book_chapter/chapter_23.txt

Chapter 23
The trouble with voting
ÒThe difference between theory and practice is: 
In theory, there is no difference. In practice, there is.Ó
Ð Yogi Berra
Ideal Democracy and US Democracy
Democracy is a kind of government. One of the problems in thinking about democracy is that there are two very different things you might mean when you use the word. In grade school, you learn about the theory of what weÕll call Ideal Democracy; it is about people having self-determination, fairness, the Òrule of lawÓ, etc. 
In practice in the USA, a very different form of democracy takes place. We call this US Democracy to be clear. US Democracy is more about special interests and the power of a few, preserving the status quo. One might hope that democracy is a work-in-progress, moving from present US Democracy to Ideal Democracy. If such a move is taking place, its slow, and anything but smooth. 
There are powerful structural reasons why this movement is difficult. By structural, we mean independent of individual actors. Part of the attraction of democracy is that it purports to be ÒfixableÓ by Òvoting the bastards outÓ. Though theoretically possible, this has proved to be impractical. There are many levers that the incumbents can pull to insure their re-election. When those fail, new inductees become corrupted by their new-found power and join the status quo. Most remaining officials usually donÕt have the knowledge on how to select good ideas. Should there be anyone left, well, theyÕre in such a minority that their voices will be suppressed or at least out-voted in committee.
To form a good government, you must have good decision makers and a good process by which those people make decisions. US Democracy has neither. 
A vote against voting
There are few stronger beliefs in America than Òvoting is the best way to make decisionsÓ. We see this in national though local governments. We see this in clubs or even friends deciding where to go for dinner. 
Before we disparage it, letÕs acknowledge a few good things about voting. First, we show some respect to the founding fathers. For the 1700Õs, voting was the state of the art. Given an expensive printing technology, no electricity, no telecommunications or computers, tallying up votes from white men (women and slaves werenÕt allowed to vote) pushed the limits of the Òdatabase technologyÓ of the time. We can hardly fault the founders for not anticipating lobbying, TV ads, and SuperPACS. But 225 years later, we shouldnÕt be bogged down by their limitations. 
The concept of each citizen having an equal say in decisions, i.e. Òone man, one voteÓ has an appealing Òfair soundingÓ ring to it. But even in the modern US, we donÕt conform to this fairness (i.e. the electoral college for President, 2 Senators from each state regardless of their population, gerrymandering in the House of Representatives É hmm that covers 100% of the national elections). WeÕve always had a two-party duopoly, with third parties systematically excluded. Despite the facts, we still like to pretend that voting is fair. 
Voting also has a simplicity to tallying that is appealing to transparency and thus discourages corruption. In practice, this advantage too is, um, not so great. Witness the US 2000 presidential election, and the frequency that election results are challenged all over the world. LetÕs pretend, though, that we could implement voting as it is intended. Is it a good way to make decisions?
Voting is devoid of reasoning. Yes, each individual may reason on how to vote, but the process itself doesnÕt capture those reasons, it merely adds up the votes of the individuals. There are many different ways to calculate winners, with majority-rule being the most common. 
WeÕve even invented mathematically better voting schemes, which are nevertheless ignored at the national level. In civilized places like Cambridge, Massachusetts, elections are conducted with preferential voting. (Maine adopted this for most elections in 2016.) No political parties. You mark the candidates 1, 2, 3É in order of preference. No Òwasted votesÓ [Fairvote 2016]. But all voting schemes ignore rationale.
One could argue that candidates inform voters about why theyÕre the best. These pre-election reasons tend to have little to do with post-election behavior. But imagine, if you can, a politician keeping campaign promises. First there might be good reasons for the candidate violating their promises, so appealing as it may sound, this might not actually be what a voter would want. A politician is stuck between being accused of not keeping a campaign promise and not being ßexible under new circumstances. 
Second, democracies like the Òone citizen, one voteÓ idea. So a highly informed citizenÕs vote is worth the same as someone who didnÕt even know who was running until they entered the voting place. However, restricting certain citizens from voting based on knowledge has been used for racial or other discrimination in the past. 
Fake news
Having large numbers of poorly informed voters leaves them vulnerable to well funded dis-information campaigns. The two Koch brothers intended to spend nearly $1B on the US 2016 presidential election [Gold 2015] as did each of the Democratic and Republican political parties. (Due to dissatisfaction with the republican nominee, much of this money was diverted to state elections.) Dis-information in the form of Òclimate change denialÓ has been particularly prevalent [Romm 2015a].
The internet phenomenon of ÒFake NewsÓ especially on social media, may well have been a significant inßuencer in the US 2016 presidential election. With advanced video editing technology, you can now manipulate facial expressions including what you look like when youÕre saying something [OÕKeefe 2016a]. With advanced audio editing, its now possible to make a person say anything in their own voice [OÕKeefe 2016b]. Thus video is now no longer solid evidence of reality any more than still pictures are post Photoshop. 
