Will it be counted?

I’ve voted in the 2024 US federal elections, as I always do, but I don’t know for sure that my ballot will be counted. There are several different reasons for that, but all of them have the same cause: Republicans. The party that once liked to call itself “The Party of Lincoln” has now positioned itself as an enemy of democracy, and voters like me are in the party’s crosshairs.

US citizens living overseas indefinitely are entitled to vote in federal elections, just like US military personnel stationed overseas can. US citizens living overseas temporarily, like workers on a short-term assignment from their US employer, or those attending school overseas, would most likely apply for a standard absentee ballot. However, US citizens who are living overseas indefinitely (like me), register through a state-administered federal system, using the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) to register and get a ballot. The FPCA forms require a Social Security number, the number of one’s state Driver license or state ID. Many US citizens living overseas indefinitely won’t have a state driver license or ID card, so providing them isn’t mandatory (it’s probably there to establish ongoing state residency for folks that applies to). All applicants also provide the address where they were last registered to vote. The organisation “Vote from Abroad” has a good explanation of what a “US voting address” is on their website:

As a US citizen living abroad, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place you lived in the US. This general rule applies even if your family no longer owns the property, or you no longer have ties to the state, or you don't intend to return to that address or that state, or if it no longer exists as a residence. It also doesn't matter if you were ever registered to vote at that address.

If you are a US citizen who has never lived in the US, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place your US citizen parent (or spouse) lived in the US. If both of your parents are US citizens, you may use the last US address of either one.

The Republican presidential candidate has been whining constantly about mail-in voting of all kinds, and has repeatedly demanded it be ended (which won’t happen because it would harm Republicans, too), and lately his target has been to demand that no mail-in votes be counted after Election Day. He recently talked yet again (again) about suing to end mail-in voting [this was discussed by Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias and Brian Tyler Cohen on a recent episode of their “Democracy Watch” YouTube series].

This gets at MAGA Republicans’ first attempt to destroy voting by mail: Their hand-picked Postmaster General, who has done everything in his power to destroy postal delivery efficiency and timeliness, something Republicans want because it would mean that completed postal ballots may take too long to be delivered to the various states’ election authorities, just as MAGAts want.

Right now, many US states, including my native Illinois (which is, of course, the place of my own FPCA registration and voting) accept and count all postal ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that are received with a certain number of days after Election day. This long-standing programme has become a particular target of Republicans.

In Illinois, ballots—again, postmarked on or before Election Day—will be counted if they’re received within 14 days after Election Day. On May 25, 2022, a lawsuit, Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections was filed on behalf of three Republicans, including US Representative Mike Bost (R-IL12), who was one of 126 Republican US Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, the infamous and idiotic MAGA lawsuit filed with the US Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election in another state—one they don’t even fucking live in. It was surely one of the most utterly bizarre and offensive legal stunts MAGA Republican politicians pulled, apart from every other suit filed by the Republican loser’s team of misfits and ne’er do wells. Then, January 6, when so many of them tried to stop the certification of the election and install the Republican candidate as president, even though he lost the election, was lightyears worse—as was the violent insurrection the Republican candidate incited.

The Republicans’ Illinois lawsuit argued that federal law requires all US states to hold Election Day on the first Tuesday in November, but Illinois allowing mail-in ballots to be received and counted for up to two weeks after Election Day effectively extended Election Day and, because of that, they bizarrely claimed that votes on Election Day are “diluted by illegal ballots received in violation of the federal Election Day statutes.” Ballots from US Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to vote, Republicans claimed, somehow magically “diluted” other citizens’ votes, because—who know why?! It’s always best to not explore Republicans’ very weird fantasies. The case was dismissed by the District Court, not on merit, but because of a lack of jurisdiction. The Republicans appealed to the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, but they upheld the District Court dismissal on August 21, 2024. This means the 14-days after Election Day deadline remains—for now.

Meanwhile, Republicans also targeted Mississippi’s law, which has a deadline of 5 business days after Election day for mail-in ballots to be received. On January 26, 2024, the Republican National Committee (RNC), along with local Republicans, filed a suit, Republican National Committee v. Wetzel, making the same arguments they made in the Illinois case, but they also claimed that the extended deadline for mail-in ballots to be received somehow magically violated their right to vote under the 14th Amendment, because, Republicans, or something. A summary judgement on July 28, 2024 reaffirmed the exisiting Mississippi deadline.

The Republicans then announced their intention to appeal to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative—and arguably the most MAGA—in the entire country. We know the RNC did this precisely so that whichever way the court ruled, the loser—either the RNC or the Republican officials in Mississippi if they lost—could ultimately appeal the case to the Republican US Supreme Court, with the (probably) justified hope that the far-right Republican Majority will rule to help their shared party by outlawing the long-established precedent of counting mail-in ballots received before the state’s legislated deadline. In fact, the Republican-controlled Mississippi state legislature offered to repeal the law, but the RNC ordered them not to do that so they could get their Supreme Court to help them.

If the Republican Supreme Court does outlaw the counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day, it, together with Republicans’ attempts to destroy the US Postal Service, will directly affect overseas voters like me. That’s because the attacks on the postal service mean it’s questionable whether a mail-in ballot sent from overseas has any chance of arriving by, let alone before, Election Day (no matter when it’s posted), so taking away the extra days many states permit may make it even more likely that the votes of overseas citizens won’t be counted—which is exactly what the Republican Party and its Dear Leader want.

There are a handful of other options for US citizens overseas long-term. Some states allow other means of submitting ballots, including sending them by fax or other electronic means (Republicans will definitely challenge those methods, too). Overseas citizens can drop off their ballots to a US diplomatic post, providing the envelope has the correct postage on it, and the staff will put the ballots in a “diplomatic pouch” to send to the USA, where they’ll be sent to the postal service. This method may cut a few days off the mailing time, however, it could mean a special trip. For example, NZ has two US diplomatic posts, the Embassy in Wellington, and the Consulate in Auckland, so I, too, might have to make a special trip (I’ve heard, though, that ballots can be couriered to a diplomatic post, though I haven’t personally verified that).

Another possible option might be to use a courier service to deliver the ballot, which Illinois law allows. However, it has special requirements, apparently around federal licensing, which usually means major companies. Of the ones I know are acceptable, the only one I know for sure is still operating in New Zealand is FedEx, but as far as I know their only facility in New Zealand is at Auckland International Airport, and there’s no option for collection from individuals. In the past, NZ Post had an arrangement with DHL, who were their US partner for document deliveries in the USA. I didn’t know that was no longer the case until 2020 when I went to send my ballot by courier, and the carrier was a company I’d never heard of. I know the ballot was delivered to Chicago, but I never got a confirmation email that it was counted, so I don’t know whether or not it was. On the other hand, maybe they stopped sending the emails after 2016.

So, regardless of what happens with the RNC’s court stunts, I have no idea whether my ballot will arrive in Chicago in time to be counted, or whether or not it will be counted if it does. This doesn’t matter in that Illinois is a solidly Democratic state, and Harris-Walz will carry Illinois—everyone knows that. There’s no US Senate election this year, so the only other federal office I got to vote for was US Representative, and the incumbent Democrat will win that race. My vote, then, technically isn’t needed—but it was never about that: It’s my duty to vote. It’s my values in action, and my commitment to democracy, neither of which would ever permit me to sit out this election—or to vote for anyone other than Harris-Walz. I hope most Americans are the same.

I also hope this isn’t the last election Americans will ever have, because if the Republicans win, it’s game over. Sorry I have no hopeful words, other than just one: Vote.

Voters deliver more good news

Voters in Ohio have just handed Republicans yet another huge defeat and stood up for the right of the people to decide for themselves what they want, and not be dictated to by overreaching authoritarians. One would think Republican politicans would learn from their ongoing string of defeats, but apparently not. Fortunately for them, voters are willing to school them again and again.

The Associated Press correctly headlined their story, “Voters in Ohio reject GOP-backed proposal that would have made it tougher to protect abortion rights”, because even though the vote wasn’t about abortions rights (technically), what it was REALLY about was abortion rights, and absolutely everyone knew it. The referendum was the Republicans’ plan to make it nearly impossible to amend the Ohio state constitution to protect abortion rights by raising the number of votes to approves such measures to 60% from the simple majority it’s been for more than a century.

