Why is the quality of US elections ranked 26th out of 73 contests worldwide?
Pippa Norris
New evidence from the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index highlights the quality of elections. The expert survey provides a standardized way to compare 73 elections held around the globe from 1 July 2012 to 31 December 2013. One of the most striking observations is another example of American exceptionalism - unlike most Western democracies, the United States ranked exceptionally poorly - 26th worldwide, similar to countries such as Mexico and Mongolia. By contrast, countries such as Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria were all ranked in the top ten.
What explains this rating? The results suggest that the United States suffers from several fundamental flaws of electoral
governance and voting administration, and a complex series of partial policy
reforms which have sought to address concern. Problems in electoral
administration were exemplified most dramatically by Bush v. Gore in Florida in
2000; since then several new initiatives, notably the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), have sought to ensure that every eligible
citizen can register and that every vote will be counted accurately.[i] Yet many deep-rooted structural
problems have not been tackled, indeed some have probably worsened since
Florida as issues of electoral rights and voter fraud have become increasingly
partisan, litigious, and contentious during the last decade.[ii]
Estimates about the quality of the 2012 US election are
illustrated in Figure 1, showing the evaluations provided by experts in the
Perceptions of Electoral Integrity survey. For comparison, the figure also
includes estimates for the Netherlands, selected as another long-established
democracy but one with a far more positive rating. As the radar-gram shows, across nearly all dimensions, the United
States consistently scores less well than the Netherlands, with the exception
of media coverage and party and candidate registration. The evaluations of the
Unites States is particularly critical in terms of electoral laws,
redistricting, and voter registration procedures, all reflecting contemporary
controversies and partisan divides in American politics. Campaign finance regulations were another
weak area, although here the gap between the countries was less marked.
Source: Electoral Integrity Project. 2013. the expert survey or perceptions of electoral integrity, PEI2. www.electoralintegrityproject.com
What has contributed towards this performance? Most democracies
have established an independent national election management body, accountable
to the legislature, with primary responsibility for registering citizens and
managing the electoral process.[iii] In America, however, electoral
administration remains highly decentralized, fragmented, partisan, and often
under-resourced. The Federal Election Commission’s role is limited to making
campaign finance contributions and spending more transparent, and in this
regard they do a fine job, although transparency per se does not necessarily
lead to greater accountability. The Electoral Assistance Commission was created
under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002 as a new federal agency tasked
with overseeing and monitoring certain minimum standards of electoral administration,
but primary responsibility for conducting elections is specified in the US
constitution as a state-level responsibility.[iv]
The 2000 Florida contest in Gore v.
Bush spurred changes in voting technologies and voter registration laws, but the
effectiveness of these developments has been patchy. Little attention has been
paid to the ground troops manning the local polling places, although the
quality of American elections rests ultimately in the hands of partisan local
officials, “frequently ill-equipped, poorly trained, part-time administrators”,
and paid day-volunteer poll workers.[v]
U.S. citizens are required to mail their registration form to
counties, cities and townships, in most places usually well ahead of polling
day. One in four eligible electors — at least 51 million Americans—fail to do
so. Complex rules and deadlines for
registering vary across states, as do facilities for early and absentee voting.[vi]
Despite the e-governance revolution, citizens resident in the United States
continue to submit hand-written registration forms, vulnerable to problems of
legibility, missing information and processing errors.[vii]
Party activists and voluntary organizations handle, collect and submit bundles
of forms, as do officials of the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The official forms
also collect information on party affiliations, released as part of the public
record, a potential violation of basic rights to confidentiality. The Pew
Center estimates that about 24 million names on the electoral register are
invalid or inaccurate.[viii]
This includes about 1.8 million dead and some 2.8 million who have duplicate
registrations in more than one state. The Pew report suggests that about 12 million
registrations have errors serious enough to make it unlikely that citizens can
be contacted by mail. In addition, some 3.3 million Americans with felony
convictions remain disenfranchised, in some states for life, due to prohibitive
legal regulations or burdensome procedures for reinstating voting rights.[ix]
Another 4.1 million citizens resident in
US territories such as the US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico are ineligible
to vote in presidential elections.
