The Continual Pursuit of a More Perfect Union

“The only thing certain about the United States is it remains an experiment that requires our serious and sustained attention to thrive.” -Thomas E. Ricks

While the 117^th Congress may have passed multiple significant bipartisan bills with potentially enormous impact, the average American feels that polarization has frozen the legislature in a state of suspended animation. Engaged citizens can and should take heart from the bipartisan headway made by the last Congress and use that success to fuel ongoing optimism. However, given the criteria for (re)election inherently established by the current construction of the U.S. electoral system, electoral politics may reproduce division before progress. This narrative of legislative paralysis stems not from nefarious elected officials set on dismantling the American democracy, but from the system that requires each potential lawmaker to pay the price of admission to earn their office. In order to afford a seat in the Capitol Building’s hallowed halls, lawmakers must participate in a system corrupted by gerrymandering, unbridled campaign finance, and increasing polarization that divides Americans along partisan lines. To conflate, individually or collectively, the aforementioned realities as the cause of America’s political turbulence, however, would be the equivalent of treating the symptoms of a wound rather than the festering wound itself. Instead, activists need to target reform efforts at the electoral system that currently forces representatives to uphold a false dichotomy equilibrium at the poles of political thought. Reasonable electoral reforms that give power and control to the entire electorate can encourage the participation of new and moderate elected officials and incentivize candidates and legislators to focus on policy rather than partisanship.

In any democracy, elected officials have a responsibility to voters to pursue solutions-focused, evidence-based policies that improve the lives of their constituents. State and federal closed partisan and semi-open primaries encourage members of Congress to amplify their partisan rancor rather than policy distinctions, distracting from their responsibility to voters. In the 16 states that hold either closed or partially closed primaries, only citizens registered with a given party can vote in that party’s primary. In the remaining 34 states that have varying forms of open primaries, 30 hold Republican and Democratic primaries wherein voters must choose for which single party they will cast their vote. In both primary types, candidates only need to amass the votes of a small percentage of base partisan voters to progress to the general election. Not only do the winning candidates not represent the larger population of engaged Americans as a result of the current primary systems, but these frameworks nullify the votes of individuals registered as neither Democrat nor Republican. The result of closed partisan and semi-open primaries is often a general election in which voters feel as though they have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Electoral reforms like the combination of Non-Partisan Top Four (NPTF) primaries and Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) in the general election can reorient the political process around policy. Differing political opinions and associations are vital characteristics of the American democracy but should be wielded for cohesion rather than division. These alternative electoral proposals carry the potential to recenter candidates on capturing the support of a broad population of engaged Americans. In a NPTF primary, every candidate, regardless of affiliation, appears on one ballot that all voters use. The candidates that receive the four highest vote counts would then advance to the general election. Rather than one Democrat and one Republican advancing from separate ballot systems, NPTF primaries increase the number of candidates available to choose from in the primary and general elections. Doubling the number of primary winners and general election participants increases the likelihood of participation from more moderate challengers that better reflect the diverse needs of a larger percentage of voters.

After the candidates have been whittled down to four, a ranked-choice voting system for general elections further discourages purely partisan political gambits. In a RCV general election, voters rank candidates in order from first to last choice. If no candidate receives a majority after the first round, the candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated. Voters whose first choice was the eliminated candidate have their ballots recounted for their second choice. The recounting process is repeated until a candidate receives a true majority and wins the election. RCV encourages citizens to vote for who they most prefer without worry that their vote will result in the candidate they like the least getting elected. Given the increase in representation, RCV has potential to improve citizen engagement and turnout. Most importantly, to garner the best chance of victory, candidates would need to appeal to voters outside those directly in their party base. Broader appeal requires policymakers to adjust from a partisan-driven campaign to a policy-focused one, or at least a campaign that does not alienate large portions of the electorate. Opponents of RCV frequently claim that it creates a large barrier to understanding elections or that it may be more difficult to administer, but a steep learning curve is simply not a high price to pay to recalibrate policy over partisanship in the electoral process.

Non-partisan primaries and ranked-choice voting reforms are slowly improving elections across the United States. Both California and Washington have held non-partisan, top-two primaries since 2012 and 2004, respectively. Meanwhile, Maine became the first state to implement ranked-choice voting in 2016 in statewide elections for governor, state legislature, and Congress. Representative Mary Peltola was recently reelected to Alaska’s U.S. House seat by RCV, earning 49% of votes in the first round and 55% of votes in the final round. Overcoming a system that doomed them to potentially ineffective and divisive politicians, the Alaskan people effectively expressed their preference for a different kind of representation.

While the American electoral system, as currently constituted, rewards polarization and division, the U.S. is a young country, comprised of elected leaders who have slowly attempted to reconcile wrongs and live up to the ideals outlined by the founders. Effective government – government that reacts to the will of the people – not only requires the serious and sustained attention of every statesperson, but also legislative leaders with precise incentives. NPTF primaries and RCV general elections emphasize policy over partisanship. Together, these reforms carry the potential to ensure good faith in politicians and inspire more congenial, consensus-driven politics.