A functional democracy allows all voters to weigh in, but systems force many to the sidelines
Voters fill out advanced ballots Oct. 25, 2022, at the Shawnee County Election Office in Topeka. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Our votes are supposed to make a difference. The makeup of our government affects all of our lives and therefore we should all be involved.
As the Kansas Bill of Rights states: “All political power is inherent in the people.” All of our votes should matter, and every vote should count equally. Worryingly, though, I’ve come to realize that this ideal doesn’t really match the way things work right now. Our voting systems are designed so that some votes count more than others.
The Electoral College is probably the most obvious example. This system gives unequal weight to our votes depending on where we live and which candidate we support. Generally speaking, less-populous states have more electoral votes per capita. Kansas has a population of about 2.9 million and will cast six electoral votes this election. That’s roughly the same number of people who live in Wyoming, Alaska and the two Dakotas combined, but those four states will have a total of twelve electoral votes — double the number that we do. In other words, the Electoral College fails at giving voters equal representation.
This inequality is not just present at the federal level. Our state elections are also set up so that it’s possible for a small group of voters to hold all of the leverage.
This year, about 50 Kansas House districts are safe enough that the opposition parties do not have a candidate on the ballot. Nine of these districts have multiple candidates from the majority party who file to run, which triggers a primary in which only affiliated voters can participate. A single candidate will advance from these closed primaries, meaning that the election is already decided before the general public has an opportunity to vote.
I’m not a political scientist, but I think this is part of the reason why our lawmakers are seen as being out of touch. More than 1 million Kansans live in House districts that will not have any competition in the general election this year. Supermajorities of Kansans may support reforms like Medicaid expansion and recreational marijuana, but that doesn’t matter if our voting systems give outsized power to the small number of voters who oppose them.
Even if the intent of closed primaries is to allow a party an opportunity to nominate its own candidate, its purpose in these safe districts is to make sure the rest of the voters are shut out of the election. Just because a candidate can win a primary in a safe district doesn’t mean they share the views of their district as a whole.
Rep. Jason Probst touched on the effect this has on the Legislature in a Kansas City Star article about fusion voting: “There’s a lot of people, particularly west of me, who would be really good in government, who would be good representatives and could do some good things. They cannot get through a Republican primary. Same thing can be said in some Democratic areas.”
With these problems in mind, I understand why some people feel indifferent or even apathetic about our elections. I actually have a similar viewpoint when dealing with events that are outside my control. I’ve learned over time that it’s not helpful to spend a lot of time dwelling on those things when there isn’t anything I can do to change them. However, I usually apply this line of thinking to sporting events or reality TV. The outcomes of our elections have a much larger impact on my life than whether my school won the NCAA Tournament this year.
If we want to change our voting systems to fix these problems, there are plenty of potential improvements.
Some states hold top-two or “jungle” primaries, where all candidates are on the same primary ballot and the top vote-getters advance to the general. Kansas could use this system for offices where uncontested ballots are common, such as in the state House and Senate. This would ensure the real election is the general election in all districts regardless of their partisan lean. A further step would be to elect representatives proportionally instead of winner-take-all. I’ve previously written about proportional representation as a solution to gerrymandering. This voting system would also broaden voter representation, meaning lawmakers would more accurately reflect the electorate as a whole.
As for the Electoral College, the obvious solution is to replace it with a direct popular vote. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have committed to do this by enacting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This would award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote once enough states join the compact. Polling shows that nearly a supermajority of Americans support the idea that the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote should be elected.
Of course, fixing our broken systems will be difficult. The main reason for this difficulty is that the lawmakers with the power to fix these systems are also the ones who benefit the most from the status quo. The silver lining for this election is that despite this problem, most of our House and Senate districts will have competition on the ballot in November. Voters who live in these districts need to ask themselves: are we comfortable with a status quo that sidelines our neighbors, or do we want to create a more level playing field for everyone?
Richard Pund is an electrical engineer interested in improving elections at all levels of government. He lives in Overland Park with his wife, son, and dog. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
The post A functional democracy allows all voters to weigh in, but systems force many to the sidelines appeared first on Kansas Reflector.
