Seeking Input for Electoral Reform Wish List: What Say You?

Since the Occupy Wall Street protests began in downtown Manhattan on September 17th, I have noted on a number of occasions that there is an inspiring amount of independent and third party activity and organizing taking place at the demonstrations.  Members of the Green, Libertarian, Socialist and Reform parties, among others, have been involved in the movement from the very beginning, in addition to legions of Independents. 

Much of the organizing work being accomplished at Occupy Wall Street is being done within autonomous working groups and caucuses.  There are working groups devoted to everything from media and internet to outreach, direct action and reform.  There are a number of groups, of which I'm aware, that should be of special interest to independents, third party advocates and opponents of the two-party state.  Over the next couple days, I'm going to provide some info on these various groups and relay portions of the documents and proposals they have been working on, all of which can be found through the New York City General Assembly's website for Occupy Wall Street.

Today, the focus will be the Politics and Electoral Reform group – in which I have been active for a number of weeks.  The group is working on a proposal recommending electoral reforms that could be implemented by states and localities to level the playing field for those who have been marginalized, and whose interests are not represented, by the Republican-Democrat two-party state. Numerous reforms are being considered by the group, which is collaborating on a working draft document for the proposal.  Here is an excerpt from the section of the document specifically devoted to the recommendations for reform:
Alternative voting methods. Our voting systems should promote honest participatory democracy.  There are alternatives to plurality voting, such as instant runoff voting, ranked choice voting, approval voting and range voting, liquid democracy and so on.

Independent, nonpartisan redistricting. Voters should choose their representatives, lawmakers should not choose their voters.

Smaller and more localized districts.  Expansion of the number of representatives in local and state government and in the House of Representatives. This will ensure a closer relationship between the people and their elected officials, putting the latter on a shorter leash.

Proportional representation. Winner-take-all, single member district plurality voting has allowed narrow political factions to wield disproportionate influence within our system of government. There are alternatives.

Expansion of franchise. Those who are denied of the right to vote because they have, for example, served time in prison, should be re-enfranchised.

Term limits. Election to public office is not a lifetime appointment. Term limits should be imposed by law or by the people at the ballot box.

Ballot access reform. All should be equal before the law regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof.  Ballot access laws that favor the major parties and discriminate against independent and third party candidates should be repealed and replaced with fair and reasonable alternatives. The default state of the ballot should be open.

Primary election reform. A publicly funded election should be open to the public.  If parties desire to hold closed primary elections, they can provide for their own caucuses and conventions.

Initiatives and referenda. The people retain the right to originate ballot initiatives and referenda.

Vote counting. The reintroduction of hand counted, paper ballots, or the introduction of significant controls to protect against the rigging of electronic voting machines, which are produced, operated and serviced by corporations with significant ties to powerful political factions.

Weekend or holiday voting. Voting should be encouraged not discouraged.

Fusion voting. Parties should be able to nominate the candidates of their choice across party lines.

Campaign finance. Publicly funded election campaigns, or matching fund systems that allow candidates who refuse to accept corporate donations to compete on a level playing field with candidates who are heavily financed by corporate interests.

Combination and synthesis. A liquid democratic primary with an IRV runoff between the top four candidates from the primary. Countless other possibilities.
(Note: the proposal is a living document, and any of the above could and probably will be changed by the group at some point.)  I'm relaying this excerpt because many readers here at Politea have thought long and hard about a lot of these issues, and could provide some interesting suggestions that could be taken up by the group.  So what say you, folks?  What do you think of the recommendations as they stand?  Should any be amended? or dropped? or edited?  Are there any important potential reforms that are missing from the list?

9 comments:

Liberal Arts Dude said...

Hi D.eris

Yes, yes, yes! My already huge respect and enthusiasm for the #Occupy movement just increased ten-fold! This is an excellent list of reform ideas -- the type of serious reform ideas I've seen being discussed in the third-party and independent blogosphere for several years now. I am so happy to see that discussion of these types of reforms are a part of the #OWS movement. D.eris, do you know if the Politics and Electoral Reform working group is specific to NYC or are there other groups (even a virtual counterpart) in other states that have #Occupy chapters?

Due to family and work constraints, I can't be a full-time #OccupyDC occupier in McPherson Square but I'd like to see if there is any way someone like me can contribute to the effort.

