Preserving American Democracy: The Imperative of a Free and Fair Presidential Election in November
By: Fsi Stanford
Tags: United States, Democracy, Elections, Election 2020

Despite obstacles, a free and fair presidential election in November 2020 is still possible.

Photo: Getty Images

By Bronte Kass and Michael McFaul

Compared to other liberal democracies, American democracy has not been performing very well lately. In his classic study of democracy, Developing Democracy: Towards Consolidation, Stanford scholar Larry Diamond outlined the qualities necessary to be classified as a liberal or high-quality democracy, including extensive guarantees for freedom of speech, association, religious practices, and a free press; rule of law; civilian control of the military; participation; equality; and state effectiveness. On many of these dimensions, the U.S. political system has been slipping. As Freedom House assessed the United States in its comparative rankings of global political systems,

The United States is a federal republic whose people benefit from a vibrant political system, a strong rule-of-law tradition, robust freedoms of expression and religious belief, and a wide array of other civil liberties. However, in recent years its democratic institutions have suffered erosion, as reflected in partisan manipulation of the electoral process, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system, flawed new policies on immigration and asylum seekers, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence.

According to Freedom House, U.S. democracy had fallen below many comparative systems in Europe, Australia, and Canada. The Economist’s Democracy Index places the United States below two dozen other democracies. But Freedom House still ranked the United States as a “free” country, a democratic system of government. In 2019, the United States easily cleared the bar of a minimalist democracy, or what some scholars have called an “electoral democracy.”

In 2020, however, the U.S. political system is teetering dangerously close to this minimalist definition. To be considered a democracy, a system of government must choose its leaders in free, fair, and competitive elections, in which the rules of the game are known by all ahead of time, and no actor in the system — no general, Communist Party leader, mullah, nor incumbent leader — has the power to annul the results. As Joseph Schumpeter summarized, “[T]he democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.” Uncertainty about the outcome is key. If the same party or person wins all the time, then obviously those elections are not competitive. Acceptance of the outcome by all participants is also essential. As democracy scholar Adam Przeworski captured most eloquently, “In the end, the miracle of democracy is that conflicting political forces obey the results of voting. People who have guns obey those without them. Incumbents risk their control of governmental offices by holding elections.”

The U.S. 2020 presidential election is most certainly competitive. Fifty days before the election, it is a positive attribute of U.S. democracy that no one knows for certain who will be the next president. Other dimensions of the minimal definition of democracy, however, are frighteningly less secure this year. Only two months before the election, we do not know if everyone who has the right and desire to vote will have the ability to do so. Only two months before the election, the rules for counting ballots are not locked in place. Perhaps most precariously, only two months before the election, it remains unclear if all participants will accept the results. President Trump already has claimed that the electoral process will be rigged: “2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history”. Some already have hinted at scenarios for the incumbent to stay in power, even if he loses the election. Others have indicated that they already fear the election will not be free and fair, and therefore the outcome not legitimate. Foreign interference also remains a serious threat to the integrity of this election.

Nonetheless, we believe that a free and fair presidential election in November 2020 is still possible, and that more data and communication about the processes and programs underway to enhance the integrity of this presidential election can in and of itself advance the freeness, fairness, and thus legitimacy of this pivotal election. Over the next two months, this blog series aims to provide this kind of information, sometimes from a comparative perspective, and amplify the work of Stanford and other scholars as well.

The future of American democracy depends critically on conducting a free and fair presidential election in November 2020. Other deficiencies in the United States’ system cannot be addressed without first meeting the minimalist definition of electoral democracy. Rarely in U.S. history has obtaining this minimal threshold been so difficult, which is why all who believe in democracy as the best system of government must do all that they can to increase the probability of a free and fair election this fall.

Stay tuned for more !

Michael McFaul is Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science; and Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He served five years in President Barack Obama’s administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009–12), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012–14). His most recent book is From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia (2018).

Bronte Kass is a Program Manager at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Prior to Stanford, she worked with the United Nations Development Program in Tbilisi, Georgia, where she assisted with the implementation of democratic governance initiatives.

Read the second post in the “Preserving American Democracy” series, Lessons from Primary Elections in August for Election Day in November.