Republicans claimed the measure was to prevent “outside groups” from meddling with Ohio’s constitution, which was the only partially honest thing they said about it—but they were still being completely dishonest: They really meant they wanted to prevent a measure to protect abortion rights from passing by referendum, something that would’ve drawn support from outside the state. They knew that such measures can struggle to get to 60% approval, especially in a mostly Republican state like Ohio, so they moved with their idiotic power play.

The Republicans also decided to put their thumb on the scales by holding the referendum in the middle of summer because, they were cocksure, only the most rightwing Republicans would vote at that time of year. The Republicans vastly underestimated the determination of pissed-off voters.

For decades, and even as recently as only a few years ago, Republicans kept claiming that they wanted Roe v. Wade overturned not to ban all abortions, silly voter, but merely so it could be returned to the states to decide. They threw in, “let the people decide” for extra emphasis.

Of course we now know that Republican politicians have been lying for decades, because as soon as the Supreme Court’s far-right Republican majority overturned Roe, Republican-controlled states went at breakneck speed to ban all abortions in their states, and finally started speaking honestly and admitting that their goal was a nationwide ban on all abortions, with no exceptions. Voters responded with, “Oh yeah? WATCH THIS!!! and have handed Republicans loss after loss whenever they get the chance to vote—which is precisely what Ohio Republicans were trying to make impossible for the people of Ohio.

Here’s the obvious lesson in this and similar results in Republican-controlled places like Kansas and Kentucky: Trying to ban all abortions without exception is a losing idea. Republicans’ insistence on going ahead with their radical agenda on abortion—in defiance of the will of the people—along with their ongoing wars against books, education, women, people who aren’t white, and LGBT+ people (among many, many, many other idiotic crusades) are costing them elections. The Republican “Party” is now a far-right cult with absolutely nothing to attract the majority of voters.

This is why Democrats did so well in the elections of 2018, 2020, and 2024—and the latter was supposed to be a “Red Wave” year in which the Republicans would take full control of Congress. Instead, Democrats held the Senate, barely lost the House to a caucus under the total control of its most lunatic and irrational members, folks who care only about waging unhinged Republican Party ideological wars, folks couldn’t possibly care less about delivering for the people who elected them. But hey, at least they managed to elect a lickspittle coward to become the weakest Speaker ever.

Because of Republican extremism, in 2022 Democrats took power in states, such as, gaining full control of Michigan’s state government for the first time in decades. In 2022, they also defeated every single one of the party’s candidates who set out to be just like the party’s Dear Leader, the unemployed orange Florida man who’s currently facing multiple criminal indictments with more to come.

The fact is, everyone who believes in democracy, the rule of law, and the right of voters to decide issues for themselves, should be glad that Republican politicians seem to be so universally myopic—or even outright stupid. Every time they move to advance their christofascist agenda, they piss-off more voters and end up being humiliated by them. That’s why we know for certain that between now and the 2024 US elections, Republicans will do everything they can think of to prevent people from voting, because, as a party that wants to do the exact opposite of what the people actually want, all they have left is trying to stop democracy itself. The voters of Ohio have shown that when voters have the opportunity, they’ll show the Republicans the door. Long may it continue nationwide.

Ask Arthur 2022, Part 3: Ranking choices

This is, at the moment, the penultimate post in this series: I still plan on publishing the final post next week. However, there’s still time to ask a question (details below), should one so desire, and I can always add more posts.

Today’s question is back in sequence: While related (sort of) to Parts 1 and 2, it’s still its own topic. It's also from my pal Roger Green, who asked:

Please explain (again) how an instant runoff voting scenario would work v. first past the post. If you want to, use the GA runoff as an example of a wasteful government expenditure, IMO.

For most Georgia voters (about which, more later), the state’s runoff election is an entirely separate election, held four weeks after the November election. The better, and far less expensive option, is ranked choice voting, the collective name for many different flavours of voting systems, all of which are completely different from what Georgia and other places use for most voters. In the USA, it’s also known as "alternative vote" (AV) or "instant-runoff voting" (IRV).

What all ranked choice systems have in common is that instead of voting for the only ONE candidate for an office, like in a typical first past the post (FPP) election, voters rank their choices from one (the candidate they most want) on down to the candidate they least want. In every system I’m aware of, a voter doesn’t have to rank all the candidates on the ballot. This matters because if a voter deeply loathes parties or candidates, it’s okay to simply ignore them. It’s what happens next that starts to get complicated.

The goal with ranked choice voting is that the eventual winner has a majority of the vote, something that may not happen with FPP. Let’s assume that that we’re looking at an election for a legislative representative in a single-member district, which means only one candidate can win. Let’s also assume that there are six candidates running for the office, and no clear favourite.

Let’s now assume this was the result of the election: Candidate A got 25% of the votes cast, Candidate B got 23%, Candidate C got 20%, Candidate D got 15, Candidate E got 12%, and Candidate F got 5%. Under FPP, Candidate A would be elected with only a quarter of the votes cast because they got the more than any other candidate—BUT the vast majority of voters did NOT vote for Candidate A. This can happen in any FPP election with multiple candidates.

In the real world, votes aren’t usually as close to each other as in this example, especially in elections that historically lean toward one party. The point, however, is that FPP doesn’t always elect someone that the majority of voters are at least okay with, and frequently elects candidates that only a minority voted for. When that happens, it’s typically said the candidate declared the winner got “a plurality of the vote”, which is a nice way of saying that the majority of voters didn’t vote for the winning candidate. That masks how undemocratic the result is, in my opinion.

In Georgia, no candidate won 50% of the votes cast in the November election, though Sen. Raphael Warnock, the Democrat running for re-election, won more votes than his Republican or Libertarian Party opponents. Under FPP, Sen. Warnock would’ve been reelected with less than half the vote, but instead there was the separate runoff election four weeks later, which he won.

In ranked choice voting elections, there are rounds (called different names in different places, but we’ll use that). In the example above, voters could rank their choices from 1 up to 6. The result only be the first round because no candidate received 50% of the vote. So, the lowest ranked candidate (Candidate F, in the example) is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to the second choices of Candidate F’s voters. This continues with an as many rounds as it takes until one candidate passes 50% and becomes the winner.

This all happens through mathematics, which is certainly not my strongest subject, so I can’t explain the precise mechanisms. I understand what happens, but not precisely how it happens. The important thing is that it follows mathematics.

This gets at the biggest problem with ranked choice voting: It’s complicated. It’s hard to educate voters used to FPP on how the system works and how to use it. Once they understand the principle of ranking choices, though, it’s simple to use. The next question is, why use it?

The biggest reason is that it guarantees that the winning candidate(s) will have a majority of voters who, at the very least, don’t totally reject them. Under FPP, it’s very easy for someone disliked by the majority to nevertheless win. That also means that the “spoiler effect” inherent in FPP is vastly reduced: Under ranked choice voting, people don’t “throw away” their votes on minor party candidates because if they’re eliminated, their votes will be reallocated to other, possibly similar choices that might win. Under FPP, casting a vote for a minor party candidate could help a candidate one loathes to win. Partly because it reduses the spoiler effect, over time ranked choice voting encourages more minor parties, though, it must be noted, ranked choice voting results usually coalesce around dominant parties.

All that said, another (and completely different) reason to use ranked choice voting in elections is the savings: The immediate “run off” saves the costs of holding an entirely separate election day and having entirely separate vote counting. Equally as important, it spares voters from having to endure further weeks of incessant election advertising and campaigning.

In sum, ranked choice voting is fairer and more democratic than FPP, it encourages the development of smaller parties, and it saves taxpayers money, all while ensuring they don’t have to endure any more electioneering than is absolutely necessary. Infinite wins, in my opinion.

Even Georgia sees the common-sense practicality of ranked choice voting: Overseas Georgia votes (and maybe other absentee voters—I don’t know) were given a ranked choice ballot to use in the November election. This was entirely practical: It would be physically impossible to get run-off ballots to overseas voters and get them returned in time to be counted. What I don’t know is how they were counted. To me, it seems likely that they could’ve eliminated minor party candidates in the second round to get to the two in the run-off, then add those votes onto the total in the run-off. I should emphasise that I’m speculating, because I absolutely don’t know, and it’s also possible that the votes of overseas Georgians weren’t used at all in the runoff.