Big, big kudos to the #OWS movement for going beyond two-party system solutions! I am looking forward to seeing discussion of these reform ideas injected into the mainstream -- something that would have been impossible a few short weeks ago but is very realistic now!

Dale Sheldon-Hess said...

All good stuff. Everytime I thought of something else to suggest, it was the next item on the list.

I will do my usual plug:

OWS operates by consensus. IRV is not a consensus-seeking election method, while approval voting is. I think that should make it clear which alternative voting methods should be used.

I'll start looking through the pages of the P&ER working group, but if you could point me toward the people I need to convince or the arguments I need to refute, it might go faster :)

d.eris said...

Good questions LAD. Anyone can make an account at the NYCGA's website, and join in group discussions there, as far as I'm aware, though some groups may limit participation in some way. As far as I understand it, the P&ER group's forums are open to everyone (there are already people from all over the country in there). Process: 1) make an account with the site, 2) go to the groups tab, 3) click "join" on the relevant group, 4) and you can begin posting/commenting in the forums.

Without an account, you can read through the forums, but not add comments/threads/etc.

To take part in decisions made by the group, you have to be physically present at meetings, I think. At the same time though, we're also working on creating a means by which people could at least listen in to those meetings in real time via a conference call kind of thing like Skype or something. Minutes of meetings can be found online.

The P&ER group is doing outreach to other Occupy groups around the country, and people from a number of states have already participated in meetings, and may bring some of the ideas back to their hometown/state.

As far as DC is concerned, there was an Elections Committee at the Freedom Plaza demonstration. I participated in a few of their meetings when I was in DC a couple weeks back, they were discussing very similar things, and I brought back a number of those suggestions to NYC. Dunno if they are still active. There was also a lot of interest in the NYC group from the Occupy DC folks at McPherson Square.

d.eris said...

Dale, despite its size (I think there are over 200 members in the group, at least online), discussions have been very civil thus far, which hasn't been the case in every group. I couldn't point you in the direction of any threads in particular, there are already a lot of them. You'll have to look around a bit.

Just to clarify, the NYCGA uses a process of modified consensus to make its decisions, and this has been adopted at P&ER. The voting methods are suggestions for localities and states in contests for elected office. If approval more closely approximates that process, then that is an argument in its favor. But the recommendations list is meant to provide an array of ideas on any given issue, rather than make a single "demand," since some reforms will work better than others in different states and localities, and different states and localities will have different needs and priorities. Also, structuring the proposal in this way makes it much easier to achieve consensus in the group, in which different members might back different reforms as solutions to the same problem.

Samuel Wilson said...

d., I'm late for this, but your new friends should consider the ideal of the non-partisan ballot or some other arrangement through which elections will no longer be organized along partisan lines. Since "alternative voting methods" were on the agenda, that topic should extend to replacing the existing ballot with some system that doesn't empower the state to generate an exclusionary candidate list. Such a reform ought to be compatible with any alternative proposed for tabulating votes, since those apply to candidates, not parties. Keep up the good work.

DavidPSummers said...

Well, my view is the key reform is....
-alternative voting methods.
(I like instant-runoff voting, the others suggested are OK also.)

Something that is good is...
-Independent redistricting
(But probably not enough to really change things).

I'm 50-50 on...
-Term Limits
-Primary Election reform
(We only really need them because incumbents are so entrenched and winner-takes-all-voting makes getting a nomination from the two parties. Fix that and these don't matter so much).

Things that are a waste of time include; Smaller Districts (doesn't change the zero sum game mentality, just makes the House even more unwieldy), Proportional Representations (does help in votes for the senate or the President), Expansion of Franchise (we don't have troubles because felons aren't voting), Ballot Access (there is no shortage of people on any ballot I've seen, its just the winner-take-all system makes people afraid to vote for them), Vote counting (this is partisan issue, no system is perfect and this isn't the cause of any of our problems), Weekend/Holiday voting (if people can't be bothered to vote on the way to work, will they have bothered to learn anything about the issues?).

Campaign finance reform is a problem. But as long as the Supreme court has ruled that money is free speech, then I don't see any workable solution.

d.eris said...

Thanks for your input DavidP.

