How To Election Wrong
So many things wrong with US democracy show up in my local elections this week
If you want a good (albeit incomplete) list of things wrong with normal US elections, you could do worse than to consider my local election day this Saturday here in Bexar County, Texas. My precinct is voting for school board and [appraisal board?]; other precincts have community college board elections, and there may be other things elsewhere in the county.
Now, I’m generally a defender of US institutions and the constitutional system. And I’ll admit to a fully irrational bias: These elections regularly fall on the first Saturday of May, which is when my mind is fully occupied with the Kentucky Derby and I don’t want to stop and deal with politics.
Still, while that makes me more personally annoyed than I’d otherwise be, I’d have the same criticisms either way.
So to start with…Saturday in May?
Most US elections are on Tuesdays. In November. No one, horseplayer or not, thinks “elections” for Saturdays in May. And it’s even worse than that: Our primary elections (for that November ballot) were in March, and in Texas we have run-offs if no one reached a majority of the vote, and so this May election interrupts campaigns for the late-May runoffs after the March primaries. The obvious consequence: Turnout for these elections can run very, very low, with 9 of 10 or more voters ignoring the whole thing.
Then there’s what we’re voting on. Bexar County - San Antonio, mostly - has a whole bunch of school districts, and each one has several districts for choosing the school board. Which are completely different than the set of districts for choosing the county-wide community college board. Which in turn are totally different than our city council districts or our county government districts. Naturally, I have no idea which number district I’m in, and struggle to remember whether the candidate I like won last time or not.
(Why so many school districts? I actually don’t know how much of it is a legacy of bigotry and a continuation of bigotry, in which Anglo citizens don’t want to be in a district with Black and Latino students - and how much of it is wealthier citizens who don’t want their taxes to go to poorer parts of town. Obviously these things compliment each other, as well. And none of it should happen - we should have one county-wide school district. Remember: As much as Trumpism is a real threat to US democracy, and as much as the constitution and the republic are worth protecting, no one should pretend that democracy in this nation has ever been anywhere close to perfect.1 Even if there are real and legitimate disagreements over what a perfect democracy would consist of.)
We’re also voting on something called the Bexar Appraisal District Board, for apparently the first time. I have a vague idea of what it is, and certainly have no idea what I should look for in a candidate for this office. As my local newspaper says, “Appraisal district elections are pointless and problematic.”
If I had my druthers, the school board (county-wide or not) wouldn’t be an elected office either. I’d prefer to have the mayor or the county’s top executive official appoint the school board, and then voters could reward or punish those choices. US elections are always going to have a long ballot, since federalism, separated institutions sharing powers, and bicameral legislatures already produce a lot of elective offices. We don’t have to have this many, however.2
Instead, we vote on them - and in non-partisan elections, which make it much harder for voters to know what we’re doing.
Don’t blame voters! Non-partisan elections are essentially designed to be confusing, in the hopes that only the most highly educated or well-connected citizens bother to show up. And the candidates, at least in my district, aren’t helping. Both of them (at least judging from their mailers) are embracing similar bland catch phrases - they’re for parents, and teachers, and “educational excllence” and “competence.”
If you look closely enough you can find meaningful separation. One notes she is against private school vouchers while the other is a “constitutional conservative.” But neither of those telltale clues are highlighted at all - although they point to the reality that one is a mainstream Democrat and the other a very conservative Republican, both running for a school board that has intense de facto partisan polarization. But again: The ballot won’t tell you that, or the street signs they have around the area, or the large print on their mailers.
Again, if the system was designed to help voters, a single (R) or (D) on the ballot would be sufficient. Instead, the system is designed to reduce turnout and participation.
Fewer elected offices. Consolidated election dates. Partisan labels in all elections. And while it isn’t relevant here, fewer or even no ballot measures.3 There are lots of understandable reasons people don’t get involved in politics, but confusing ballots and elections really shouldn’t be on that list.
Yes, it feels a little odd to be still beating the drum on this sort of thing when Trump is campaigning on a platform that he should have among other things lifetime “absolute immunity” to ignore the law and some Supreme Court Justices seem inclined to take the idea seriously. But if democracy is worth fighting for, then it’s also worth caring enough about to critique even relatively small things.
One way this discourages voters is that different areas vote for different things - again, something inherent in federalism. Even the names of our legislative bodies vary by state. There’s no way to know how many people are discouraged from voting and other participation by the array of odd-sounding offices on the ballot, but I’m confident it has some effect.
I sort of like local ballot measures, but I’m not convinced that statewide initiatives enhance democracy, even when they yield policy decisions I like. I’m aware of no evidence that over time initiative-intensive states such as California and Arizona produce a happier or more engaged electorate.