Why American Elections Are Flawed (And How to Fix Them)

Pippa Norris

• Publisher: Cornell Selects
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781501713408
• eBook ISBN: 9781501712746
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The flaws in the American electoral process have become increasingly apparent in recent years. The contemporary tipping point in public awareness occurred during the 2000 election count, and concern deepened due to several major problems observed in the 2016 campaign, worsening party polarization, and corroding public trust in the legitimacy of the outcome.To gather evidence about the quality of elections around the world, in 2012 the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP) was established as an independent research project based at Harvard and Sydney universities. The results show that experts rated American elections as the worst among all Western democracies. Without reform, these problems risk damaging the legitimacy of American elections—further weakening public confidence in political parties, Congress, and the U.S. government, depressing voter turnout, and exacerbating the risks of mass protests.Why American Elections Are Flawed describes several major challenges observed during the 2016 U.S. elections arising from deepening party polarization over basic voting procedures, the serious risks of hacking and weak cyber-security, the consequences of deregulating campaign spending, and lack of professional and impartial electoral management. Pippa Norris outlines the core concept and measure of electoral integrity, the key yardstick used to evaluate free and fair elections. Evidence from expert and mass surveys demonstrate the extent of problems in American elections. She shows how these challenges could be addressed through several practical steps designed to improve electoral procedures and practices. If implemented, the reforms will advance free and fair elections, and liberal democracy, at home and abroad.

Notes

Introduction

1 See Pippa Norris, Ferran Martínez i Coma, Alessandro Nai, and Max Grömping, The Year in Elections, 2014 (Sydney: The Electoral Integrity Project, University of Sydney, 2015).

2 Pippa Norris, Richard Frank, and Ferran Martinez i Coma, “Contentious Elections: From Votes to Violence,” in Contentious Elections: From Ballots to Barricades, ed. Frank Norris and Ferran Martinez i Coma (New York: Routledge, 2015).

I. Challenges of Electoral Integrity during the 2016 US Elections

1 See, for example, Bruce E. Cain, Todd Donovan, and C. J. Tolbert, Democracy in the States: Experimentation in Election Reform (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008); Brian L. Fife, Reforming the Electoral Process in America (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010); Michael J. Hanmer, Discount Voting: Voter Registration Reforms and Their Effects (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Martha Kropf and David C. Kimball, Helping America Vote: The Limits of Election Reform (New York: Routledge, 2011); R. Michael Alvarez, Lonna Atkeson, and Thad E. Hall, eds., Confirming Elections: Creating Confidence and Integrity through Election Auditing (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Barry C. Burden and Charles Stewart III, eds., The Measure of American Elections (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); R. Michael Alvarez and Bernard Grofman, Election Administration in the United States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

2 Richard L. Hasen, The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).

3 Paul Gronke, Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum, and Peter A. Miller, “Convenience Voting,” Annual Review of Political Science 11 (2008): 437–455. It should be noted that convenience voting facilities for citizens differ from reforms modernizing electoral procedures, which are designed to make electoral administration easier for managers, such as the use of electronic machines rather than paper ballots.

4 Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Voting (New York: Harper, 1957).

5 http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx. For details, see Pippa Norris, Strengthening Electoral Integrity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017, forthcoming), chapter 9.

6 Lorraine Carol Minnite, The Myth of Voter Fraud (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010); John S. Ahlquist, Kenneth R. Mayer, and Simon Jackman, “Alien Abduction and Voter Impersonation in the 2012 U.S. General Election: Evidence from a Survey List Experiment,” Election Law Journal 13, no. 4 (2014): 460–475.

7 https://www.brennancenter.org/election-2016-controversies.

8 http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id-history.aspx.

9 http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/electronic-or-online-voter-registration.aspx; Electoral Assistance Commission, The 2014 EAC Election Administration and Voting Survey Comprehensive Report (2015), http://www.eac.gov/research/election_administration_and_voting_survey.aspx.

10 See, for example, Louis Massicotte, Andre Blais, and Antoine Yoshinaka, Establishing the Rules of the Game (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004).

11 Electoral Assistance Commission, The 2014 EAC Election Administration and Voting Survey Comprehensive Report (2015), http://www.eac.gov/research/election_administration_and_voting_survey.aspx.

12 Barry C. Burden, David T. Canon, Kenneth R. Mayer, and Donald P. Moynihan, “Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform,” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 1 (2014): 95–109.

13 Lonna Rae Atkeson, R. Michael Alvarez, and Thad E. Hall et al., “Balancing Fraud Prevention and Electoral Participation: Attitudes toward Voter Identification,” Social Science Quarterly 95, no. 5 (2014): 1381–1398.

14 Debate about the extent of electoral fraud is heated. Thus some estimates find incidents of electoral fraud in recent US elections to be trivial or nonexistent. See, for example, Minnite, The Myth of Voter Fraud. Others counter that the threats are real. See, for example, Jesse T. Richman, Gulshan A. Chattha, and David C. Earnest, “Do Non-citizens Vote in US Elections?” Electoral Studies 36 (2014): 149–157.

15 Sari Horwitz, “How North Carolina Became the Epicenter of the Voting Rights Battle,” Washington Post, April 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-north-carolina-became-the-epicenter-of-the-voting-rights-battle/2016/04/26/af05c5a8-0bcb-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html.

16 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/us/politics/donald-trump-a-rigged-election-and-the-politics-of-race.html?_r=0.

17 http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/policies-for-election-observers.aspx.

18 Justin Levitt, The Truth about Voter Fraud (New York: Brennan Center for Justice 2007); https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/voter-fraud.

19 Sami Edge, “No Voter Fraud Isn’t a Persistent Problem.” Washington Post, September 1, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/09/01/voter-fraud-is-not-a-persistent-problem/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.0ab16ed5cf7b.

20 Gallup Polls, August 15–16 2016. “About Six in 10 Confident in Accuracy of US Vote Count,” http://www.gallup.com/poll/195371/six-confident-accuracy-vote-count.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles.

21 Emily Guskin and Scott Clement, “Poll: Nearly Half of Americans Say that Voter Fraud Occurs Often,” Washington Post, September 15, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/15/poll-nearly-half-of-americans-say-voter-fraud-occurs-often.

22 Emily Beaulieu, “From Voter ID to Party ID: How Political Parties Affect Perceptions of Election Fraud in the US,” Electoral Studies 35 (2014): 24–32.

23 http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/nsa-chief-potential-russian-hacking-u-s-elections-concern-n647491.

24 Ben Wofford, “How to Hack an Elec...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• I: Challenges of Electoral Integrity during the 2016 US Elections
• II: Measuring Electoral Integrity
• III: Comparing Electoral Integrity within and across States
• IV: What Is to Be Done?
• V: Conclusions and Recommendations
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Author