Between dictatorship and democracy, there is the two-party monopoly.
Elections are the basis of any democracy.
In the U.S., we have a system of government that was created to be the perfect democracy because of the separation of powers between Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. It was established this way to create checks and balances so no branch of government could abuse its power.
The biggest danger to democracy has always been corruption, which in turn allows for abuse of power and disregard for basic human rights. History has shown that some degree of corruption is almost impossible to stop. The goal in working for democracy is to minimize it so it doesn’t affect the final outcome. Laws are passed to make sure that the integrity of the process is respected. But what happens when the same people that are candidates for election are also the ones creating the laws that govern the election process? Or when they are the ones who appoint the commissioners in charge of overseeing the process?
In democracies, the media are often viewed as the watchdogs in charge of launching an outcry when laws are trampled. But again, what happens when the same people who support the media through advertising are also the ones financing the candidates’ election campaigns?
In the U.S., we don’t have a dictatorship. We do have political parties. Two of them. Other industrialized countries usually have several parties representing a wide range of political views. Two parties is not much, but it’s better than just one. Now, what’s interesting is the relationship between those two parties. They get most of their financing from the same sources. Of course, a few donors give only to the Democrats, and a few only to the Republicans. But the majority of the large donors with an interest in influencing lawmakers to favor them give to both parties.
There is, of course, a commission that was created in a bipartisan way to oversee election campaign finance laws. It’s called the Federal Election Commission (FEC). What’s interesting is the use of the term “bipartisan” when describing that commission. Bipartisan means set-up in a common agreement between the two parties. And that’s exactly what it is. That commission was set-up by the two parties, and the two parties alone (it is comprised of three democrats and three republicans appointed by the President), and one of its main goals is to make it as difficult as possible for “third” parties to participate in the election process.
The whole U.S. election system is first and above all organized in such a way that no one can easily interfere to spoil their fun and their fundraising.
Another important commission is the Commission on Presidential Debates. It decides who can participate in the debates, the debate format, and all other details regarding the debates. In other words, it has the power to decide which candidates the public will see and hear, and what they will be able to say. The interesting thing about this commission is that it is… (you guessed it) a private organization. Established and funded by corporations!!! Should we say “by corporations, for corporations”?
There are of course other parts of our voting process that are not typical of the democratic process. Among others:
The Electoral College: in every state, both parties appoint a group of people from their party, and their party only, who decide which candidate their state will go to. So it is possible for a presidential candidate to win the majority of the popular votes, and still lose the elections. It is not only possible, it has happened.
Electronic voting: electronic equipment has been creeping-up in U.S. elections for over thirty years, mostly unnoticed. Most voters didn’t pay much attention to it because a paper ballot was still the first step of the process. It was then processed electronically, but most people were not aware of it. The latest versions of electronic voting machines started raising flags, for good reasons: all electronic voting, without a verifiable record, on machines built and owned by corporations known to be politically partisan and with a history of hiring programmers previously indicted for fraud.And that’s only a brief summary. So the least that can be said is that our voting process needs to be scrutinized and, if possible, overhauled. Not an easy task considering the fact that the parties now in power thanks to this system are the only ones legally allowed to make any change.
Links to Campaign Financing articles – U.S.
The most informative web site:
Your guide to the money in U.S. elections.
http://www.opensecrets.org
The Hoover Institution, Campaign Finance Site:
A lot of very good basic information about campaign finance.
http://www.campaignfinancesite.org/
From the Hoover Institution: a brief history of campaign finance in the U.S.
http://www.campaignfinancesite.org/history/financing1.html
A Wikipedia page on the principle of campaign finance as practiced in various countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance
A PBS/Now section on educating children about Campaign finance.
http://www.pbs.org/now/classroom/campaignfinance.html
The Campaign Finance Institute:
This site, affiliated with the George Washington University, is very basic but has some interesting articles on campaign financing.
http://www.cfinst.org/
PublicCampaign.org, a web site dedicated to public financing of the elections.