Finally, ranked-choice voting, in all its many flavours, isn’t merely always fairer and more democratic than FPP, it’s also a system that could be adopted everywhere in the USA without changing the country’s system of government or amending the US Constitution (or, probably, any state constitutions—I haven’t checked that). This would do more to change the USA’s poisoned politics faster than pretty much any other democratic reform. All of which is why the USA’s rightwing and their wealthy donors would oppose it with with all their might: Ranked choice voting would mean they’d lose their unearned, unelected power. To me, that’s just one more excellent reason for the USA to switch to ranked choice voting.

Thanks to Roger for today’s question!

It’s not too late to ask a question: Simply leave a comment on this post (anonymous comments are allowed). Or, you can email me your question (and you can even tell me to keep your name secret, although, why not pick a nom de question?). You can also ask questions on the AmeriNZ Facebook page, though keep in mind that all Facebook Pages are public, just like this blog. To avoid being public there, you can send me a private message through the AmeriNZ Facebook Page..

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-21”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

A decade-long inquisition
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 1: Speaking in the House
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 2: Indepen-dunce

The test

Today (Tuesday in the USA) is Election Day. Will the country’s four-year nightmare end? Will it return to kindness and compassion? Is there a future for the USA’s democracy? Or, will it all come crashing down as the USA is destroyed? No one knows. No one.

The video above sums up why I support Joe Biden. Sure, there was no way that the Republican candidate could ever have gotten my support—my disdain for him is decades old. But after the utter, complete, and total disaster that the past four years have been, I went out of my way to vote this year, even though Illinois is thoroughly Blue, so, in that sense, it didn’t matter. But I needed to add my voice to the millions rejecting the corruption, lies, and creeping authoritarianism of the current regime, because lives really do—and literally—depend on it.

I know some people don’t like Joe Biden, for whatever reason. I know that that for Democrats it’s often because he isn’t Left enough. Some Centre-Right people may hesitate because they think he's too Left. I couldn’t possibly care less about any of that.

The truth is, we’re electing a president, not a saint. We’re electing a human, not a demigod. Which means there’s no such thing as a “perfect” candidate or president, and there never will be. Elections are choices only ever between who’s actually on the ballot, fullstop. The mythical “perfect” candidate isn’t in the mix, nor is someone’s idea of a “better” candidate. It’s always that way in a two-party system.

I voted for Joe Biden, not just against the Republican candidate. As I’ve said many times before, there have been plenty of times I was actually voting against a candidate—even here in New Zealand. Not this year, and not in either country’s election. There’s too much at stake.

Today the New Zealand Herald published an article about two Americans living in New Zealand. I know the Democrat through Facebook, and today I’ll meet her in person for the first time when I stop in at an election event here in Hamilton. That much I AM looking forward to, even though the election itself terrifies me.

However, I noticed something odd in that article, something aside from the fact that the supporter of the Republican candidate didn’t want to be named, although I think that’s telling. It was the glaring illogic of what he said.

He claimed his candidate would have “quite a decisive win” because “traditionally the Democrats vote by mail and the Republicans vote on the day." Logically, of course, the winner would be whoever gets the most votes, no matter if they’re cast by mail or in person. He goes on to absurdly say that “because the Democrats don't have a huge lead over Trump right now, once the voting day comes in, all those Trump voters go and vote on that day. That's just going to propel him right ahead.”

That’s just plain stupid, even by the logic of his own reckons. There’s been massive voter turnout already, and in many places votes cast reached two-thirds of the total votes cast in 2016 well before Election Day (and that no doubt includes plenty of Republican votes). Overall, Democrats begin with more voters than Republicans have, and the Republican candidate has been nothing but unpopular during his entire time occupying the White House. But somehow Republicans’ Election Day votes are supposed to magically change everything? Seriously? So, what’s he on about?

He’s just following his leader.

For months and months the Republican candidate has been attacking the US election process, and mail voting in particular—never mind that’s how HE votes! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. More recently, he’s been demanding that the winner be whoever is leading on Election Day, even though that’s never happened in US history. There are reasons for all that.

The Republican candidate knows that, in fact, Democrats do tend to vote early, often by mail, and that in many states some or all of those votes won’t be counted on Election Day. He also knows that most Republicans do tend to vote on Election Day (we’ll see if that’s still true in the middle of a pandemic).

The Republican candidate knows that because of all this, he may very well have a narrow lead on election night, so he’ll declare “victory” and then he’ll send in his “army of lawyers”, as he put it, to try to prevent any votes being counted after Election Day. He knows that the Republican Supreme Court will rule in his favour—he said he’s depending on them. In that way, the Republicans could steal the election.

THAT is what the anonymous Republican in the article was alluding to, whether he knew it or not, and it’s what the Republican candidate has been promising for months: If they can’t win the election, if they can’t get more votes than Joe Biden, then they’ll steal it. Hopefully, the US republic still has enough strength in it to fight off such an attack against democracy itself, or maybe Biden will win by a big enough margin to put it out of reach of the Republican candidate’s “army of lawyers”.

In any case, we may well not know the end of the story for days or even weeks, but one way or another it’ll be done by early January.

The only way to change anything is to vote the Republican out of office, and the only way to do that is to vote for Joe Biden. In my case, it was definitely a vote FOR Joe every bit as much as it was a vote for change, but that doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is getting that man out. Democracy absolutely can do that—if it survives this test.

This post is based on, and synthesised from, various comments I made on Facebook over the past 24 hours.

This is the 5000th published post on this blog.

Local democracy to increase

New Zealand’s city of Kirikiriroa-Hamilton—my current home—is about to gain some more fairness and local democracy. The City Council has just voted to replace the old-fashioned and anti-democratic “First Past the Post” (FPP, or sometimes FPTP) with the more democratic and fair “Single Transferable Vote” (STV) system for the 2022 local elections. This is a major step forward for local democracy.

Hamilton City Council ran an online survey between June 17 and July 17, and received 928 responses. 726 respondents (78.1%) wanted to switch to STV and 202 (21.9%) wanted to keep using FPP. (Full disclosure: I took part and said I wanted to switch to STV). To be honest, I’m not certain that a high response among a tiny minority of people represents a statistically significant thing to base a major decision on, even though I support it. Still, I prefer councillors to make the decisions we elect (and pay) them to make rather than kicking everything down the road by holding referenda. If we don’t like what they decide, we can vote them out and put in people who will do what we want; the whole point of representative democracy is that we’re represented, and we’re the final arbiter of whether they got it right or not.

Quibbles about what they based their decision on aside, I do support the move for the reasons I stated in my submission:

STV ensures elected candidates don’t get in with a small minority of votes. It also removes the spoiler effect in which votes for one candidate might accidentally elect the one we least want elected. All of which encourages diversity among candidates, and so, the people elected.

The video above from C.G.P. Grey explains STV, which really is a pretty confusing system for anyone who only knows FPP. The important point is that it introduces proportionality, unlike a system called “Alternative Vote” (AV, or also called “Instant Runoff Voting”, used in parts of the USA). While both systems eliminate the spoiler effect that FPP actually encourages, STV is the only one of the two that discourages the descent into a two-party system, which both FPP and AV encourage.

STV is best used in multi-member districts, and that’s exactly why STV is best to elect Hamilton’s city councillors.

Hamilton elects its city councillors from two wards, East and West (of the Waikato River), both of which elect six councillors (the mayor is elected citywide). In the 2019 local elections, there were 22,284 votes in the East, and 18,213 in the West, for a total of 40,497 votes citywide.

The mayor, Paula Southgate, was elected under FPP with 13,452 votes, some 3,000 votes more than the next candidate. What that means, however, is that more than 27,000 people didn’t vote for her—twice as many as those who did—she won with about a third of all votes cast citywide (629 votes in the city weren’t for any official candidate). This is the fatal flaw of FPP voting: It makes it easy for someone to win an election with a minority of the vote, something that also happened in the races for City Councillor. (Full disclosure: I wasn’t living in Hamilton at the time of the election, and so, had no vote).

