There has been a lot of aggressive politicking around election policies over the past few years. From sea to shining sea there have been battles over voting by mail, voter identification rules and the like.
For the most part, these have been partisan fights. Democrats cry out for loosening rules to make voting easier, and Republicans try to tighten them. Sure, the contestants often speak in lofty terms about their aims, but their motivations are plain. Each party wants to adjust the rules in ways they believe will increase their odds of winning.
This is nothing new in American politics. The March 26, 1812, copy of the Boston Gazette decried partisan redistricting effort under Gov. Elbridge Gerry as a “gerrymander.” The great pity of these election administration feuds is that they are so toxic and usually inconsequential. They involve tweaks to the existing election system. For example, does it matter whether a state has three weeks or four weeks of early voting? Not really, yet such policy changes inevitably trigger cries of “voter fraud” and “voter suppression.” Regrettably, the media often repeat the combatants’ bad faith claims credulously.
But adjacent to this squabbling there is another realm of elections reform activity, one that is music more interesting and significant. You may have heard of some of them: open primaries, ranked-choice voting, final four/five voting and nonpartisan redistricting.
These are four systemic reforms that aim to change elections to produce better candidates with stronger incentives to govern better. Mostly, these election reform movements are nonpartisan — they are not Democrats and Republicans jockeying for advantage. Instead, they feature people who are either independents or dissidents within the two parties.
Whatever their differences, collectively these reformers are telling America, “We need to build a better mousetrap. It is insane to keep doing as we have been doing and to expect better results.”
For many of these changemakers, their target is the partisan primary model, which is used in much of America. You no doubt are familiar with it: Each party holds its own separate election, voters cast a single ballot for one of the candidates, those votes are counted and the winner from each party then square-off in the general election. This model of doing things was cooked up a century ago to end the days when party bosses picked candidates in smoke-filled backrooms. It was a progressive reform. So what’s wrong with it?
Well, the main problem is that this process tends to select candidates who are not representative of the average voter. This is unsurprising — only 20 to 25 percent of voters participate in the primaries, and they tend to be further to the left and right than John Q. and Jane Q. Public. Special interests and big money also dump big money into primaries to up the odds that their candidates win. The results are that voters often are presented with the choice of picking the lesser of two evils, and whoever wins is beholden to the base and the special interests who supported them. Said officeholder also will feel pressure to help gerrymander and change election administration rules for partisan advantage.
This creates a mismatch in hiring. Our separation of powers system requires elected officials to bargain with one another and to represent the average voter. The partisan primary system tends to hire fighters who view politics as war and compromise as cowardice.
The four systemic reforms hope to put an end to this ruinous competition. Open primaries force all candidates to run in the same election. Ranked choice voting helps select candidates who have support across a wider swath of voters and can help independents get elected. Final four/five voting combines an open primary and a ranked-choice voting election that offers voters more and better candidate choices. And nonpartisan election redistricting, obviously, tries to stop politicians from choosing their voters by manipulating district maps.
These various reforms, along with some others, are moving forward across the country. There is a market for such reforms. Plenty of data show that Americans are increasingly unhappy with the two major parties and governance. Pandemic year bump aside, voter participation has mostly stayed the same since the 1950s despite the myriad easy voting has been made easier. Why show up, the voter reasons, when my choices are two partisans who will not represent me?
Systemic election reform is an uphill battle. The two parties tend to view these reforms with suspicion, and heaps of dark money are being spent to trip them up. But the push for elections reform is not going to go away anytime soon. Too many Americans are dissatisfied with the status quo and feel they deserve better governance. And they are right.
Kevin R. Kosar (@kevinrkosar) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the co-editor of “Congress Overwhelmed: Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform” (University of Chicago Press, 2020). He hosts the Understanding Congress podcast.