Expression of the People’s Will: The Complexities of Electoral Systems
By Zhang Chenxi
Introduction:
Throughout history, free and fair elections are a cornerstone of representative democracy, as a means for citizens to elect centralised figures with the power of determining public policies. While the democratic ethos of equality and freedom has empowered the populace with universal suffrage to vote, their will is often misrepresented in the results of the elections, unlike in referendums where people have a direct vote.
For the rest of the essay, I shall define the will of the people as their opinions on how the country ought to be run on an individual level, and measure this in regards to the different systems of elections in contemporary politics, notably indirect elections, and direct elections.
The hidden mechanisms of electoral colleges:
The case for representatives in democracy, as Thomas Hobbes argues for, is to surrender political power and legitimacy to a selected group of individuals, and to make the voters subject to these figureheads(Landemore, 2008). In the system of electoral colleges, most of the electors are distributed based on territorial representation. On the immediate level of voting, citizens choose the candidates they wish to vote for based on their party alignment, or their general ideological orientation(ICPSR).
Yet, electoral colleges has been widely contested due to its vulnerability to political machinations, making it a tool of the politicians instead of accurately reflecting who the people want. A strong case for the fundamental disjunction between the majority vote and the electoral votes by supposedly more informed politicians is the 2000 USA Presidential Elections, where Al Gore did not become president despite receiving more popular votes, as he received fewer electoral votes than George Bush. Furthermore, during the voting process, gerrymandering conducted by the politicians has also manipulated the election results, where boundaries are drawn based on voter demographic to favour a certain voting pattern(Liasson, 2021). Needless to say, the people’s voting power has been altered accordingly, leading to the results being a misrepresentation of their actual interests. This is made possible with existing system of indirect voting being subjected to exploitations on the higher rugs of the bureaucracy.
Not our representatives:
Once these candidates have been voted into parliament, they acquire parliamentary duties such as the executive, judiciary and legislative branches. While it is assumed that the result of elections may reflect the voter’s preferences in terms of the candidates they most desire to see in office, what these candidates choose to do in office, or the public policies they enact in their term may not accurately reflect voter’s will.
For instance, parliamentary debates are often stymied on more polarising issues. The parties are locked in an ideological deadlock due to the presence of the party whip, forcing candidates to vote with their party on a particular issue. In Singapore, this has been enforced most of the time by the incumbent party for the ministers of People’s Action Party to vote according to the party’s position, rather than based on their conscience(Mokhtar, 2019). Even in American congress, the ideological deadlock that the parties are mired in due to the polarisation of their ideals has made consensus-making a slow and arduous process, therefore it may take years before the bills can be approved. To further slow down the policy-making process, there have also been tactics like filibustering in parliament to undermine the voice of the opposition party. Hence, the things these politicians do in office may not be in alignment with what they have promised in their campaigns as there’s little checks and balances to hold the politicians true to their promises. While voters may vote for these politicians in the voting stage because they believe in their campaign, what they end up doing may betray the voter’s trust, therein subverting the people’s will.
With this basis established, it can be assumed that when citizens vote for their preferred candidates, they are voting for the party instead as what these candidates can achieve on a parliamentary level are more or less tied to their party’s ideals. Yet, it has increasingly been the case that voting for a certain individual, or a certain party does not fully reflect all of the voters’ preferences. The polarised political landscape does not allow for this compromise, as voting for a candidate often means acquiescing to the views of the party the candidate is in. The fractious us vs them rhetoric that has swept American politics in the recent years has led to the crass simplification of both party’s ideals into the dichotomy of liberal and conservative in mainstream politics, though their policies are much more nuanced than that. As a result, there is splintered representation of the people’s voices, since not all the complex opinions on politics can be classified into the drastic two ends of the political spectrum. A voter can believe in many things, but the representatives they have to elect do not encompass all of what the voter believes in, hence just the act of voting for a candidate does not express the will of the people.
Furthermore, very few politicians can acutely reflect the wishes of certain communities.The US is notorious for having the highest share of lawyers in its national legislature, and this is largely because the wealth and connections that come in with being a lawyer carry over to the role of a politician(Drutman, 2016). The homogenisation of the political candidates based on class has made politicians insular to the issues that the working class citizens may face. Even so, there are fewer candidates of minority communitieswho can run to be candidates in these parliamentary elections, with notably just 18 percent of the congress Top House staff being of colour(Cheyanne, 2022). If there are not enough voice to have a substantial parliamentary debate about the entrenched systemic inequality that minority communities face, these issues are to be further sidelined over other policy-related issues. Hence, the singular figure of the representative next to the colourful collective of people he aims to represent entails that he cannot project everyone’s voices, so there is a fundamental mismatch between what the people want, and what the candidates can cater to.