In the East Ward, the top candidate got 8,342 votes, which means that 13,945 voters in East Ward didn’t vote for him, and that he won his seat with around 37% of the vote. The other five candidates, obviously, had even less voter support.

In West Ward, the top candidate received 10,105 votes, which is more than half of all votes cast, but all the rest got less than half the vote, including the second-highest polling candidate who was just below half.

Electing councillors from the six candidates winning the highest number of votes in descending order means that candidates can—and often do—win with less than half the votes cast, and it also encourages voters to vote strategically, such as, to vote for one or two candidates only to avoid electing someone they like the least, in the hope it will put their favoured candidate over the line. In a one-winner scenario, like for Mayor, strategic voting is even more important

STV eliminates the need for strategic voting, but, ironically, makes it more potent at the same time. This is because under STV, voting to block a candidate isn’t necessary. However, it allows voters to rank the candidate they want the most as first without risking electing someone they detest. If their chosen candidate doesn’t win in the first round, then the second choice can still help block a detested candidate by advancing one who’s not as bad (this is shown in more detail in C.G.P. Grey’s video below). In this way, it encourages independent and minor-party candidates, which is both more fair and democratic, while also not forcing voters to choose only between the lesser of two evils.

Still, STV isn’t a one-size-fits all solution. While it introduces proportionality to an elected body, for true proportionality a system like MMP (Mixed-Member Proportional), which is used to elect New Zealand’s Parliament, is much better, more fair, more representative, and more democratic. It could be used for city councillor races, but councils’ small size would make it hard to achieve proportionality, and no one wants hundreds of councillors just to ensure proportionality. STV is a logical alternative.

So, from 2022, Hamiltonians will elect their city councillors using a system that will eventually encourage a more representative and diverse city council. In the meantime, we won’t risk decreasing representativeness on the council merely by casting votes for the candidates we really want. But I bet a lot of voter education will need to take place first.



Related:
“The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained” [WATCH].
“The Alternative Vote Explained” [WATCH].

It’s all about balance

The video above is the 30-second version of an ad currently running on TV to raise awareness of the fact that the New Zealand Electoral Commission is in the process of open review of proposed adjustments to the country’s Electorate boundaries to ensure they have roughly equal population. Other countries do this, too, of course, but New Zealand’s work is completely non-partisan and independent of all elected politicians. It’s a good system.

Generally speaking, there’s not much opposition to boundary changes because most people simply don’t care that much about it. Sometimes people will grizzle about losing an MP they like for a different one they may not like as much, but that’s about it. Because Electorates are geographic entities, they reflect the populations of those areas. So, areas that strongly align with one party or the other are likely to remain so even after the boundaries are shifted. That’s not a concern of the Electoral Commission, however, so sometimes party balance does shift.

The Electorate we moved from isn’t changing, the Electorate we moved to is changing, and the one I plan on moving to sometime next year isn’t changing. Of those three, the only grumbles I’ve heard so far have been about the electorate I live in now because, complainers say, the proposed new boundaries “split communities”. Trouble is, very often most of those supposed “communities”, if they existed at all, were hardly unitary entities in the first place, so no “splitting” could actually happen. Still, when boundary changes really do threaten to “split” communities, genuine appeals unusually resolve the issue.

The video below is the 15-second version of the ad, which I think works well: It retains the important parts of the longer ad without sacrificing meaning. This is the version I’ve seen on TV the most often, and I think its brevity makes it the best one.



Finally, the 7-second version. I’ve never seen this one on TV, and I think that’s a good thing: While it reinforces their message that “it’s all about balance”, in my opinion it doesn’t provide enough information to explain what they’re talking about, or why, exactly, “it’s all about balance”, or what that even means.



Objections the proposed boundaries are open until December 20, 2019.

Delivering mistakes

The USA is poised to withdraw from an international treaty that could make life more difficult for citizens who live overseas temporarily or permanently. This could affect a great many things, including voting by overseas US citizens, but the reason behind the change seems to be about money—and mistakes.

The (US) National Association of Counties (stylised as NACo) reported on its blog yesterday that the USA is about to withdraw from the United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU). The UPU is a 142-year-old treaty, which the UPU describes this way:

With its 192 member countries, the UPU is the primary forum for cooperation between postal sector players. It helps to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services.

In this way, the organization fulfils an advisory, mediating and liaison role, and provides technical assistance where needed. It sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel and financial services volumes and improve quality of service for customers.

Back on October 18, 2018, the White House announced (copy and paste this link to get to the White House Press Statement: http://bit.ly/33znhi6) that it was withdrawing from the UPU. That process is due to be completed on October 19, 2019—just a few short months before the 2020 presidential primary voting is due to begin.

According to estimates by the Federal Voting Assistance Programme (FVAP), and shared by NACo in the link above, there are approximately a million active duty service members and three million other US citizens living in 170 countries that are eligible to vote in federal elections, and all of them will rely, at least in part, on postal delivery. No one knows how the US withdrawal from the UPU will affect those voters.

We could find out soon. There are some state and local elections in November of this year, and some ballots will be sent out in September. That means that the withdrawal from the UPU will happen right in the middle of the 2019 voting programme, and no one knows what that will mean for returning ballots on time this year. Tt may out to be a test for what could happen in 2020.

It’s tempting for some to think that this is part of a plan to deny the vote to US citizens living overseas, but while that’s without basis, it’s definitely understandable. As everyone knows, the USA has long been notorious for its efforts to make voting harder, whether through gerrymandering districts, actively suppressing the votes of minorities or supporters of the other political party, or refusing to allow former prison inmates to vote—the list is practically endless. However, not only is there no evidence suggesting vote suppression is the reason for this, the evidence suggest that it’s merely a consequence.

First, there’s no solid data on how overseas US citizens vote. That means there’s no way of knowing which party would be most affected by the change, so targeting overseas voters could be self-defeating for the current regime, particularly since no one knows if it will affect voters at all. Second, and regardless of party preference, there just aren’t enough overseas votes to sway a statewide election, like for US Senator or US President in a state, and that means overseas voters are highly unlikely to influence what candidate gets a state’s Electoral College Votes (the only total that actually matters). That said, those votes might, at least theoretically, help determine small elections, like for US Representative. Maybe.

The real issue is that withdrawal from the UPU is that it will affect far more than just voting: Potentially, all letters, cards, small packages, etc., sent through postal services could be affected, with higher costs and potential delays. Even NACo, which is interested in the move because counties are usually responsible for sending out and receiving elections material, noted that the current regime “cited concerns over terminal due rates as the primary reason for the withdrawal and hopes to establish self-declared rates for small packages to ensure American businesses remain competitive in the e-commerce marketplace.” In other words, it’s all about money. It’s not hard to imagine the leader of the current regime calling the UPU arrangements “very unfair”. Probably in a Tweet. Well, maybe if he understood it.

The best and most likely explanation, then, is that this is all about money, as such things usually are. It seems unlikely that withdrawal from the UPU will accomplish what the current regime thinks it will, of course, which, of course, isn’t unusual for them. Based on the evidence, I think the move is absolutely ideological, but only because it’s all about money for corporations. It’s also probably about the current regime’s general, ordinary incompetence.

I’m certainly open to evidence that I’m wrong—about the regime’s motives or even its incompetence. But absent that, this seems to be one of those times that the simplest explanation is the best.

US citizens living overseas could, potentially, have a harder time voting, yes. But they also could have a harder time sending a birthday card to Great Aunt Agnes, or a Christmas present to their parents. And this could result in higher costs for e-commerce companies, including ones shipping TO the USA. Time will tell if these are a problems or not, but, for now, there’s no evidence that the regime is intending to make life harder for US citizens living overseas, even though it could very well do so. The really sad part of all of this, though, is that saying the current regime doesn’t appear to be trying to make people’s lives harder intentionally is unusually high praise of them.

The photo at the top of this post is from a 2016 Instagram Post that I also shared in a blog post called, “I Voted, 2016 edition”. It’s my own photo. And my hand, for that matter.

Is Boris bad enough?