Far from making citizen participation easier, during the last
decade many American states have passed laws requiring voters to show photo
identification at polls, cutting back early voting periods, or imposing new
restrictions on voter registration drives. In mid-2012, legislation of voter ID
requirements is pending in around two thirds of all US states, including new
voter ID proposals in fourteen states, proposals to strengthen existing voter
ID laws in ten states, and bills in nine states to amend the new voter ID laws
passed in 2011.[x]
It is estimated that the effect of implementing these requirements in several
key states depressed turnout in the Obama v. Romney contests by around one to
two percent.[xi] Republican legislators claim that the new
rules preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Democrats argue that the
changes discourage turnout, especially among minorities and young people.
Overall the immense hoopla about potential fraud in U.S. elections seems
largely manufactured rhetoric; a study analyzing criminal cases and prosecution
statistics from 2000-2005 concluded that, according to this evidence, actual
cases of election fraud explicitly intended to affect the outcome of a federal
election are almost nonexistent.[xii]
Another detailed account arrived at similar findings: although millions of
Americans cast ballots, almost no one knowingly and willfully casts an illegal
vote today, so that voter fraud is a ‘politically constructed myth’.[xiii]
Where restrictive voter identification requirements generate a
systematic suppression of disproportionately Democratic voters, including the
poor, African American and Hispanics, then this also goes beyond maladministration
to raise fundamental questions about the violation of human rights.
The problems of maladministration at the ballot box are
substantial; however they pale into insignificance compared with challenges
caused by the pervasive role of money in American politics. Spending is unlimited during the long campaign;
in the 2008 Obama v. McCain campaign, for example, over $1.7 billion dollars
was raised by all the presidential candidates, a ten-fold increase since Carter
v. Ford in 1976.[xiv]
The 2012 electoral cycle is estimated to have cost more than $6 billion in
total, the most expensive elections yet.[xv]
The total costs during presidential electoral cycles has risen steadily from
2000 to 2012 by around one billion per cycle, far more than the cumulative rate
of inflation. [xvi]
Financial donations to candidates and
parties are monitored and regulated by the Federal Election Commission.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens
United vs. FEC in January 2010, however, individuals, corporations and
unions can make unlimited donations to independent super PACs supporting
particular candidates. Citizens United has reinforced concerns about fairness
and equity although in the United States, unrestricted campaign spending is
equated with the right to free speech and others defend unlimited contributions.
[xvii]
Spending by outside groups aligned in support of a specific presidential
candidate is estimated to have more than doubled during the 2012 primary and
pre-convention period, compared with the equivalent months during the previous
presidential contest.[xviii]
Inequalities in financial resources can reinforce, in turn, imbalanced media
coverage, both through the capacity to purchase paid TV spots and also through
reporters’ assessments of candidate credibility during the early stages of
primary races.[xix]
There are also many residual issues which recur concerning the accuracy and security
of the final vote counting process, due to voting machines. State laws
governing candidate ballot access are also usually highly restrictive for third
party challengers, while the manufactured majority in the Electoral College
used in presidential contests penalizes third parties which fail to gain a
popular plurality of the vote in every state.[xx]
Partisan gerrymandering by state legislatures is the norm for redistricting,
reducing the number of competitive districts, in contrast to many other
democracies which use more impartial judicial or independent electoral or
boundary commissions.[xxi] The
consequences of partisan gerrymandering have caused concern because of the
potential consequences of this policy in exacerbating polarized partisan
politics. In particular, during the October 2013 budget stalemate in Congress,
a relatively small number of members of the House of Representatives proved
intransigent by shutting down the federal government and budget negotiations for
three weeks in an abortive attempt to de-fund the Affordable Care Act
(Obamacare).[xxii] Although ultimately defeated, the effort proved
highly damaging for confidence in the American economy and for the U.S.’s international
credit rating. One factor contributing towards the rise of Tea Party members
has been partisan gerrymandering, allowing Republican-dominated states to draw
ultra-safe boundaries which safeguard conservative members and which thereby weaken
the electoral incentives for representatives to make broader appeals likely to
win support across a broader and more diverse range of constituents.[xxiii]
Gerrymandered house districts are not necessarily a fundamental cause for the
rise of the Tea Party, which reflects the success of the radical right parties
and discontent with more centrist parties found in many other established
democracies, but partisan redistricting can be a facilitating condition, by
limiting the traditionally moderating effects of majoritarian electoral
systems.