Illusion of a Majority:
In a majority system, the candidate who receives the popular vote usually gets elected in direct nationwide elections. Most systems of indirect voting usually comprises of two rounds, one where there are a pool of many candidates, and the other where the top two candidates are chosen to compete for the absolute majority. In fact, it is often the case where a majority vote do not get achieved in the first round, calling for the necessity of a second ballot(McNicoll, 2022). When the results of the elections is to pick one winner from a large pool of many other candidates in the first round, often the voices of the people who have voted for the other candidates gets brushed under the carpet. This can lead to a political crisis due to the conflict of interests, especially when only one candidate has to be elected from the pool of so many other candidates.
Take for example, every election in France has gone to its second round since the introduction of the system in 1958, meaning that the number of people who did not vote for the eventual president in the first round exceeds that who did vote for the president. French president Emmanuel Macron has secured his 2022 presidential elections, with Macron receiving support from majority of French voters in the age bracket of 60 to 70 and above(Wintle, 2022) . He has notably been accused of enacting policies that favour the older citizens, with the recent pension reforms of raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 inciting wide scaled protests and strikes amongst the youths who oppose these policies(Goar, 2023). Such vehement and violent protests are a culmination of years of dissatisfaction under Macron, whose policies do not cater to the working class and the youths, both groups of people taking the brunt from the coronavirus crisis.
The rise of exclusionary politics:
If elections are a form of rational decision making, its irrationality has made it a greater failure in capturing the will of the people, especially when compounded with today’s populism. As elections entail voting for a spokesperson who shall convey the voice of the people, citizens tend to project certain characteristics of themselves onto the candidates, therein casting the vote due to this shared sense of solidarity. The iconography of politicians play a huge part in this phenomenon. In the 2016 US General Elections, a huge proportion of white, working class Americans voted for Donald Trump in spite of his racist, xenophobic policies. Trump was a figurehead for the disillusionment they faced in their lives while toiling under the mirage of the American dream. Through Donald Trump’s incensed speeches, they found the root of all their problems – immigrants, the elites, minorities, and so they casted their one vote to the demagogue who fervently stirred emotions with his irate polemics(Kenny, 2023). It is debatable whether voting for Donald Trump entails that they necessarily agree with his eventual policies such as the repealing Affordable Care Act, or the withdrawal of USA from the Paris Agreement, but they definitely vote for Trump because of what he stands for – an concretised, angry voice to protect their majority privileges, and a sense of justice finally served.
Such cases of right-wing populism has also been on a rise in recent years, there are other passionate demagogues rising in European democracies following the refugee crisis in 2016. Citizens choose to vote for politicians who have a flashier personality, or are a more captivating orator. Due to this uncanny identification with the figurehead that most humans are subject to, these politicians become symbols instead of the policies or the promises they strive to bring about in their term, through their emotional rhetoric or nationalistic narrative that attracts their voter base. However, when political campaigns get coloured with emotions and irrationality, this often leads the candidates to provide grossly simplified solutions to the quandaries that has plagued the nation for years, and to deliver empty promises during their campaigns(Forthomme, 2019). Furthermore, populists are often more bark than bite, as they often failed to bring about concrete changes to the very institutions they criticise(Vila, 2022). The citizens who are drawn in by their anti-elitist sentiments and their emotive rallying in their campaigns, will often be disappointed by their inaction and lack of fruitful legislative changes once they come into power.
What about non-democratic institutions?
Authoritarian countries like China are notorious for being known as a one-party system, where their leaders are usually unanimously elected by the people. Contrary to popular beliefs, there are also local elections on a provincial or village level, though the candidates who are allowed to run have been mandated and overseen by the CCP. However, these elections are known as being a democratic tool to communicate with the masses on a more localised level, while maintaining the efficacy and authority of the one-party regime. Historically, village elections are enacted as a remedy to developmental problems in rural China in 1980s, therein serving the role of intermediary between the state and the villagers(Chen, 1999). It is a suitable platform for the villagers to provide deeper insights to the issues they face, allowing a series of bureaucratic measures to be rolled out by the incumbent to tackle their issues(Almen, 2003). These small scaled elections do have an edge over the other forms of national elections due to a more participatory ethos, and a higher level of engagement with its citizens.
Direct Democracy and Possible Solutions:
While the failure of elections may pose a wistful glance back at the direct democracy in ancient Anthens, the system has fallen out of practice for a good reason, for undoubtedly a citizen voting on every policy matter is messy and inefficient(Liu, 2015). While absolute direct democracy is idealistic, interweaving occasional referendums on controversial political issues into regular parliamentary and presidential elections is a worthy compromise between expressing the will of the people, and consolidating the power of the sovereign.
References:
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