Last night (NZ time), Alexander Boris de Pfeffel (Boris) Johnson, age 55, was chosen to be the new leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, and so, will become that country’s next Prime Minister. A mere 0.24% of people in the United Kingdom decided he should get the job. Critics often call Boris the UK’s equivalent of the current occupant of the USA’s White House because of his frequent lying and buffoonery, but unlike his American counterpart, Boris is quite smart and a career politician. With the fate of the entire UK in the balance, is he as dangerous as everyone supposes?

Boris is certainly capable of becoming a demagogue if he wants to, and some are suggesting he wants to on one issue alone, the one he’s constantly lied about: Brexit. He vowed that the UK will leave the European Union by October 31, “do or die, come what may”. That could mean a so-called “no deal Brexit” in which the UK crashes out of the EU with nothing in place to deal with the resulting economic and political chaos in the UK, not the least because it may spur pro-EU Scotland to vote for independence form the UK, and Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon suggested as much today in a series of Tweets.

Theresa May, the soon-to-be ex-Prime Minister, tried to get a deal through Parliament three times and failed three times. A large bloc of Conservative Party (Tory) MPs oppose a no-deal Brexit, and would not support Boris going the no-deal route. In addition, the Tories have a tiny majority in the House of Commons, and will end up with just two votes to spare if, as expected, the Remain-supporting Liberal Democrats pick up two seats in upcoming by-elections.

To get around this problem, Boris is supposedly thinking about proroguing Parliament, that is, briefly suspending it so he can do as he wishes without risking Parliament voting against him. This is widely considered unconstitutional, it’s obviously anti-democratic, and it would be a bad faith move. Would he risk it? Or would he decide to go to an early election it the hope of winning a mandate?

Bets are being taken on both outcomes.

The whole process of Boris’s elevation has been anti-democratic. 159,320 members of the Conservative Party—the pro-Brexit party, of course—were the only ones who could vote. That works out to about 0.24% of he population of the UK who got to choose the next Prime Minister. The Conservative Party’s demographics don’t come close to being representative of the UK: The Conservative Party is 71% male, the highest proportion of any party in the UK. Its members’ average age is 57, the oldest of any political party. So, a small number of people who are more male, older, and concentrated in southern and southeast England, determined who the Prime Minister would be for the entire United Kingdom.

Conservative Party membership went back up in recent years, after a long period of decline, suggesting the party is attracting hardline conservatives, especially nativist/anti-immigration/racist folks. The party had lost about a third of its members after ex-PM David Cameron pushed through marriage equality in 2013, and that further suggests the party has moved more hard right than it was, which would make it more conservative than the general population.

Yet Tories alone, totally unrepresentative of the UK, were the only ones who got to elevate Boris.

In most Westminster-style systems, the party caucus chooses the replacement for a party leader, which also means the prime minister if they're leading government. Ordinarily, it's because the party leader has been rolled, but this is the second time in a row that the Tory Leader/PM has resigned and then been replaced. The normal procedure gives at least a theoretical possibility that the government will fall and fresh elections will be called so that the people can have a voice. In this case, older, white, richer conservative men decided for the entire country, and a Tory MP who defies the will of the party membership would be very, very foolish, and almost certainly committing political suicide.

I should add that I don't have an issue with a party in Opposition consulting its members—NZ Labour did that twice, though the membership only got a share of the total weighting, not the final say. Labour were the Opposition at the time, and who their Leader was didn't matter to government—obviously, because neither party leader chose in this way became NZ Prime Minister.

Still, it's possible that the chaos that will result when ego meets political reality will spark fresh elections called in a few weeks or a couple months. Boris believes in himself more than anything, apparently, he’d want to go for a mandate form the people. But with the Liberal Democrats winning all over the place on a pledge to hold a new referendum, he shouldn't count on holding his razor-thin majority. Whatever happened in the even of a new election, at least the people would get the voice they have been denied.

Is Boris as dangerous as everyone supposes? Potentially, absolutely, however, absolutely nothing is certain. He may try to play games by proroguing Parliament, he may call fresh elections, or for all we know he might get so frustrated by not getting his way that he just storms off.

The fate of the entire UK is in the balance.

Letting the people vote

Today the New Zealand Government announced important changes for the 2020 General Election, changes that will make it easier for people to both register and to vote. They are very good changes.

The changes are:

• Election-day enrolment (“same day enrolment”);
• More voting places where people live, work and play, such as supermarkets;
• Making it easier for New Zealanders to vote from overseas;
• Strengthening measures to protect the electoral process in the event of a significant emergency or national disaster.

Justice Minister Andrew Little said:

“New Zealanders deserve to have their votes counted. Nearly half of voters are now exercising their right to vote prior to election day. Those early voters are able to both enrol and vote at the ballot box. It’s only fair that people who vote on election day have the same right to enrol as those casting an early vote.”

This change will treat early voting and election day the same way, which will make it easier for people to vote. In the past, younger voters often missed the registration deadline and were unable to vote. While I don’t expect that to be a problem this election, and we could see a record turnout for younger voters, it’s nevertheless important to make the registration process consistent and easy.

Andrew Little added:

“Putting ballot boxes in supermarkets and malls will make it easier for people to vote. It’s important that ballot boxes are placed where people are going about their normal business and can therefore accommodate voting more easily into their busy lives.”

This is a very big deal. In past election, early voting places were usually in places where people wouldn’t necessarily otherwise go. By putting them in shooping malls and grocery stores, which people may go to several times during the early voting period, it will make it easier than ever for people to actually vote. This is a fantastic change.

One of the best ways to change the way things are done is to make sure that voter turnout is as large as possible. To do that, it’s important to make it as easy and efficient as possible to both register and vote.

The most important thing that politicians can do is simple: Let the people vote. These changes go a long way toward making that easier.

Pew’s 'striking findings' from 2018

Pew Research has long been the go-to place for statistics on what the world thinks about issues, policies, and so much more. Their data is so good that when they label a report, “18 striking findings from 2018”, it’s hard to ignore. In fact, it’s good not to.

Many of their findings this year were surprising to me, including the one that the number of illegal immigrants to the USA continues to fall, and has been since its peak in 2007. In fact, it’s now as low as it was in 2004. It’s not the statistic itself, it’s that so many people believe the exact opposite is true—that the number is rising. Most of those who believe that support the current regime, but I’m sure far too many who don’t also believe it.

A similarly not-at-all-surprising statistic was that Americans 18-49 were far better at identifying factual statements as factual, and opinion statements as opinions, than those who ere 50+. Moreover, this held true regardless of ideological bend of the statements. The current regime’s strongest, most hardcore supporters tend to be low-information and/or more poorly informed than people who don’t watch any news at all, and most of them also tend to be older. I have no way of knowing whether that’s coincidence or not.

There are so many other stats that are interesting for one reason or another that it’s impossible to single them out. I’m sure they picked 18 because it’s 2018, but if they were as interested in clickbait as news organisations are, they’d have had fewer and picked an inflammatory headline, something like “5 most shocking findings of 2019”. I like their way much better.

But, then, that figures: I don’t have trouble telling the difference between facts and opinion, and I’m not too keen on supposed news organisations blurring that line.

I wonder what striking findings they’ll tell us about next year. I can’t wait to find out.

The existential threat to America

The United States has a major threat to its democracy, something deeply entrenched, and that’s been around a lot longer than the current occupant of the White House or his Russian enablers. That threat is the Republican Party. It is no exaggeration to say that, left unchecked, they will utterly destroy democracy in the USA.

We saw in the recent Midterm Elections that the system is so rigged in favour of Republicans that even though Democrats did better than Republicans did in 2010, they won about two-thirds the number of seats in the US House. In Wisconsin, Democrats won more than half the popular vote, but got only about a third of the legislative seats.

Republicans have rigged the system to make it so difficult as to be nearly impossible to win elections without a massive landslide. But when, despite all their efforts, Democrats win elections, then Republicans go to Plan B and legislate to essentially nullify the election.

In Wisconsin and in Michigan, Republicans have attempted to legislate to prevent Democrats from doing what they were elected to do—things the Republican Party opposes.