That’s an organization that you can’t expect mainstream media to talk much about, because what they are fighting for would cut down their revenues from political campaigning.
http://www.publicampaign.org/
Follow the Money:
Dedicated to following the money at the State level.
http://www.followthemoney.org/
The Public Citizen site on Campaign Finance Reform.
http://www.citizen.org/congress/campaign/index.cfm
A 1998 Washington Post article on the cost of campaigning in 1996.
The cost of elections across the country was $2.7 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/campfin.htm
Center for Responsive Politics estimate of 2006 elections: $2.6 billion.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2006/PreElection.10.25.asp
Electronic voting is a typical example of the need to overhaul our voting system.
When the first electronic systems were introduced in the voting process in the 1970’s, a few newspapers predicted that it could lead to unreliable elections results.
Since then, electronic voting machines have evolved and so has their lack of accountability and audit-ability. The original electronic systems were used to scan paper ballots marked by the voters. With the newer machines, the DREs (Direct-Recording Electronic voting machines), the whole process became fully electronic with no paper trail left for verification purposes. The machines were assumed to be infallible.
In 2002, the Help America Vote Act required that all voting equipment in the country be upgraded and allocated approximately $4 billion for that purpose.
Following heavy marketing tactics from the major voting equipment manufacturers, the choice for most of the upgrades was originally the DRE. In 2004, approximately 30% of all voting equipment in the U.S. were DREs, and it was assumed that they would replace all other types of voting equipment within a few years.
However, public outcry slowed down the process. Despite almost no coverage from the major media, organizations were formed all over the U.S. to fight the spread of the new voting systems. Among the most vocal were some of the top computer security scientists in the nation who had the opportunity to view the code of the software used in many voting machine and decried its absence of security features, among many other flaws.
Ironically, the software could only be studied because it was inadvertently left on a manufacturer’s web site (Diebold) for everyone to see. So much for security.
Other activists have documented over the years voting irregularities that occur systematically when DREs are being used.
Also of concern has been the fact that several of the programmers that created the original software were convicted felons.
The main problem with Direct-Recording electronic voting machines is the secrecy at every level.
In the voting process, the only thing that is supposed to be secret is the choice made by an individual voter. Every other step of the process is supposed to be open to public scrutiny. With electronic voting at its present state, public scrutiny is not possible.
The machines are manufactured by private companies. Like any computer, there are two parts: the hardware (the computer), and the software (the programs that register, and count the votes). Two companies supply approximately 80% of the voting machines in the U.S.: ES&S and Diebold. A few smaller companies like Sequoia and Hart-Intercivic share the rest of the market. Because they are private companies, all their products are patented and are considered to be company secrets.
So the future of voting at some point in time seemed to be machines that were manufactured in total secrecy and also counted the votes in total secrecy without any means of verification.
Numerous organizations all over the United States are now fighting to reverse the process. Some are national, many are local
The CEO of Diebold surely helped their cause when he wrote in a fund-raising letter that Diebold was committed to delivering Ohio to George Bush.
However, it is a hard fight. The passage of the Help America Vote Act was the result of lobbying by very powerful organizations, not just the machine manufacturers. Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, at the national level as well as at the local level have shown little interest in pushing for change.
This is an issue that we will follow regularly on this site.
Right now, if you want to know more about it, go to the Electronic Voting Links page.
Electronic Voting Links
Links to most major organizations. Many have links to other organizations.
Their front pages often take it for granted that you already know about the issue.
If you don’t, by browsing through these sites you will soon have all the basics.
This list is not exhaustive, and new organizations are forming on a regular basis.
More will be added to the list.
If you know about an organization not listed here, please let us know.
www.electiondefensealliance.org
A political blog covering elections issues and mainly electronic voting.
www.bradblog.com
The “links” page of this site has a lot of information on everything about electronic voting.
www.whereisthepaper.org
A comic book about elections
www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com
An organization fighting for open-source software in voting machines.
www.openvoting.org
One of the veteran sites involved in voting issues.
www.calvoter.org
www.democracyfornewhampshire.com
Voterga originated from the above organization, Defenders of Democracy, and is now pursuing a groundbreaking law suit in Georgia, where elections are held 100% on Direct-Recording Electronic voting machines.
www.voterga.org
The Electronic Frontier Foundation deals with all issues involving the digital world.
