Plurality vs Proportional Representation: A Cost Analysis of the Antiquated US Electoral System

Plurality vs Proportional Representation:

A C o s t A n a l y s i s o f t h e A n t i q u a t e d U S E l e c to ra l P ro c e ss

L i sa H a y g o o d

C l a re m o n t G ra d u a te U n i ve r s i t y M M P

April 23, 2013

2

Has America learned anything following the 2012 national elections or do we

continue, as we have for so long, conducting business as if still a formative nation

experimenting with the radical concept of self-governance? Sadly, the answer to this

question is no. Our electoral processes, in both the legislative and executive branches,

are entangled webs of long out-dated fail safes designed to protect “the people” from

themselves in this wondrous invention the Founding Fathers termed a republic. The US

Constitution clearly prescribes a model of staggered elections, differing fixed terms and

varied electorates for the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency; and

this overlap was intentional. The Framers felt they needed to protect the common man

from himself and waves of public opinion from threatening the stability of the fragile

federal government, potentially spawning another revolution. So inadaptable is the

American electoral process that 226 years later we still carry the bureaucratic burden of

scheduled, bi-annual elections in the legislatures at both state and federal levels. The

Constitutional Convention (of 1787), with the tyrannical oppression experienced under

British Parliamentary rule so fresh in the minds of the new nation, sought to correct the

flaws of government by the aristocracy with centralized power in the hands of the

wealthy elite. Now more than two centuries later, the American politicians, lobbyists,

political action groups and especially the tax-paying public should cast their eyes back

across the Atlantic in an effort to arrest campaign financing abuse, legislative control by

private interest groups and the ghastly sums that feed the American political machine.

The average non-politically active American may be unaware of the aggregate

totals that candidates, political parties and special interest groups spent on the 2012

elections however, most of us have seen a headline or two screaming across one of the

mainstream newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post or CNN.

Inefficiency aside, the sheer figures associated with each party’s recent campaigns are

beyond comprehension. According to CNN, with three campaign days left in the 2012

elections, more than $4.2 billion had been spent with projections for another $1.8 billion

over the ensuing three days.1 Additionally consider that once elected, the primary goal of

every elected official is to immediately begin fundraising work on his next campaign.

1 Liberto, Jennifer. "2012 Election Priciest to Date: $4.2 Billion Tab and Rising." CNN Money. Last modified November 5, 2012. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/05/news/economy/campaign-finance/index.html

3

Scroll through the political tabs on news websites such as CNN, Reuters or the

BBC and some headline harkens voter attentions toward probable candidates, platforms

and trigger issues facing the voter in 2016 and beyond.2 Political analysts have already

begun work on the straw poles, fundraising events, caucuses, primaries, town hall

meetings and debates that will shape what Americans think they will be thinking about

two to four years from now, and beyond. Was this what those who fought on the

battlefields of Lexington, Concord and braved the Valley Forge winters intended when

they set forth a Constitution of checks and balances through legislative and executive

branches of government, rather than on the tenuous nature of public opinion? In a

democracy borne by the phrase, We the People . . . it is highly unlikely and more

improbable is that any faction intended for the evolution of unchecked fiscal campaign

excesses and corruption of the first government for the People, by the People. What

began with the “ideal of one person, one vote,” has disintegrated into “a political system

2 Smith, Raymond A. "Too Soon for 2016! How To End Our Endless Presidential Election." The Daily Beast. Last modified January 26, 2013. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/26/too-soon- for-2016-how-to-end-our-endless-presidential-election-season.html

4

based upon one dollar, one vote.”3 It is safe to say that the outcome of our local, state

and national elections in the 21st century are determined by the amount of money a

particular candidate or party spends rather than the ideologies they espouse.

So why should we turn our gaze eastward to our colonial foe? Though no

electoral or governmental system is without its flaws, there is much to be learned and

undoubtedly gained if America has the courage to reform it’s dual-party political system

and adopt serious electoral process, campaign administration and financing reforms,

emulating changes implemented over the last decade in the United Kingdom [UK]. In

2000, Parliament established an independent regulatory commission to oversee, conduct

and monitor all elections. The Electoral Commission, under the Political Parties,

Elections and Referendums Act of 2000 [PPERA], was charged with regulating not only

political parties but non-party campaigners and other political actors including individual

members of political parties, elected officials and associations of political party members.

PPERA’s jurisdiction further extends to the compliance of individual candidates during

elections and endowed with power to enforce laws regarding elections, campaigning and

finances effectively and proportionately.4

Though no system is perfect, the British national elections of 2005 and 2010 have

resulted in streamlined electoral processes, significant reductions in the already minimal

(by American standards) campaign finance expenditures and direct accountability by all

the players in the political arena before, during and crucially after the elections. In order

to fully appreciate the remarkable progress made in the UK with respect to their electoral

process, it is important to understand the clear delineation of structural differences in the

political representation and electoral systems between the US and the UK.

