Is there a benefit to holding elections every month?
Most people only pay attention during the month before an election. What if it was always the month before an election? Even as "strict churches are strong" would a strict democracy also be strong?
A hypothetical question:
(the setup) suppose we have monthly elections to the Senate, for 6 year terms, a highly staggered schedule, with the roster of the Senate changing every month, but still each Senator serving for 6 years. We will have either 72 or 144 Senators. That part doesn't matter.
(the question) our elections now average about 60% of the population participating, but suppose with monthly elections the rate drops to 40% per election but rises to 80% for the year. In other words, only 40% participate in any one election, but over the course of the year 80% of the people participate. Does this increase or decrease the legitimacy of the democracy? Does the annual participation matter more than the per-vote participation, or is it the other way around?
Other considerations:
We’ve previously quoted some sources that suggested that longer terms in office would lead to better government, as it gives leaders more time to focus on actual governance, rather than having to focus on re-election.
We’ve also seen that elections to legislatures should be staggered over many years, otherwise a brief moment of panic might cause an extremist group to gain a majority, as happened in Hungary in 2010, in the depths of the Great Recession.
So I previously suggested the ideal balance of long terms and a staggered election schedule might be something like monthly elections for terms of 6 or 9 or even 11 years. If we elected 5 people a month for 11 years, that would give a legislature of 660 people, about the size of the House of Commons in Britain. I don’t think the exact numbers matter much, but the goal is to give leaders a chance to focus on governance, rather than re-election, so the terms should be longer than what we currently have.
A friend wrote to me to tell me what she likes and dislikes about what I’ve written so far. This was part of her criticism:
Though, I do question the voting more often idea - I get why, but it is hard enough to get people to vote just once per year. Unless we make it super easy to vote. But Republicans will never let that happen.
I agree that for now this isn’t possible at the national level, in the USA, so I’ve suggested that perhaps we should think about particular states, which might be open to experiment with new forms of democracy. I myself am thinking about running for state government, with this being my main issue.
At some point over the next 20 years there might be a state where the people are dissatisfied with their government and willing to try something new. So we should think about what might be a real improvement in the political process, in case some state should prove willing to consider an experiment.
Why should we want monthly elections?
And would be it be difficult to get people to come out and vote every month?
Hannah Arendt admired the American revolution of April, 1775. She thought it was very beautiful that, for a few years, people were so focused on the question of how to build a great democracy. She wondered why that spirit eventually disappeared. She concluded that, in nation after nation, after great upheavals the revolutionary spirit disappears because people can only stay interested in politics if there is something for them to do — the struggle against the British gave the people in the colonies something to do on a daily basis, but then later, voting just once every 2 years basically says to the public "shut up and go home, we will let you know when we want your opinion." Arendt compared that to certain churches, which typically work to engage as much of the congregation as possible with some task that has to be done every week. It is understood that people are more likely to show up at church if they've been given some task that they are expected to do each Sunday. No one wants to disappoint the whole congregation. This idea ties in with the famous thesis Why Strict Churches Are Strong — the churches that give everyone some responsibilities are the churches that survive with high levels of engagement.
So we should ask, what about a strict democracy? Would a strict democracy be stronger than a casual democracy? Would a demanding democracy be more vibrant than a nonchalant democracy?
How should we, as a people, resist a dangerous demagogue such as Donald Trump? Would a strict democracy be better able to resist Trump?
If we want people to stay involved in politics, the question becomes can we give them something to do on a regular basis? Maybe if we had elections every month, it would keep people more engaged? Most people only pay attention to politics during the month before an election, so if it was always less than a month before an election, then perhaps that would keep the people permanently awake? Rather than think “People don’t even want to vote once every 2 years so they definitely won’t vote once every month” perhaps we should instead think “Once voting becomes a regular habit, then the number of people who vote will increase.”