It was very helpful when the Diebold software was found on their website by Bev Harris.
www.eff.org
Proportional Representation
Home page of the World Policy Institute, with the list of the electoral systems worldwide.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/prindex.html
Wikipedia: Proportional Representation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
Mount Holyoke College Department of Communications.
Explaining the Proportional Representation system.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/PRsystems.htm
WorldPolicy.org: An excellent overview of Proportional Representation and how to implement it.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/democracy/abcs.html
Proportional Representation in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/Cambridge/prop-voting/prop-voting.html
Ed Labonte site: Another explaination of Proportional Representation.
http://ed.labonte.com/pr.html
Links to the Commission on Presidential Debates articles.
Wikipedia:
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private organization funded by corporations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates
NPR: secrets of the Commission on Presidential Debates.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4052162
Source Watch: Commission on Presidential Debates.
Explains the creation and basic functioning of the commission.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Commission_on_Presidential_De...
Common Dreams: a brief history of the commission on Presidential Debates.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/090100-101.htm
Article in Open Secrets regarding the Commission on Presidential Debates and candidates exclusions:
http://www.opensecrets.org/newsletter/ce65/05debates.htm
Wikipedia: the U.S. Presidential Debates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election_debates
Wikipedia: Citizen’s Debate Commission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Debate_Commission
NPR: secrets of the Commission on Presidential Debates.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4052162
Ralph Nader court ruling on the CPD.
http://www.votenader.org/media_press/index.php?cid=152
NOW (PBS) analysis of the CPD:
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/debates.html
Presidential Debates Footage.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6466923.html?display=Breaking...
The Federal Election Commision is a regulatory agency created by Congress in 1975 to oversee the campaign financing laws in the U.S.
It is supposedly independent, but its six members are from the Democratic Party and the Republican Party only (three from each).
Following approximately a year and a half of stalled discussions between Congress and the President regarding appointments, the FEC finally is back to all six members since July 2008.
In 2007, a bill was introduced in Congress to attempt to replace the FEC with a Federal Elections Administration board.
The following articles have more in-depth information about the FEC:
Wikipedia: Federal Election Commission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission
Source Watch: Federal election commission.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Federal_Election_Commission
July 2007 FEC decision on advertising.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/opinion/05thu1.html?ex=1185422400&en=c...
Public Citizen: Summary of the McConnell v. FEC case.
Litigation over the Bipartisan Campaign Reform act of 2002.
http://www.citizen.org/congress/campaign/legislation/bcralaw/articles.cf...
The FEC’s Campaign Finance Guide
http://www.campaignfinanceguide.org/guide-54.html
U.S. Third Parties - Links to articles.
Wikipedia: Third Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_%28United_States%29
Wikipedia: ballot access in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_access
This Nation: History of third parties participation in elections.
http://www.thisnation.com/question/042.html
Wikipedia: List of political parties in the U.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States
Rangevoting.org: life span of third parties.
http://rangevoting.org/TPHist.html
Rangevoting: an alternative to our actual voting system.
http://rangevoting.org/RangeVoting.html
About.com: why third parties.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/politicalsystem/a/thirdparties.htm
Third World Traveler: a summary of the book “Third Parties in America”.
Excellent analysis of the struggle of third parties.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political_Reform/Third_Parties_America...
U.S. Presidential Elections: The Biggest Game Show in the World
By Richard Van Slyke
March 30th, 2008
“Who is your favorite candidate?” Sounds familiar?
Phrased in many different ways, that question is probably one of the most frequently asked in the U.S., and for a good reason. America has for long been in love with game shows. But when asked in times of elections, the question takes a special meaning. Elections are a serious matter that goes right to the heart of most of us; so when a presidential nomination is at stake it is very difficult to bring ourselves to the realization that we are, in fact, unwittingly participating in the biggest game show in the world.