The American political machine evolved into a dual-party, winner-take-all

electoral system with calendared elections, staggered fixed terms and what is now a

completely outdated Electoral College. In addition to the winner-take-all principle, the

other distinguishing characteristic of the US electoral system is the single member

districts. These districts are geographically defined areas where each constituency elects

a single member to a particular office and only the candidate who receives the most

3 Etzioni, Amitai. "The American Slippage Toward Plutocracy." Phi Kappa Phi Forum 84, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 26-29. 4 Parliament of the United Kingdom The Electoral Commission. UK General Election 2010: Campaign Spending Report. Edited by Electoral Commission. London: Electoral Commission, 2011.

5

votes, or a plurality, wins the office. This component of the American dual-party system

disenfranchises representation by minority parties, platforms and candidates; making

minority voices (and votes) irrelevant. Combining the winner-take-all philosophy single

member districts creates the strongest oxymoronic element of American self-governance.

Since only the majority voices are “heard,” the voter is simply trained to align along party

lines (Democrat/Liberal or Republican/Conservative) and pay little attention to individual

candidates’ ideas, policies or platforms. Such a dichotomy provides the American

politician without any true measure of accountability especially when his next election is

already calendared.5

In contrast, the UK operates under the Parliamentary electoral system or

Proportional Representation with multiple political parties. In a Proportional

Representation system, elections involve unlimited numbers of parties representing

varying political factions. Additionally, in Proportional Representation, legislative seats

are allotted based upon each party’s share of the popular vote and through in this

fundamental difference, the minority parties garner an active voice in governance. It is

the ability to compete for a percentage of the popular vote that gives minority parties and

at times, coalitions of parties a formidable chip in the overall democratic power brokering

game. Parliamentary systems also employ referendums which remain exclusive of

individual parties or legislative seats. Referendums center on issues raised by an

electorate in Parliament or the general public.

The proportional representation model utilized in the United Kingdom by default,

trains the voter to pay close attention to the issues facing their country’s governance. In

the Parliamentary system, public opinion plays a meaningful role in electoral outcomes

and it is these issues and the present government’s inability to deal satisfactorily (in the

public’s opinion) with those issues that drives the electoral calendar. In this manner

elections are held as infrequently as once every five years, and in direct response to

public sentiment on a defined set of issues. Elections are not scheduled but are “called

for” when issues create a substantial change in the balance of party beliefs within the

electorate of Parliament. At that time the controlling party’s leader, the Prime Minister,

5 Balma, Jodi Jenkin. American Government: Course Materials. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2012

6

is asked to “dissolve” his government and “call” for an election to form a new

government.6

These two systems of democratic elections both serve the process of self-

governance and give the voter a voice in selecting who shall represent them and thus

carry their collective voices to the government, theoretically. For the infant United

States, the desire not to replicate what they believed to be the foundations of the tyranny

so unjustly imposed upon them by an electorate in which their voices could never heard,

purposely designed a system varying electorates to further dilute the power any one

group could have. The people directly elect members of the House, Senators by the

States’ legislatures’ and the President by the Electoral College, thus a major shift in

public opinion would not easily result in any immediate effect on the operational

legislative leadership. Additionally, in constructing the Constitution, its esteemed

authors knew that staggering the elections would dramatically slow the pendulum of

change, eliminating the “court of public opinion” from radical shifts in existing

legislative policies and thereby create a stable, predictable continuity, a necessity of

capitalist ideology.7

While both systems operate successfully and have for centuries; the question then

becomes “at what cost?” Even if the two countries’ populations are translated into

comparable proportions, the amount of money spent during an American national

election each November dwarfs the capital outlay spent in the already infrequent British

national elections. Conservatively, the BBC estimated the total cost of the 2012

American national elections 120 times greater than the British Parliamentary elections of

2010.8 One notable explanation for the dramatic disparity in electoral expenditures is that

British law mandates an extremely short campaign period: a mere 17 working days. This

limitation results in a short election cycle of intense campaigning, the polar opposite of

the nearly permanent campaign in play in the US. As an example, in the 2005 British

national elections, the electoral process commenced on April 11th with the dissolution of

Parliament, with the vote forming a new government held on May 5th. In contrast, the

6 Balma, Jodi Jenkin. American Government: Course Materials. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2012 7 ibid 8 Smith, Raymond A. "Too Soon for 2016! How To End Our Endless Presidential Election." The Daily Beast. Last modified January 26, 2013. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/26/too-soon- for-2016-how-to-end-our-endless-presidential-election-season.html

7

US’ November elections have no regulations governing campaign window length,

resulting in a range from 30 weeks for the legislature to upwards of three years for the

executive branch.9 In addition to the dramatically shorter campaign window, the UK

created standardized administration over national elections. While the American

electoral system is decentralized into upwards of 13,000 separate entities responsible for

electoral administration, the British have one concentric body: the Electoral Commission.

