant factor, and not evenly distributed. Distance to some polling places, the length of time required when there is a long line or shortage of ballots, and the fact that elections are held only on a single day, a weekday, which is a workday and not a holiday, work to deter less motivated voters, those with mobility problems, or those who simply need every work hour they can find. (Voter fraud and inadvertant unqualified voting may create a gross overvote, as can counting defects. But the failure to perform hand recounts or examine and count provisional ballots, generates a much larger undervote in most cases.)

And voters cannot only be deterred from exercising the franchise, they can, with some success, be manipulated into mis-exercising it. Even without the effects of active misleading or charismatic demagoguery, threats of spoilsport opposition recalcitrance or external attack, voters are often simply not apt to vote their interests or values. To operate as an effective mechanism of transmitting the popular will to the motor center of the state, elections must rely on electors whose choices of candiates or policies reflect a sound means toward their desired objectives. They must understand the election as more than a sport, in which they select recipients of their votes as they would choose the brand crafted to project image closest to their personality. They must understand the powers and requirements of the office, focus on the most critical issues and capabilities, access reliable information, detect and reject lies, and understand their own desires and how to achieve them. Even when voting on issues, too often, they are misled to acting entirely on perceived self interest, abandoning their other values, or worse, a acting on competitive impulse to spite others.

So after all this, I guess I've managed to write about something more substantial than the superdelegate thing after all. At least, it's a first approximation of a summary.