There are a few different ideas that have been proposed that all work with an assumption that is similar to the “Strict Churches Are Strong” thesis. For instance, some theorists have argued that voting should be mandatory — everyone should be forced to vote, as a requirement of their citizenship. This idea implicitly assumes that a strict democracy would be stronger than a casual democracy.
Voting every month is a similar idea, though I think more useful. Again, when we look at Hungary in 2010, we see an election that had very high levels of turnout, but which had disastrous results for democracy. So merely getting high levels of engagement doesn’t protect the system. What if 100% of the people vote, but they are in a deep panic, because of a recession or a terrorist attack, so they vote for an insane demagogue like Trump or Orban? Has democracy been made stronger simply because 100% of the people voted? Again, staggering the schedule of elections to the legislature, over a long period, offers the best protection against any one particular moment of panic.
To put that differently: it is dangerous to elect the whole legislature in a single election. Even if 100% of the public votes, you are still having the mood of one moment determine the government for years to come. It is better to sample the mood every month, so that the legislature is the balanced average of all the moods that the public has experienced over many years.
So again, if we elect 5 people a month, for a long term of something like 9 or 11 years, then we could achieve three important goals: higher participation of the pubic in politics, better protection against demagogues, and we grant the leadership more time to focus on actual governance, rather than having to worry about their personal re-election.
From 1773 to 1787 the (future) USA had annual elections to Congress (at the time, it was the called the Continental Congress), and that was when the nation was poor and lacked technology. If they could do annual elections back then, then I'm sure we could do monthly elections now, if we wanted to. And we should want to do this. And if it is impossible to introduce any innovations at the Federal level, then we should look for a state that might be open to this kind of experiment.
But what if I’m wrong?
My friend wrote, “It is hard enough to get people to vote just once per year.” Let’s assume she is correct, that fewer people will come out for any one particular election, when the election happens once a month. Two things to consider:
Although voting per-month is down, has voting per-year gone up? If elections-every-4-years gets 60% turnout, and elections-per-month get 40% turnout, what if elections-per-month-per-year has 80% turnout? That is, some people only vote during 2 or 3 months out of the year, but collectively those stragglers greatly increase the total percentage of the population that is voting. Does that increase the legitimacy of the system? This deserves further research.
If most people lack the motivation or self-discipline to vote 12 times a year then the people who have the motivation or self-discipline to vote 12 times a year end up having a disproportionate impact on the political system. Is this a bad thing? Does the quality of government decline or improve when the most motivated and self-disciplined people are choosing the leadership? This deserves research, but the argument can be made that this is something we should want. Perhaps it would lead to better government, if the people who have the most motivation and self-discipline end up having a disproportionate impact on the political system
UPDATE:
I posted this to Reddit and I thought this response is interesting:
Staggered terms can be highly problematic.
English local authority councils are a decent example of this - many of them elect 1/3rd of the councillors every year to four year terms, with no election taking place in the fourth year of the cycle. This can lead to situations where it's mathematically impossible to change which party has the majority on the council at any particular election , which makes that election seem pointless to voters and can make the administration complacent.
One of the first things the Commissioners (central government officers appointed when a local authority has drastically failed in some way) usually recommend is to move to whole-body elections. Example, Liverpool City Council
And yet, there are local councils that have been under the same party for decades. Maybe that is a problem or maybe not, but either way, why would it matter if the elections are staggered or not? There are Tories living in Labour strongholds and there are red voters living in Tory strongholds. People still go out and vote, even when they know it is hopeless.
I have written essays that are critical of First Past The Post, and I'm aware of the other problems in the British system that need to be addressed, but if we can just narrowly focus on this one issue for a moment, why would it matter that there is no hope of changing a party in an election? If the UK really wanted a system where there was a chance of a big shakeup with every election, then the UK would have to adopt a very different system. If Britain felt that “Tory strongholds” and “Labour strongholds” are an actual problem, then Britain would probably have to move to a system that encouraged a very large number of parties, so that after each election a new coalition would have to be put together.