The sheer numbers alone propagate US elections fraught with allegations of corruption,

fraud and administrative incompetence and most significantly, the threat of politically

driven legislation. In sharp contrast, as the Electoral Commission overseeing the British

elections is non-partisan centralized civil service entity that supervises all aspects of

national elections with no political ties to candidates, parties or agendas.10 Additionally,

the Parliamentary electoral process campaign is restricted to spending a modest, fixed

sum allocated by the government. This all but removes the potential for special interest

influence, campaign funding corruption and under the strict supervision of the Electoral

Commission, permits for violations in campaign spending to result in the nullification of

that candidate’s election results.11

9 Weisberg, Jacob. "Three Days, Three Party Leaders: A Whirlwind Tour of the British Election Campaign." Slate. Last modified May 3, 2010. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/2010/05/three_days_three_party_leaders.html 10 ibid 11 Etzioni, Amitai. "The American Slippage Toward Plutocracy." Phi Kappa Phi Forum 84, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 26-29.

8

Although US opinion polls clearly demonstrate that more than half the nation

favors campaign-finance reform, it remains difficult to get the general public enraged

enough to understand the correlation between campaign funding and corruption; add to

that the concerns over the procedural issues of election administration, and polls shift

dramatically on public initiatives for campaign reform. Admittedly, to the average

American, the public financing of elections, as regulated under the Parliamentary system,

equates to socialism and voters tend to shy away from any perceived movement towards

a socialist agenda.12 In an overall cost analysis between the US’ and the UK’s recent

electoral processes: the total expenditure in the 2010 British national election was

approximately $39,648,506 (£30,266,035)13 in stark contrast to the estimated $6 billion

(£7.86 billion)14 spent on the US’ 2012 national elections.

12 Etzioni, Amitai. "The American Slippage Toward Plutocracy." Phi Kappa Phi Forum 84, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 26-29. 13 UK Political Info, ed. "Election Campaign Spending By Political Parties." UK Political Info. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.ukpolitical.info 14 Liberto, Jennifer. "2012 Election Priciest to Date: $4.2 Billion Tab and Rising." CNN Money. Last modified November 5, 2012. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/05/news/economy/campaign-finance/index.html

9

No matter how much the American voter may abhor the concept of government-

funded, independently regulated national campaigns; electoral reform implementation

through a combination of defined measures could cleanse the American electoral process,

streamline the seemingly perpetual campaign season, put at least a dent in the amount of

legislation that favor powerful political interest groups over public needs and most

importantly, reduce the offensive sums spent, or one could argue, wasted on US national

elections.

10

Bibliography

Balma, Jodi Jenkin. American Government: Course Materials. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2012.

Etzioni, Amitai. "The American Slippage Toward Plutocracy." Phi Kappa Phi Forum 84,

no. 1 (Winter 2004): 26-29. Liberto, Jennifer. "2012 Election Priciest to Date: $4.2 Billion Tab and Rising." CNN

Money. Last modified November 5, 2012. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/05/news/economy/campaign-finance/index.html.

Lloyd, Delia. "Why the British Elections Fascinate This American." Huffington Post

(Washington DC), April 26, 2010, Politics Daily. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/26/why-the-british-elections-fascinate-this-american/print/.

Ludwig, Mike. "Big Money Breakdown: Why 2012 Is the Most Expensive Election

Ever." Truth-out. Last modified November 6, 2012. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://truth-out.org/news/item/12561-big-money-breakdown-why-2012-is-the-most-expensive-election-ever.

M, R. "The British Election: What's the Difference?" Democracy In America (blog).

Entry posted April 21, 2010. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/04/british_election.

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Electoral Commission. UK General Election

2010: Campaign Spending Report. Edited by Electoral Commission. London: Electoral Commission, 2011.

Smith, Raymond A. "Too Soon for 2016! How To End Our Endless Presidential

Election." The Daily Beast. Last modified January 26, 2013. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/26/too-soon-for-2016-how-to-end-our-endless-presidential-election-season.html.

Trueman, Chris. "American v British Elections." History Learning Site. Accessed April

20, 2013. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/american_v_british_elections.htm. UK Political Info, ed. "Election Campaign Spending By Political Parties." UK Political

Info. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.ukpolitical.info. Weisberg, Jacob. "Three Days, Three Party Leaders: A Whirlwind Tour of the British

Election Campaign." Slate. Last modified May 3, 2010. Accessed April 20, 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/2010/05/three_days_three_party_leaders.html.