In short, American elections
continue to face major challenges when administering accurate and fair voter
registration and vote counting processes, as well as facing broader structural problems
concerning the regulation of campaign funding, ballot access, and
redistricting. The Presidential Commission on Electoral Administration,
appointed by President Obama in May 2013, was established to examine bipartisan
ways to shorten lines at polling places, promote the efficient conduct of
elections, and provide better access to the polls for all voters. [xxiv]
But the Commission is not designed to address the more deep-rooted and enduring
challenges to American electoral integrity.
[i] R. Michael Alvarez, Lonna Rae Atkeson and
Thad Hall. 2012. Evaluating Elections: A
Handbook of Methods and Standards. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[ii] Richard L. Hasen, 2012. The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
[iii] Louis Massicotte, Andre Blais and Antoine
Yoshinaka. 2004. Establishing the Rules
of the Game. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; Alan Wall, et al. 2006. Electoral Management Design: The
International IDEA Handbook. Sweden: International IDEA.
[iv] Electoral Assistance Commission http://www.eac.gov/
[v] R. Michael Alvarez and Thad E. Hall. 2006.
‘Controlling democracy: the principal–agent problems in election
administration.’ The Policy Studies
Journal 34(4):
491-510;
Thad E. Hall, J. Quin Monson and
Kelly D. Patterson. 2009. ‘The human dimension of elections: How poll workers
shape public confidence in elections.’ Political
Research Quarterly 62(3):507-522.
[vi] See Chapter 2 in Brian L. Fife. 2010. Reforming
the Electoral Process in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
[viii] Pew Center on the States. 2012. Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient. http://www.pewstates.org/research/reports/inaccurate-costly-and-inefficient-85899378437
[ix] Michael P. McDonald. ‘2010 general election
turnout rates’ available at http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html.
See Table 2.6 in Brian L. Fife. 2010. Reforming the Electoral Process in America.
Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. For a discussion, see Michael P. McDonald and Samuel
Popkin. 2001. ‘The Myth of the Vanishing Voter.’ American Political Science Review 95(4): 963-974. Higher
estimates (5.3 million) are provided by the Sentencing Project http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=133;
[xi] Nate Silver. July 15 2012. ‘Measuring the
effects of Voter Identification Laws.’ New
York Times.
[xii] Delia Bailey. ‘Federal election fraud cases.’
In R. Michael Alvarez, Thad E. Hall and Susan Hyde. Eds. 2008. Election fraud: detecting and deterring
electoral manipulation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. For an
alternative view see, however, John H. Fund. 2004. Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. San
Francisco, CA: Encounter Books.
[xiii] Lorraine Carol Minnite. 2010. The Myth of
Voter Fraud. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
[xiv] See Table 5.1 in Brian
L. Fife. 2010. Reforming the Electoral
Process in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
[xv] The Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/index.php
[xvi] If the estimated total costs of the
2000 electoral cycle are calculated in constant prices, taking account of the
cumulative rate of inflation (33.3%) from 2000-2012, the equivalent total cost
of the 2012 electoral cycle would have been $4,109bn, not $6,285bn. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
[xvii] Robert G. Boatright. 2012. ‘The end
of the reform era? Campaign finance retrenchment in the United States and
Canada.’ The Forum 10(2): 1-30; Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane. 2013. ‘In
defense of Citizens United: Why campaign finance reform threatens American
democracy.’ Foreign Affairs 92(4):
126-133.
[xviii] The Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/superpacs.php
[xix] For a discussion about the broader
consequences for American politics, see Lawrence Lessig. 2011. Republic, Lost. New York: Twelve.
[xx] Steven J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr and Edward
Lazarus. 1996. Third Parties in America:
Citizen Response to Major Party Failure. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press; Donald J. Green. 2010. Third Party Matters: Politics, Presidents and Third Parties in American History. New
York: Praeger.
[xxi] David Butler and Bruce E. Cain.
1992. Congressional Redistricting:
Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives. New York: Macmillan; Michael P.
McDonald. 2008. ‘United States
redistricting.’ In Redistricting in
Comparative Perspective Eds. Lisa Handley and Bernard Grofman. New York:
Oxford University Press.
[xxii] The New York Times estimated that
around 42 members of the House of Representatives were affiliated with the Tea
Party Caucus, although another 38 members supported tying the budget to
attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/20/us/politics/the-factions-in-the-house.html?hp
[xxiii] Theda Skocpol and Vanessa
Williamson. 2013. The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. New
York: Oxford University Press.
[xxiv] The US Presidential Commission on
Electoral Administration. http://www.supportthevoter.gov/