It might seem trivial to compare elections to a game show, but when one looks at all the elements that they have in common, the similarities cannot be dismissed.
Over the years, game shows have used all kinds of variations on every possible theme. But in the natural evolution of entertainment, there is one element that show business knows to be very important: interactivity. It is one thing to have viewers root for their favorite contestant; but when they can be part of the show by influencing the outcome, or believing that they do, that element of participation brings the game to a whole new level. The merger of elections and game show was only natural.
First, as we often say, only in America is this possible.
And it’s made possible by a very unusual feature in our election system that we do not share with any other democracy: the Electoral College. In every other industrialized country, elections mean popular vote. But our long drawn-out process of choosing delegates makes for an entertainer’s dream. With the Electoral College, all the ingredients of a good game show are in our elections process.
The Elections Game Show has something special. The contestants are not just vying for a mere refrigerator or the latest minivan. The prize is one of the most coveted on earth: Superpresident! The leader of the richest country in the world and Commander in Chief of hundreds of thousands of real live GI Joes!
But if we take our eyes off the glitter and the limelight, we are looking at a behind-the-scenes organization on par with the value of the prize, and undoubtedly the most elaborate and well-financed show in the history of show business. It’s also getting bigger and more profitable every year.
The major difference with other game shows is that it’s not the product of just one television station. All the media are involved, reaching out to the whole population. And, in principle, anybody can be a contestant.
Anybody? Well, maybe not!
And that’s where it becomes interesting to look at the show’s structure, its rules, and the whole industry that flourishes around it.
The show sponsors.
They are the political parties acting as “talent agents” and promoters with the financial backing of major corporations.
The first thing that the sponsors do is to make sure that they have full control of the game and that they set the rules. It’s not possible to copyright elections, but they are ways around it. For that purpose, satellite organizations were created.
The Federal Election Commission is a legal entity set-up by the two major parties and its main role is to make it very difficult for any outsider to enter the game. It also makes up and supervises all the rules regarding the show financing.
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private, corporate-financed organization. Its role is to decide who will be allowed in the debates, who will be allowed in the audience, and the format of the debates (game host, position of the candidates on stage, and types of questions asked).
Amazingly, while we criticize Iran and Russia for allowing only government-anointed candidates to run for elections, this is perfectly legal.
With this taken care of, the political parties are presented as two separate teams, the Blue team and the Red team. Each team associates itself with an array of values carefully crafted to appeal to as many members of the audience as possible in order to win points. This is called a “platform”.
The game is then divided in two periods. During the first period, members of each team compete against each other to elect a team leader. In the second period, the captains of each team compete against each other for the Grand Prize.
During the whole process, called “campaigns”, each contestant is allowed to hire his or her own support cast of advisors, public relations, tour organizers and fundraisers.
Fundraisers are definitely the most important members of the team, as they are primarily responsible for the contestant’s success. The same way as, in some other shows, contestants have a lit panel in front of the podium to show how much money they have accumulated, elections contestants are constantly judged on the amount of funds they have raised. Democracy and other items in the “platform” take second place, and there is no shame in it. The show sponsors know that money is ingrained in the American psyche as the barometer of success, and they “bank” on it.
They also know why Las Vegas is so successful.
And this is where the fun really starts.
The bookies.
The financing of the show is very complex and supposedly very regulated but most rules have weaknesses, called “loopholes”, that allows to circumvent them.
The main sources of financing can be divided in two categories: “major donors”, and “small donors”.
The major donors represent the bulk of the financing. They are big corporations and their employees who work in conjunction with the talent agents and the media to promote their favorite team. They usually finance both teams, often favoring one over the other, but sometimes giving equally to both.
The small donors are members of the audience who hope to influence the outcome of the contest by supporting their favorite contestant (either directly, or through independent promoters). Although their contributions are outweighed several folds by the larger contributors (about 5 to 1), they sustain a slew of satellite organizations revolving around the larger organization.
