Do Elections Guarantee Mandates?

Many politicians have claimed to have a mandate to execute various policies.  What does a "mandate" mean?  My opinion is that a true mandate means they have been enabled by the will of the people to execute particular acts. 

Elections do determine the candidate winners who get to take decisions on your behalf.  If you actually voted for the winner you can be happy your vote helped.  If you didn't you could have stayed home.  At least that is what our current First Past The Post system offers.

In practice many politicians are claiming mandates with less than 50% of actual voters (and even lower among all eligible voters).  In practice many do not vote, not only because of apathy, but with the feeling that their vote would not make a difference.  It would not give anyone power or would not be needed.

 It is true that one powerful person can get more done than any collective, but question whether it is in the best interest of everyone.  No one person really understands the concerns of everyone and many of them seem and are very unreasonable.

Strategic voting in effect means not voting for a candidate or policies, but against.  In effect the voter chooses their second or third preference.  In a small way that is also a distortion of the will of the people. 

Candidates usually lay out their priorities during the election campaign.  If nobody gets a mandate, what next?  Compromise and persuasion.  The will of the people:   One could also say that non voters have failed to give their blessing or not?    In reality there are more than one option for most issues, but if one possibility cannot gain a plurality it is easily ignored by those set on a different path.

Voters seem to accept a candidate with less than 50% making laws that are not desired by over 50% of the voters and nobody is sure about the non voters.  At some point this could cause a rebellion.

The idea behind Proportional Representation is that every vote counts for something.  If no candidate reaches 50% of the vote there is apt to be an overlap of interests and a willingness to make compromises.  In these negotiations the elected official demonstrate their respect for the voters.

There are many variations of proportional representation, but the basic idea is that every vote counts towards a a set of party policies.  The voter chooses the candidate or party that best reflects what they believe is in their best interests (including beyond their local concerns).  No need for strategic voting.

Why isn't Canada  trying to implement a proportional representation system?  One big reason is that politicians with power are satisfied with the current system that gave them their power.  Many of them did not require a majority, only a plurality.  They could concentrate their efforts with specific voters who form enough support to win a plurality.  On a national scale large segments can be ignored or at least receive less attention.  With a proportional system a candidate can build many groups and avoid neglecting many who might be persuaded.  When the election is decided in order to get anything done it is necessary to negotiate with others and usually considering many different viewpoints.  The necessity to negotiate encourages civilized discourse.

I would be the first to agree that the majority is not always right.  The goal of anyone who wants to advocate an unpopular idea is to build up support.  Examples include seat belts, smoking, climate change, anti racial and homosexual restrictions, etc..  In some cases we have reached majority support amongst voters, but the First Past the Post system still slows down the will of the people.

Two Round Elections offer 50%+1 solution

We are often hearing about two round elections, in Europe and elsewhere.  It would seem they must be more expensive and certainly more time consuming.  There must be some advantage to the notion.  Perhaps the idea is worth looking into.

A good example of the merits might be the recent American election.  No candidate received 50% of the vote.  Many voters wanted to register their preference for third party candidates, some actually in protest.  It is hard to believe that many Green party voters really wanted Donald Trump to win, but at the same time it seems likely that few Libertarian voters would have preferred Hillary Clinton to win.  Each side cannot accept the other.

In other systems such as Canada and the United Kingdom the most powerful official is decided by locally elected members, often to the party that won only a plurality of voters.  At least in the US. it is possible for one party to locally elect members of Congress while the president is of a different party which in itself is check on power abuse.

Many political parties adopt a system that assures only a candidate that obtains 50% +1 is declared the leader of that party.  After the first round there is almost always some soul searching and attempts to build a coalition among like minded voters.  In the end everyone can acknowledge that the winner is at least acceptable to the true majority and the minorities for the most part accept the decision.  The same parties are often happy with the first past the post system and plan their strategies around that.

Not sure what happens when in a national election there are 4 or more candidates and they all receive similar results.  From the party elections we know it is not always one from the top 2 of the first round that prevails, but if there are more than 2 rounds the expense and time consumption go up.

When the stark reality of only two candidates left with neither being totally satisfactory it becomes evident people are forced to give the matter more thought.

I still believe local issues need representation, but that when power is concentrated at the national level it is preferable to give voters a chance to focus on different concerns.