In a piece explaining the Republican power grabs, Vox laid out the background:

Democracy is premised on the idea that political power is only legitimate when exercised with the consent of the governed. But in reality, people disagree about fundamental political and moral issues; no elected government will ever have 100 percent support of the population, or anything close to it. The purpose of a democratic political system is to bridge that gap: to create a system for resolving these disagreements that everyone thinks is fair. That way, everyone will accept the outcome of the election as basically legitimate even when their side loses.

The post-election power grabs amount to Republicans declaring that they no longer accept that fundamental bargain. They do not believe it’s legitimate when they lose, or that they are obligated to hand over power to Democrats because that’s what’s required in a fair system. Political power, to the state legislators in question, matters more than the core bargain of democracy.

What Republicans are doing is undermining democracy itself, first by rigging the electoral system to benefit themselves, and now by engaging in a bald power grab to prevent the will of the people from being done. If Democrats had ever tried anything so crass and disgusting, Fox “News” would have organised riots in the streets, but the Republican Party in Washington and their party’s media, like Fox, are completely ignoring what’s happening. That figures: The party’s motto is "Party First, Country Last".

We can hope that courts will overrule these crass partisan games, and they very well may. But longer term the only answer is to inflict massive electoral defeat on Republican candidates—so massive that there won’t be enough of them left to prevent the repair of the USA’s democracy. It’s only by inflicting such a massive defeat that the party will be forced to reform itself so it can return to supporting democracy again.

The reason this is so important is that Republican politicians are making peaceful change impossible and rendering all of the USA’s democratic structures illegitimate. When that happens, the people lose all faith in democracy itself, and that can end in one of two ways: An authoritarian dictatorship, which is, apparently, what the Republican Party wants. The other possibility is violent revolution, and that’s something that no one could hope to control, but it would lead to the collapse of democracy, too.

President Kennedy warned us all: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Republicans need to respect democracy again—before it’s too late.

The Facebook post from Robert Reich, above, is his response to the disgusting situation the Republican politicians are engaged in. I share it because I agree with him.

America's democracy problem

The USA has a huge problem: Its democracy is completely broken and that prevents the will of the people from being heard, much less carried out. The video above from Vox’s Ezra Klein talks about the worst problems preventing democracy and democratic solutions in the USA. He offers no set, absolute reforms or solutions, except for this: We must move, we must change. Well, obviously.

In 2018, Democrats had a massive vote, but didn’t win as much as some people expected. There are two reasons for that. First, Republicans passed voter suppression laws, and Republican elected officials worked hard, to keep people, especially non-white voters deemed likely to vote for Democrats, from being able to vote. We saw this most notoriously in Georgia, Florida, and North Dakota, but wherever Republicans held power, they usually tried to keep Democratic supporters from voting.

The second problem is gerrymandering, which draws electoral districts to maximise the power of one party. In this case, Republicans drew legislative boundaries to maximise the number of Republicans elected while minimising the number of seats—if any—that Democrats can win.

Those are the two main reasons that Democrats didn’t win as many races as they should have. No other factor was anywhere near as important as this: Republicans have rigged the system to their advantage.

Consider the US House of Representatives.

In 2010, Republicans won control of the US House by taking 63 seats from Democrats—an utterly massive win, carried by the party’s teabagger insurgency. Republicans won 51.7% of the popular vote to Democrats 44.9%, so the Republicans enjoyed a 6.8 point margin of victory.

In 2018, Democrats won control of the US House, picking up 40 seats. Democrats won 53.3% of the popular vote to the Republicans’ 45%, meaning Democrats enjoyed an 8.3 point margin of victory.

So: in 2018 Democrats did 1.5 points better than Republicans did in 2010, yet they won 23 FEWER seats. THAT is what rigging the system has done for Republicans. THAT is what Republicans putting party first has done. THAT is what political corruption looks like.

The question is, how do we fix that? One logical answer is to gerrymander the system back toward Democrats, giving mainstream Americans a chance to reform the system once Republicans are out of the way. But that would only rile up the rightwing, possibly violently. It would be no more legitimate than the current rigged system is, no matter how virtuous, noble, or even defensible the goal might be. There MUST be a better solution.

The solution is structural reform to change everything about the way elections are done. This will not, by itself, make government feel legitimate. The USA’s political culture is now so partisan, so divided, and so toxic that even if the USA adopted the most fair and democratic system possible, whoever lost an election would feel the result was illegitimate—at least, at first they would. Old habits die hard.

It is probable, though, that after more and more free and fair elections took place, and ordinary people saw that the fair contest of ideas is what wins elections, not money or rigging the system, they would eventually come around. The diehards at the extremes never would, of course, but I don’t think anything could ever please them unless they hold all the power, and maybe not even then.

This assumes we get the chance to fix America’s democracy problem, and that is not yet certain.

Rather than rehash the various reform measures I’ve talked about over the years, I decided to just list the relevant posts below. The need to reform has been there for years, and so have the solutions.

But there’s one final important point, a warning, actually, articulated by President Kennedy in a speech to Latin American diplomats at the White House on 13 March 1962. He said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” We need to make a peaceful revolution before the alternative becomes unavoidable.

The American problem (2017)

Fixing the Electoral College (2016)

Real electoral reform (2013)

Yes, I voted

I’ve voted in the 2018 US Midterm Elections. There were things that were new to me this year, and the need for my vote is minimal—which is the main reason I voted. There’s more to all that, of course.

All US citizens living overseas are entitled to vote in US elections, though what elections and offices will vary depending on the citizen’s circumstances and state laws. At a minimum, US citizens living overseas are entitled to vote in all federal elections, that is, President/Vice President, US Senator, and US Representative, all from the last US address the citizen was registered at.

It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the person lived at that address, or even if there’s any housing at that address any more. All that matters is that the citizen was legally registered to vote at that address before moving overseas.

What happens after that varies from state to state, and some make it much harder to do than other states do. My native Illinois is in the middle of the pack, in which some things are easy, others are not. On balance, however, it’s lightyears better than the states that make it difficult.

A citizen living overseas registers to vote every two years (in time the federal election cycle) using a process called the FPCA (Federal Post Card Application) process, something every state must support by law. It used to be that one could register less frequently, like every four years, but the law was changed to make it harder.

A voter registers before the state’s primary election, and they will receive a ballot for the general election, too. I didn’t vote in the Illinois Primary this year only because I was disorganised. But I was also tempted to skip voting in the general election because this year’s there’s only one office I can vote for, US Representative, because neither US Senator from Illinois is up for re-election this year.

Illinois’ 9th Congressional District is represented by Jan Schakowsky, who was elected to succeed Sidney R. Yates, who represented the district for all but two years between 1949 and 1999. When I lived in Chicago, I voted for Yates, and as an ex pat I’ve voted for Schakowsky.

I thought about not bothering to vote this year because the district is overwhelmingly Democratic, and there’s no doubt that Schakowsky will win re-election. But for months I’ve been preaching the importance of voting for Democrats no matter what, and I needed to practice what I preached.

So, I submitted my FPCA application late, and received the ballot and information by email. The postal version hadn’t arrived as of today, so I used the PDFs they emailed me. I’d never done that before.

I was careful—VERY careful—to follow the instructions to the letter, to make sure my vote is counted. The way it works is that the envelope containing a ballot must be postmarked on or before the date of Election Day. If the postmark can’t be read for whatever reason, they go by the date on the certification the voter signs and affixes to the outside of the envelope containing the actual ballot. I voted yesterday, and posted it today, both before deadline.

The photo up top is a sample of the ballot I received. The law says that no one can watch me mark my ballot (which created a problem ten years ago when I wanted to make a video about voting from overseas), so the photo doesn’t show my ballot or who I voted for. There seems to have been something on the lens, though, that obscured part of the ballot. Sorry about that.

Someone who is overseas only temporarily—like, for example, on a one-year work contract—would probably cast an ordinary absentee ballot, depending on their state’s election laws. But the FPCA programme is there for them, too, should they need it.

Sometimes people ask me why I’d bother, since I don’t live there anymore. Occasionally there’s an air of disapproval in the question, as if I shouldn’t, but there are damn good reasons for voting. First, it’s every American citizen’s right to vote, paid for in bloody wars and the struggle of ordinary people to make America “a more perfect union”. Failing to vote would dishonour everyone who fought in whatever capacity to make America better.