It really is a bookie’s dream: legal betting. To make it perfect, they don’t even have to redistribute the pot. It stays in the “family”.
There are mainly two types of organizations that take in the bets:
The "Political Action Committees”(the PACs), and the “can you chip in” 527s.
The PACs are official team agents. They are allowed to wear the official team caps and T-shirts.
The 527s are the holes in the loop. They are unregulated and can only wear bootleg caps and T-shirts. In other words, they are not officially allowed to root for a particular contestant. But, somehow, they do. That’s probably why they are loopholes.
Most of the members in the game’s audience do not know much about these organizations and trust them blindly because they wear their favorite team’s colors. But one thing is for sure: they know everything about the audience. First of all, they know every audience member’s team preference (it’s called “party affiliation”). But they also know a lot more.
It starts with mass emails (sometimes even old-fashioned letters) designed to find out what motivates the public. Once they know what makes their members or potential members tic, they follow-up with the outrage messages: “You wouldn’t believe what the other team is doing! This is horrific! We have to stop that!”.
Then come the “can you chip in” messages.
This is pure genius in marketing. It plays on all human emotions and uses both the public’s good sides and bad sides: the desire to belong to a group, the desire to do the right thing, the guilt of not acting on an issue viewed as important, the artificially built hate of the other camp, and the love of gambling.
The amounts of money generated by the bookies are not easy to track.
Parts of the funds are funneled to the political parties and the candidates; some funds only sustain the organizations themselves; but the biggest share goes to the show promoters in the form of advertising and show promotion.
The Media.
The revenues for the U.S. media for he 2007-2008 elections cycle are estimated to be around $3 Billion. Approximately 75% of it goes to television. There is no doubt that the Elections Show is big business. In addition to the profits it engenders for the media outlets, it also supports a whole industry of analysts, reporters, production companies, and creative content agencies.
Some members of the audience who actually believe that the whole process is about electing a president complain that the content of the show is too superficial and that the real issues are not being discussed. There just might be a reason for that: it’s show business!
The methods used are similar to the ones in most game shows. It starts with the search for the perfect candidate. Either handpicked by the sponsors or screened according to preset rules of admission, a selection of contenders is presented by each team. The favorites are easy to spot. The contestants are rated by the media on the “electibility” factor, which is purely subjective. As stated earlier, the major item for electibility is how much money a contestant has raised. But, just to make sure that there is no ambiguity about the purpose of the game, the next important thing is how they spend that money. During the whole “campaign”, candidates are scrutinized on how much advertising they purchased, how much they have left compared to other candidates, and how they will manage to raise more money to outspend them. A very important agenda for democracy!
Parallel to the fundraising contest, the show goes on.
During the process of elimination, the personalities of the favorite candidates are built-up until the list of contenders windles down to the “top” candidates. At that point, a reverse process starts in order to create drama. Soap opera becomes the rule. The media is well versed in creating these kinds of situations. Every word, every action of the remaining contestants are scrutinized for opportunities to stir “things” up; and make mammoth dung out of mouse droppings…
I said, he said, are the engines of gossip. And there is something about gossip that grabs us humans at heart, transcending all reasoning. But to maximize the effect, it is best if the viewer is in tune with the media he or she is receiving the “information” from. For that purpose, the media use a trick known in the business as segmentation. Each outlet focuses on a segment of the population and builds up trust by inserting in its programming elements aimed at that part of the population’s tastes or beliefs. The audience can then choose its source of news in full confidence that it is the most reliable.
But at the end of the Elections Show, when the Grand-Prize is to be awarded, all the major media suddenly regroup in one single organization called the National Election Pool. And this organization gets its results of the vote tabulation from one single source, Associated Press.
Has anyone seen an Associated Press vote tabulator lately?
About the author:
Richard Van Slyke is the publisher of OrganizedPolitics.com and the producer of the documentary on electronic voting “The Right To Count”.