As to this:
One of the first things the Commissioners usually recommend is to move to whole-body elections.
While this deserves further study, it is also true that if you call in an MBA or a consultant, they will recommend something, regardless of whether that recommendation is a proven solution. This happens in both business and in government. I’ve related the story where TimeWarner hired PriceWaterhouseCooper to recommend a new CMS system for their websites and PriceWaterhouseCooper asked some questions and then recommend Drupal, and for this recommendation they billed $7 million. Myself and my friends often laugh about this — we could have offered a better recommendation for less than $7 million. So I don’t put much weight on the fact that the Commissioners currently make this recommendation. Typically, consultants in that situation simply recommend whatever the consensus answer is. If staggered elections was the consensus answer, that is what they would recommend. Also, since 2010 the Tories have severely undermined local council government, so the fact that they would recommend whole-body elections doesn’t seem like a strong recommendation. If the enemies of council government recommend whole-body elections, then maybe whole-body elections are a bad idea for council government?
There's also just the logistics of monthly voting to consider. Here are a few logistical challenges off the top of my head (none of these are insurmountable, but would certainly require planning and resources to adjust.)
- Many polling places are in schools, fire departments, or other community buildings. Using those spaces as polling places once or twice a year is fine, but monthly elections would require a more permanent facility (especially for school buildings - unless election days move to the weekend, which is a different challenge, see below.)
- Currently most election staff work 1 or 2 days per year (for election day and perhaps for primary elections.) There are usually just a few full-time staff on local election boards and the rest only work election day. Monthly elections would require boards to hire more staff to work those elections, or convince the current workers to commit to working once per month. And unless there are also changes to the hours/days/laws associated with working the polls, many poll workers cannot or would not be able to work every month. As someone who has worked elections before, the current system makes for a very, very long day - workers must both open and close the polls meaning an arrival at 5:00 a.m. and if all goes smoothly, leaving at 9:00 pm. But, if , for instance, a machine is broken or some other snafu leads to a hand count, it can be 11 or midnight before folks go home. Again, it is one thing to do that once a year - quite another to do it monthly or even bi-monthly. [You could easily fix this issue by having 2 shifts of workers, but that would require even more staff and typically the Chief Election official of a particular polling location is required by law to be on premise for the entire voting process from beginning to end.]
- Already there is the problem for many that Election Day is on a Tuesday and many people have to work. It is not a national holiday and some employers are not empathetic to delays at polling places. Many simply don't vote because it is a hassle to try and get to the polling place before or after work shifts while juggling child care or other responsibilities. Sometimes people try to vote, but long lines mean they will be late for work and they leave without voting. Would monthly voting take place on the same day every month? Always a weekday or switch it to a weekend? Would a rotation of days make sense, or is that too confusing?
- Almost all of these concerns could be mitigated by making it easier to vote - more drop boxes, more polling places that are convenient to more people with simple, fast, electronic voting machines, more mail-in voting. Maybe ALL government buildings could also be polling places (the post office, the dmv, the courthouse, town hall, schools - and voters could vote in ANY of those places, not just a polling place assigned to them.) However, currently, there is one political party that is decidedly against easy voting, because it usually benefits them to suppress the vote. So in order to make it easier to vote monthly, we'd have to overcome that political reality. [And certainly there would be security concerns (whether real or imagined) with any of the above options. So if we make it easier to vote, we'll also need to show that security measures are in place to give legitimacy to the process.]
Certainly this is something that would take some easing into - perhaps as you say, starting small with a locality or a state (actually that brings up another interesting logistical challenge in that Election Boards are locally run, and different localities may have varying rules even within the same state, but must follow laws mandated by the state and federal government.) But you could also reduce the impacts of such a major shift (from 1 to 12 elections per year) by going with quarterly elections. People are somewhat used to doing things on a quarterly basis - certainly in the business world or by paying quarterly taxes, or even with report cards which come out by semester or quarter. Just a thought.