In 2010, I went to Jordan. I was in the town of Jerash on election day. There were posters wheatpasted all over the place. Most had been defaced or ripped down like these. This post isn’t about Jordan, however. Today is our election day. I’ve already voted, as have close to 2/3 of the likely electorate. Republicans are flailing about trying to subvert their imminent defeat.  There is a very small chance that they will succeed. Whether they do or not, there is a percentage of the country that is misinformed, angry, and armed. They are likely to perpetrate some heinous acts. Fortunately, many of them are, like our president, cowards. They will make a lot of noise and then skulk away into the shadows from whence he dragged them in 2016. They will not be gone.  Just less visible.

There is much dissatisfaction with our political system. I want to briefly address a few remedies that I often hear proposed.

1 Eliminate the Electoral College

Sure, it is a racist holdover designed to protect states whose population was reduced by the designation of slaves as only 3/5 of a person. The Senate is equally flawed for the same reason. 

This isn’t going to happen.  Changing the constitution requires 3/4 of the states to sign on.  That would include many of the states who benefit from the electoral college. So, this is a non-starter.

However, there is an avenue which could make it more in line with the way the country votes. Increase the size of Congress.

This hasn’t been done in over 100 years, and the number of people each member of Congress represents is astronomical. As noted in the article linked to above, this exacerbates the problem of money in politics, and weakens the connection between representative and constituent. 

Increasing the number of congressional districts would also increase the number of electors, making them more representative of the population.

2 – Term Limits

NO. NO. NO. This is a really bad idea. Term limits are a restriction of your right to vote for the person of your choice.  They are not a restriction of the politicians or parties.

Imagine we had single term limits on every elected office.  Our country would be run by inexperienced amateurs who we barely know.  They would have no record and there would be no reason for them to ever keep a promise to the voters since they couldn’t run again.  This is a recipe for the ultimate kleptocracy.

I was in Guatemala in 2015, during their presidential election.

Guatemala, like many Latin American countries, has very restrictive term limits. The president can only serve one term. So what happens? An election is held.  Many promises are made, especially to the indigenous Maya, who make up the majority of the electorate. After the election, the entire government from top to bottom is overturned. The makeup of their Congress flips, with many members simply joining the winning party to retain some power. No party has ever won the presidency twice.  New parties are formed every election, although many of their members are familiar. The president appoints the governors of all the states. You have to get all the way down to the office of mayor to find a politician independent of the president.

All public works projects started by the former administration are halted and abandoned.  Cronies of the new president are given lucrative contracts to pursue his agenda.  By and large they skim so much off the top that nothing is finished.  

There is no accountability, because there is a single term limit, and even the party will disappear in the net election.

3 – Get rid of the two party system

Look, I understand the frustration.  No party truly represents every one of your beliefs. The thing is, we purport to be a democracy, which implies majority rule. If there were even three major parties, we would consistently be ruled by a minority, unless we make other changes.

The most obvious solution is a parliamentary system such as many European countries have. Everyone gets to vote for their idealistic splinter party and then after the election, those parties get together and form coalitions, compromising away all of your ideals.

In the US, the compromising is done before the election, in the primary process. The Bernie Sanders and the Tulsi Gabbards are ruled out in favor of the middle.  At least you know what you are voting for in the US.  In Britain you don’t know what you’re going to get until you’ve already voted.

4 – Ranked Choice Voting

This actually makes a lot of sense to me. It allows a voter to choose an idealistic candidate with no realistic chance of winning without throwing their vote away. When you vote, you make your choices in order of preference.  If someone wins a majority, that’s it, the election is over.  If nobody does, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and their supporters are reapportioned according to their second choice. Lather, rinse, repeat until someone has a majority. That way, for example, you could have voted for Jill Stein in 2016 with Hillary as your second choice, and since nobody got 50%, your vote would have gone to Hillary, and we would now be living in a very different country.

I hope everyone voted this year and made sure their friends and family did too.