There’s also a practical reason. The USA is one of only two countries (the other is Eritrea) that tax citizens based on nationality rather than residence. What that means is that US citizens living overseas may, under some circumstances, be required to pay taxes to the federal government AND whatever country they’re living in. That’s double taxation on the same income, in other words. Most countries only tax the people living and working within their country, not their citizens living overseas.

A foundational principle of the USA is that there must never be taxation without representation. US citizens living overseas—subject to US taxation—have every right to vote on the people who will decide their tax burden and the onerous reporting rules. That’s not just sensible and fair, it’s common sense and a fundamental requirement of a democracy.

So, I did my part. Again. That also means that if Republicans win this week, it’s Not My Fault. I did my duty to help restore democracy and checks and balances to the USA. Hopefully, enough others will have done the same, too.

Voting is open

The Facebook video above is from the Electoral Commission, and is from their "I Vote" Facebook Page. It's also a TV commercial currently being broadcast. Advance voting began on Monday, and continues right through until September 22 (Election Day is Saturday, September 23). Voters can vote at a number of places in or near their Electorate, and if they're not registered to vote they can register and vote at the same time, but they cannot register on Election Day.

I'm sharing this video because it's a TV commercial, but the video is only available through Facebook, which makes this a bit problematic.

Up until now, Electoral Commission commercials have been posted, eventually, to their YouTube Channel, but they haven't done that since August 6. The only videos they've posted since then have been instructional videos and short messages, the latter of which could be seen as sort of commercials, and may even be useful for sharing on social media, but they seem sort of orphaned on YouTube (they don't seem to have been posted to Facebook, for example, and as far as I know, they haven't been broadcast). This seems limiting.

I don't have any problem with any organisation posting their videos directly to Facebook—it makes it very easy to share them with other Facebook users, after all. But Facebook videos are not necessarily easy to embed elsewhere: Every single time I do it I have to figure it out all over again because it's not intuitive in any way. But the bigger problem I have with this trend is that Facebook is a mostly closed ecosystem, and posting videos only to Facebook necessarily limits their availability to people who want to share them, and to the non-Facebook using general public who may be interested in seeing them. I'm not sure that having them available for embedding outside of Facebook only to people with access to Facebook in the first place is good idea.

This is not a Facebook v. YouTube thing—they both have their pluses and minuses. Also, there are other options for sharing videos than just those two places. Rather, this is about maybe—just maybe—giving Facebook too much influence over how information is shared. Nowadays, media companies, politicians, and individuals alike are live-streaming events that are only discoverable to other Facebook users, while similar public YouTube live videos are accessible to anyone.

Another problem with Facebook, apart from only being readily available to other Facebook users, is that only things posted publicly on Facebook—posts, photos, videos—can be embedded outside of Facebook (which means nothing from my personal Facebook can be shared except with a very limited audience of Facebook users, and with no one outside Facebook; things posted to my AmeriNZ Facebook Page can be shared because they're always public). I can't remember the last time I wanted to embed a YouTube video that didn't allow that.

I don't have the answer, but I favour maximum shareability for things that are inherently public, like the video above. Right now, Facebook-only doesn't meet that requirement. Maybe one day it will. Right now, though, I think we need more openness in sharing and accessibility, and Facebook just doesn't provide that.

Voter registration and change

The video above is the latest commercial from the Electoral Commission and tells people that, “If you haven't received your enrolment update pack for this year's General Election, you need to enrol now.” It's an important message, and an update to one of my earlier posts.

Last Friday, I shared the previous commercial, about those enrolment update packs, as part of my month-end Internet Wading post for June. In reply to that post, Roger Green asked:

Do you have to do a change of address for the elections? You seem to be in a different district.

Yes, whenever people move within New Zealand, even if it's within the same electorate, they need to update their enrolment details, so we had to do that, too. We were able to do that as part of signing up for our mail forwarding with New Zealand Post, and we were sent forms to sign and post pack (about which, more in a minute). Being busy with the aftermath of the move, we kind of forgot, and then we later got a reminder letter giving us a further 14 days, after which we'd need to re-register.

So, we immediately sent the signed reminder forms back, but we didn't get enrolment reminder packs in the post—were we registered or not? On Saturday, I used the Elections website to verify my registration, and the change had been noted, along with an indication that I'll get a confirmation letter in the post. So, I don't have to re-register. One less thing to do!

Anyone who isn't registered for whatever reason can begin the process online, but they need to print out the form, sign it, and post it back—unless: The government set up an identity verification system called Real Me (which I wrote about back in 2012 when it was announced) that allows people to do a number of things online (mostly relating to the government) without having to to the print/post dance. But, one has to be signed-up in advance, and I'm not (yet).

So, yes, people who move have to update their address, we did, and even though we didn't get enrolment update packs, we're registered. But this experience has reminded me of the usefulness of being registered for RealMe, something that will probably pop up again in future posts.

The important thing for right now, though, is that we can—and will—vote in the General Election in September.

States of delusion: The Rightwing’s latest nutty obsession

There’s a notion popular among the USA’s rightwing at the moment that’s both wrong and dangerous. Nothing new in that, of course, but the danger is to democracy itself because they want minority rule, all based on an utterly delusional view of the United States’ population.

What currently has the USA’s rightwing in a frenzy is the map above: It represents which candidate carried which counties—Blue for Hillary Clinton and Red for Donald Trump. It’s totally misleading and even deceptive, but to the rightwing, the map looks like “proof” that states with large cities—New York and California in particular—would, all by themselves, determine who the US president was if it wasn’t for the Electoral College. That’s absolute nonsense, of course, but to understand why, and why it’s a dangerous belief, we first need to look at some more maps, starting with this one:

This map also shows the results by county, but shades them by percentage: The darker the colour, the higher the percentage for the winning candidate (and, of course, the lighter the colour, the lower the percentage). What this map shows us is that very few counties were solidly Republican or Democratic, and most were shades and tints.

This is shown even more starkly in this map:

This map shows the counties as Red, Blue, or Purple, the latter representing counties where the winning margin for the candidate who won the county—whether Hillary or Don—was 10% or less. As before, the more Blue a colour is, the more heavily it went for Hillary and the more Red it is, the more it went for Don.

Putting all this together, the map at the top of this post is misleading: The USA is NOT a giant swathe of Red, but more Purple than either Red OR Blue. This is born out by election data that shows that Independents—those who are neither Republican nor Democratic—determine most elections because there are somewhat more of them than either Democrats (usually in second place) or Republicans (in third place). It’s important to note that the exact percentages fluctuate constantly, but the Republican Party is always the smallest of the three divisions, and the Democratic Party is always in second place or roughly equal with independents; it’s been this way for many, many years. [Update: Gallup reported in early January that "Independent Political ID in US Lowest in Six Years" as more Americans chose to identify as either Republican or Democratic, but they still outnumber Democrats, in second place, and Republicans, in third place.]

What we can also see from the second and third map is that there are votes for both parties in every state—every, single, state. Even in populous states like California and New York, campaigning there has value, especially if it’s covered by the regional newsmedia. This is because without the Electoral College, every vote matters, whereas with the EC, Republican presidential votes don’t matter much in New York or California, nor do Democratic votes matter in Texas. We cannot possibly know how many people don’t vote in such states because their vote doesn’t matter, but it’s nonsensical to assume it doesn't or wouldn’t matter for such “irrelevant” voters.

Moreover, the rightwing belief conveniently ignores the fact that Texas and Florida both have large cities—Miami is the USA’s fourth largest city and Houston is the sixth—yet Texas is strongly Republican (for now), and Florida is more Purple than anything.

The danger in the rightwing’s delusion is that it creates two Americas: The first is the “real” America, located in the Red counties in the map up top, and “other” Americans in the Blue counties in the same map. The “other” Americans are suspect to rightwingers, in part merely for being Liberal (or, at least, not Conservative), but also for their higher concentration of brown and black people. Rightwing rhetoric constantly talks of Latinx people as being “illegal” and of black people wanting “handouts”. This language both shapes and describes the attitudes that the Rightwing has toward black and brown people, and also toward the cities in which they live.