Sam, nonpartisan ballots/elections hasn't actually come up yet, as far as I'm aware.

Randy Miller said...

I am so glad to see this is still the lead story on your blog Damon, it has been a busy couple of days and I can only get to this earl this morning.

I am pleased to be reading what I am reading here. I agree with a lot of it, but I am even pleased with those portions that I do not. This is exciting! It is like an online offline Constitutional Convention going on everywhere.

The fundamental question we must not lose sight of is a question that has been before the people, government and reformers from the very beginnin is "Who may participate fully in our democracy?" Initially it was propery owning white men. Then all white men. Then black men. Then just black men who paid a poll tax. Then just black men who could pass a literacy test. Then we removed the poll tax and literacy test criteria. Then the vote was opened to women. And this is where I strongly agree with Samuel Wilson et al on the issue of non-partisan elections or even primary elections with truly unabridged ballots.

Without taking up too much space I'll give a quick rundown of my thoughts on many of the reforms listed and their impact on the fundamental question of 'who may participate fully in our election process?'
IRV: a not entirely perfect tabulation method--strikes only indirectly at who may participate

PR: not easy to explain, a different type of tabulation method, really does not address directly who may vote fully. Maybe an OK reform, but unlikely to answer the question satisfactorily.

Independent redistricting: yes, yes, yes. The intent of redrawing districts is to balance representation according to population growth. It is now a process abused by the parties to hold power motivated by suspicion of 'the other side'. End the craziness.

Non-partisan elections: Very good. Answers the question directly of who may participate fully in every part of the election cycle.

Holiday and weekend voting: sure, but crumbs compared to the big question at hand. Relevance also would vary place to place. Clearly not a federal or maybe even state reform.

Fusion voting: yes and relevant

Campaign finance: not as concerned about this. In many ways it is backwards thinking--adding restrictions not removing them. I struggle with legitimate ways to say you cannot spend so many resources to influence voters. Back to non-part elections, if there are no other gateway organizations and processes in place, how much one spends on campaigning becomes largely irrelevant. We should let that one be for a few years.

Ballot access reform: your executive summary is quite succinct and perfectly relevant and strikes directly at the question at hand. Love it.

Great post Damon.

Randy Miller said...

I am so glad to see this is still the lead story on your blog Damon, it has been a busy couple of days and I can only get to this earl this morning.

I am pleased to be reading what I am reading here. I agree with a lot of it, but I am even pleased with those portions that I do not. This is exciting! It is like an online offline Constitutional Convention going on everywhere.

The fundamental question we must not lose sight of is a question that has been before the people, government and reformers from the very beginnin is "Who may participate fully in our democracy?" Initially it was propery owning white men. Then all white men. Then black men. Then just black men who paid a poll tax. Then just black men who could pass a literacy test. Then we removed the poll tax and literacy test criteria. Then the vote was opened to women. And this is where I strongly agree with Samuel Wilson et al on the issue of non-partisan elections or even primary elections with truly unabridged ballots.

Without taking up too much space I'll give a quick rundown of my thoughts on many of the reforms listed and their impact on the fundamental question of 'who may participate fully in our election process?'
IRV: a not entirely perfect tabulation method--strikes only indirectly at who may participate

PR: not easy to explain, a different type of tabulation method, really does not address directly who may vote fully. Maybe an OK reform, but unlikely to answer the question satisfactorily.

Independent redistricting: yes, yes, yes. The intent of redrawing districts is to balance representation according to population growth. It is now a process abused by the parties to hold power motivated by suspicion of 'the other side'. End the craziness.

Non-partisan elections: Very good. Answers the question directly of who may participate fully in every part of the election cycle.

Holiday and weekend voting: sure, but crumbs compared to the big question at hand. Relevance also would vary place to place. Clearly not a federal or maybe even state reform.

Fusion voting: yes and relevant

Campaign finance: not as concerned about this. In many ways it is backwards thinking--adding restrictions not removing them. I struggle with legitimate ways to say you cannot spend so many resources to influence voters. Back to non-part elections, if there are no other gateway organizations and processes in place, how much one spends on campaigning becomes largely irrelevant. We should let that one be for a few years.

Ballot access reform: your executive summary is quite succinct and perfectly relevant and strikes directly at the question at hand. Love it.

Great post Damon.

 
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