Confirmation bias
It gets worse. People donÕt want the truth, they want what conforms to what they already believe. [Majoo 2016] says, Òwhen confronted with diverse information choices, people rarely act like rational, civic-minded automatons. Instead, we are roiled by preconceptions and biases, and we usually do what feels easiestÑwe gorge on information that confirms our ideas, and we shun what does not.Ó
ÒThis creates an ecosystem in which the truth value of the information doesnÕt matter,Ó said Walter Quattrociocchi, one of the studyÕs authors. ÒAll that matters is whether the information fits in your narrative.Ó
And what about debunking fake news? ÒIn many ways the debunking just reinforced the sense of alienation or outrage that people feel about the topic, and ultimately youÕve done more harm than goodÓ
Democracy canÕt make good decisions without informed voters. Oddly, with all of our communications technology, its not simply that we have uninformed voters, itÕs that, at the present time, we lack the very ability to have informed voters.
How representative are representatives?
Not very, because its hard to win elections. Money helps, so not surprisingly, congress members in 2011 had an average wealth exceeding $7M [Ballotopedia 2017] and a median of about $1M. In 2013 the median US household wealth was about $69K [Census 2013] or about 1/15th that of the median congress member. Looking along other dimensions we have only 20% of congress female. The presidency with 1 black and 0 females (as of August 2016) doesnÕt reßect the citizenry.
What effect does this unrepresentative congress have on the decision making process? From [Gilens 2014]: ÒEconomic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent inßuence.Ó
Well then, whose preferences do have an impact? ÒIn the last 5 years alone, the 200 most politically active companies in the US spent $5.8 billion inßuencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions. Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer supportÑearning a return of 750 times their investment.Ó Ò91% of the time the candidate with the most money wins the election.Ó Ò2/3 of political donations come from just 0.2% of Americans.Ó ÒOur elected officials spend 30-70% of their time in office fundraising for the next election.Ó Congress literally doesnÕt care what you think. If a candidate wasted time learning what their citizens wanted, or thinking about making important government decisions, theyÕd be replaced by someone who didnÕt.
Corruption
Corruption has many other tentacles. Quantifying them all is practically impossible. However, Transparency International has made a decent stab at it by taking world surveys (of > 100K people in > 100 countries) on the perception of corruption. [Shah 2011] reports:
54% 	Think government is corrupt (Worldwide)
60% 	Think government is corrupt (UK)
62% 	Think government is corrupt (Mexico)
64% 	Think government is corrupt (USA)
25% 	Paid a bribe in the last year (Worldwide)
54% 	Think corruption has increased recently (Worldwide)
64% 	Think personal contacts needed to operate in the public sector 			(Worldwide)
And, surprisingly:
Ò	The democratic pillars of societies are viewed as the most corrupt. Around the world, political parties, the driving force of democracies, are perceived to be the most corrupt institution.Ò
Globalization
Globalization appears to foster larger-scale international corruption. From [McCarthy 2014]:
Ò	While increased international attention has helped move the anti-corruption agenda forward, globalization is responsible for an increasingly sophisticated form of corruption. We have to ask whether corruption-fighting solutions have kept pace with the integration of financial systems, global supply chains and multi-jurisdictional entities.Ó
From [Shah 2011]:
Ò	Legalizing drugs, a system of taxation and regulation, comparable to that applied to tobacco and alcohol might do more to reduce corruption in the world than any other measure rich countries could takeÓ
Ò	The business of obtaining oil and mineral concessions has always been conducive to the use of bribes, omissions, gifts, and favors, and remains so.Ó
Ò	For multinationals, bribery enables companies to gain contracts ÉThese bribes are conservatively estimated to run to US$80 billion a yearÑroughly the amount that the UN believes is needed to eradicate global poverty.Ó
If not voting, then what?
Finally, although weÕve made harsh criticisms of voting, weÕd like to stress that weÕre not entirely against voting. If youÕve got a group of people who have to make a decision, and have irreconcilable differences, then voting might be the least bad way to get out of the jam. So, we could say, Òvoting is a last resortÓ for making decisions. As we noted in the War chapter, though, last resorts have a habit of turning into first resorts unless you really commit to the first resorts. 
In the next few chapters, weÕll make proposals for criteria and mechanisms of better government, though we donÕt have all the answers. For the moment, resist the temptation to criticize us immediately with, ÒYeah, but how do we get from here to there?Ó. Just see if you agree with us on what needs to be done. As long as weÕre proposing changes the status quo will reject, we might as well propose solutions with the scope to actually solve the problem.