Let’s not give up on democracy but agree on how to make it better – Oregon Capital Chronicle

This column is part of a project called Democracy Day, which sees newsrooms across the country raise awareness of threats to democracy.

We have long celebrated states as laboratories of democracy. But many states have begun to apply their experiments to the workings of democracy itself – reassessing who should be able to vote, how their votes should be counted, and whether those in power should respect the will of their constituents.

Red states are tinkering with old machines, trying to reset the clock to times when access to the ballot was controlled by those with their hands on the levers of power. Sort out electoral rolls, limit voting times and search the 19th century Mechanisms for contesting referendums are all part of the manipulation of democracy in laboratories run by Republican lawmakers.

But blue states aren’t happy with their voting systems either, even if those systems have expanded ballot access and increased turnout within their borders. In Democratic strongholds in Oregon and elsewhere we’re seeing now Suggestions for setting up multiple choice polls, Extension of voting rights to non-citizens and elected representatives with only 25% of the votes.

Some of this can be explained by partisan motivations. Both red and blue states have long engaged in gerrymandering. But even these redistribution systems apply one-person-one-vote standards in their processes and respect election results.

Something more disturbing is going on in our debates about electoral rights and electoral systems. It’s the too-hasty and thoughtlessly entertained assumption that if we disagree with the voters’ verdict, we should change the rules for conducting elections — even if those changes limit democratic decision-making and abandon the obligation of majority results.

Perhaps that’s because the stakes seem so high — so morally charged (as with racism), so existential (as with climate change), and so intensely personal (as with abortion) — that the goals we set in our experiment of self-government have begun to be used to justify the abandonment of democracy as we know it.

Most Americans don’t want to give up democracy, they want to make it better. But 72% say democracy in the US is “used to be a good example, but hasn’t been in recent years.”

So, on this International Day of Democracy, let’s think about how we can improve our electoral systems instead of undermining them. My suggestions follow.

First, give our citizens the opportunity to participate in elections that are open to a wide variety of candidates, not just the red and blue flag bearers whose elections are controlled by the major parties.

Washington and California have gone in that direction, with open primaries and top-two runoffs securing majority support for their winners. That’s better than Oregon’s system, which sees the next governor hoping for support from just 40% of voters — and opposition from the remaining 60%.

Second, structure elections to overcome the spoiler effects of single-voting decisions in multi-candidate races.

This can be achieved through a preference vote, where voters are asked to rank their candidates by their first, second, and third choice. There are many ways to do this – Ranking Choice, consent vote or STAR vote. All have their challenges in the added complexity of voting and vote counting. However, if these changes are kept simple and understandable, they can help center candidates rather than appealing to the extremes.

Third, keep striving for majority results. Too often, our elections produce winners who fail to garner the broad support required for effective government. Unfortunately, this problem would be institutionalized by Portland’s proposal to set a 25% threshold for city council elections. Rather than crush votes for council members, Portlanders should maintain an electoral system that empowers its winners and has managed to elect the most diverse council in the city’s history.

If there is a happy medium to be found in these experiments with the basic mechanics of our democracy, perhaps we should look to states that are less attached to hard-red and true-blue agendas. The Alaskans just rejected Republican Sarah Palin and elected a moderate, gun-toting Democrat to Congress using the majority-oriented version of the ranking system.

If electoral reforms of this kind can help us elect more candidates who reflect and respect the breadth and diversity of views of their constituents, then maybe we can work on the hard part of democracy.

Then we accept that even in the best-functioning democracies, we never get most of what we always want, and not all of what we want, even sometimes. Rather, we are given a process to solve problems and make progress together, often laboriously, sometimes too slowly, but peacefully and cooperatively, respecting each other’s place and participation in this ongoing experiment in self-government.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated how many Americans believe the US is no longer a good example of democracy. According to a 2021 Pew Research Center poll, 72% of American respondents said the US was once a good example of democracy, but not anymore.