I’ve seen and read many people—pundits and ordinary people alike—singing the praises of the “real” Americans, and either explicitly or implicitly saying that urban residents are the exact opposite of the supposedly wonderful, kind, thoughtful, and friendly people of the “real” America. Rationally, the view that all rural people are “good” and all urban people are “bad” is no more true than the reverse would be: People are complex and diverse, and it’s bigoted to imply that one set of people is “better” merely because of where they live.

This attitude is also anti-democracy: Elections are waged on the premise that the majority rules, that whoever has the most votes wins the election. There are problems with the way elections are done in the USA, and there are many needed reforms, but it’s nevertheless the foundation on which democracy is built. The obsession with viewing the USA as being divided into “real” Americans and everybody else undermines that precisely because it supposes that the minority should be able to dictate election results.

The biggest problem with the rightwing obsession is that people living in rural areas are a small minority of the USA. According to the US Department of Agriculture (or download the PDF with the data), rural counties account for 72% of the USA’s counties, but only about 15% of the USA’s population in 2014. Put the other way round, 85% of the US population—the overwhelming majority—live in 28% of counties. We see that most dramatically in the map up top, where the large swathes of the USA in red, most of them sparsely populated.

The rural population of the USA declined by 30,000 people per year 2010-2014, and the only rural counties to experience an increase were in scenic areas or counties involved in energy booms. Urban areas, meanwhile, have grown by more than 2 million a year. The rural poverty rate in 2014 was 18.1%, compared to an urban poverty rate to 15.1%.

So, the rightwing obsession is wrong for several reasons, beginning with the fact that the USA is a mostly urban nation, and it’s unthinkable that a mere 15% of the population should be allowed to dictate to the other 85% who the president should be. Also, every state has supporters of both parties, but under the current system using the Electoral College, some voters don’t matter because there are far more supporters of the other party. And, finally, people who live in urban areas are people who live in urban areas, and people who live in rural areas are people who live in rural areas, but they are ALL American. The rightwing needs to learn all these things, the last one in particular.

Democracy matters, and is based on the principle that the majority rules. That didn’t happen in 2016, the second time this century. Making bizarre and bigoted excuses for why that should always be the case is an insult to democracy and liberty, and downright un-American.

The USA deserves more democracy, not less. Conservatives ought to be ashamed of themselves for arguing the opposite.

The important points

• The USA is a mostly urban nation, and is becoming more urban all the time (which is common in many countries).
• Every US state has voters who support both parties – the USA is mostly “purple”, that is, split between the two parties.
• Abolishing the Electoral College would give everyone an equal vote, regardless of where they live, and will make voters of both parties matter in states in which they currently don’t.
• People who live in cities are people who live in cities, and people who live in rural areas are people who live in rural areas; they are ALL American.

AmeriNZ Podcast 323 is now available

Finally! A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 323 – Results” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

Fixing the Electoral College

The US election results have shown—once again—what an utter disgrace the Electoral College system is. In the USA, the person who is supported by the largest number of people can still lose, as happened this year. The calls to abolish the Electoral College are great, but pointless: It’ll be impossible to do that for decades to come. Fortunately, there are ways to fix it.

So far this century, there have been five presidential elections, and Democrats have won the popular vote in four of them—but the presidency only twice. This is a travesty and makes a mockery of the USA’s claim to be a democracy. But, it’s also not going away.

The reason it can’t be abolished is that it would require a Constitutional Amendment, something that the Founders deliberately made difficult to do. Under Article V of the US Constitution, the main way amendments come about is by approval by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratification by three-quarters (currently 38) state legislatures. That’s a very high hurdle.

Going into this year’s election, Republicans completely controlled 30 state legislatures, and Democrats controlled 12, and 7 were split between the two parties. The 50th state, Nebraska, is unicameral (only one house) and officially non-partisan, though the reality is that the state’s electorate is heavily Republican. For total seats, Republicans controlled 68 chambers and Democrats controlled 30 chambers.

The partisan makeup of state legislatures—and the fact that Republicans control both houses of Congress—matters because the Electoral College favours Republicans (as for example, those three out of five elections since 2000), and that’s something that will become their only hope of winning the presidency as the electorate becomes less and less white. They’re not about to willingly eliminate their one path to power, so abolishing the Electoral College can’t happen, and it won’t happen.

There’s one reform proposal I absolutely reject because of its partisanship: Awarding Electoral Votes by Congressional District. This is an awful idea because Republicans have gerrymandered states to ensure they have majorities in as many Congressional Districts as possible, and that means not just that they’re over-represented in the US House, it also means they’d get too many Electoral Votes. As I wrote back in 2013, “Put bluntly, Republicans are interested only in guaranteeing power for Republicans and the elite special interests they represent—the people be damned.” It’s worth noting that if Democrats were in control of the process, they’d be over-represented, too. So, this idea is just plain nuts, and merely a way to ensure that the Republicans win almost all the time.

In light of all that, there are two main proposals that could help make the Electoral College more democratic until there's enough support for amending the Constitution to abolish it altogether. One is good, the other better.

The first is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), which would give all a state’s Electoral Vote to whichever candidate wins the nationwide popular vote. So far, ten states and the District of Columbia have adopted the compact, and together represent around 60% of the 270 Electoral Votes needed to become president. The Compact doesn’t come into effect until the states participating account for the winning number of 270 Electoral Votes.

This compact would have an effect similar to what would happen if the Electoral College was abolished: The popular vote nationwide would determine the winner, not majorities in any particular state, as happens now. Some would argue—as, indeed, I have—that it would encourage candidates to focus their campaigns in major media markets, but that would also be true of abolishing the Electoral College and is true right now of the current system: In the modern media age, which is increasingly online as newspapers die and local TV news withers away, there’s no incentive to campaign in small media markets. The election system used won’t change that.

It would, however, take away the power of the handful of “swing states” to get all the attention—and campaign money—since their Electoral Votes would go to the national winner, not who won their state. This would be a VERY good thing for democracy as well as other states (because candidates would have to campaign in many states), the lost campaign money is why those swing states won’t pass the NPVIC.

My biggest criticism of the NPVIC is that it does absolutely nothing to reduce the stranglehold of the two-party system, and could, in fact, reduce the appeal of third parties and independent candidates even more because there’s no way any of the current third parties could ever win the nationwide popular vote. This would help cement the two parties in power. On the other hand, people who don’t like both major party candidates (like this year) might feel safe voting for a third party candidate precisely because they can’t win, however, just like now, doing so could cause the “least worst” candidate to lose the worst. Strategic voting demanded by the First Past The Post electoral system would still be a necessity.

On balance, the NPVIC has good points, but it would do nothing to improve the partisanship of US politics or reduce the dominance of the two existing parties. There’s a better alternative.

A second, better alternative would be for states to change the way presidential elections are done to the Alternative Vote (also called Instant Run-off Voting or Fair Vote; see also the video below from CGP Grey). Under this system, people would rank their choices for president/vice president. This system ensures that the eventual winner of the state has majority support, it doesn’t penalise those who choose minor parties for their first choice, it also doesn’t allow those third party candidates to be spoilers, and it removes the need for strategic voting (voting for the candidate one dislikes the least).

One drawback is that it would require changes in some federal policies, like qualifying for campaign finance. Would the Federal Government use the first-round popular vote, or the final round? And, how would they handle some states using AV and others using the old system?

Another drawback is that people would have to be taught how to use the system, and there would be some who would use fearmongering to suggest it was all some sort of Democratic/Liberal/New World Order plot to form a dictatorship run by shapeshifting lizard-people aliens. Or, something. I use that bizarre conspiracy theory to drive home the point that because US politics is so polarised, and the Right is so paranoid, in many states adopting this system would be a VERY difficult thing to sell, and impossible in some.

Nevertheless, it is the best single alternative for democratising the Electoral College until it can be abolished altogether. It could also even make the Electoral College worth keeping if it encourages the emergence of strong third parties. But either Alternative Vote or NPVIC would be light-years better than the current anti-democratic 18th Century relic the USA is STILL burdened with.

Let the people decide!



Related: A few days ago I talked about the efforts to petition members of the Electoral College to change their votes, and why it won’t happen or change anything.