One pitfall is that some people vote strategically--by that I mean will vote for a third party that will have the impact of denying another party a final round or they forego the third party and vote for their second choice.  It might even out and in any case you do get to choose between the two survivors.

An educated voter is crucial to a democracy.  The system needs to support them as much as practical. Perhaps we in North America can take a closer look at how other jurisdictions handle elections.  Elections are a vital part of democracy.

TRUMP AND THE PURSUIT OF DEMOCRACY

Last night was a good night for Mr Trump and his situation is looking very bright.  Donald Trump is a master at getting our attention.  He admittedly says some smart things, but is generally appealing to fear and ignorance.  But that is not so much the theme of this blog post.

The Republicans have set up rules to choose their presidential candidate.  There are trade-offs between getting a mass appeal candidate with one that is acceptable to the Republican establishment.  In theory that is reasonable and even democratic.  Each state sets its own rules about who is eligible to vote and how they allocate the delegates who make the final selections at the convention.

At the moment there are a lot of people who are manoeuvring to stop Trump from getting the nomination.  Donald is complaining that it is unfair.  He contends that because he has been getting the most votes in most primaries he should get the nod and there might be trouble if he doesn't.

He illustrates the problem of "first past the gate post".  No one can be quite sure, but on the surface he has not won the majority in most primaries.  There have been as many as 16 candidates most of whom got at least a nibble of support.  As the candidates drop out it is not feasible to determine who a second or third choice might have been.  Perhaps Donald might deserve to win if this could be determined, but again on the surface it could also appear that the majority of voters have voted against him.

A dilemma for the Republicans who know from polling that the odds are against a Republican victory, especially with Trump or Cruz in the presidential race and likely it will affect both the Senate and House races and maybe even for Governors.  And maybe even worse affect the Supreme Court.  They need a candidate that can compete in the general election and help boost the Senate and House of Representatives, but the top two candidates poll very badly in that regard.

A compounding part of the problem is the length of the process.  The remaining primaries have only three candidates to choose from so you are getting closer to a pure decision.  Many might have preferred one of the candidates that dropped out, but that option is off the table (at least for now).  Others might want to force a decision at the convention and vote strategically.

There has been a mix of open and closed voting opportunities.  By open it is meant that non registered Republicans are eligible to vote for a Republican candidate and in a closed primary only registered Republicans are allowed to decide.  If it is really to be a party decision then it does make sense to not let outsiders effect a decision.  On the other hand it is argued they really want to know who has the best chance to win the general election.  A lot of opportunities to tilt the choice to the advantage of the Democrats.   In closed primaries only registered Republicans can vote and a lot of them represent the establishment.  Open primaries are hard to analyze because some Democrats can vote for the one they feel they can beat the easiest and assuming Hillary has her nomination sewn up.  Independents may just feel the Republicans are more interesting and still be open for a different vote in November.

Contrast to Canada as I understand it.  As a non party member I willingly give up my power to choose a candidate to represent any party.  I await the choices of those committed to a party philosophy and/or character and am grateful that I will have more than two choices.  Should I feel one party has all the answers or the overwhelming majority of the best answers I might be willing to invest in a party membership to help choose the best representative.  But I am lazy and not too sure that anyone has vastly superior answers and I like to think all my options are open.  If a particular party chooses a candidate that I feel is unsuitable I have a number of alternative choices.

Canada is examining alternatives to the first past the gate post and hopefully we will gain a better system where my vote will actually make a difference.  Americans really have two choices and one does look to be in the service of the 1% and the other has been somewhat corrupted.  For practical purposes there really are no other options.  Not much competition and not really fair to the average voter.  But theoretically every American does have a chance to help decide a party representative.

The big questions might be who do you really want to represent your party?  Who will you support?  What is the best way to organize the procedure? If nothing else Americans need to shorten the process so more work can get done.  Perhaps more importantly they need to cut down on the expense that only leads to corruption and limited choices.

Donald, instead of complaining about how unfair you are being treated, you should concentrate on winning the support of the majority.  Yes the details of the procedure do slant things, but you still have not quite got the majority behind you.

As an outsider it all seems like a nightmare.  Are Americans really that crazy that they can't understand the system is not working for them.  The majority know things are not like they should be, but they are blaming the wrong causes.

As a final note of a somewhat self righteous blogger I feel the media (and educational institutions) has not done its job in informing voters.  For my views on how the media has distorted this and other elections:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2016/03/the-media-and-american-election.html