What is the 'proper' outcome of an election?

Great Debates
1

This is a kind of a weird topic, so please read what I’m actually asking before you start responding. In particular, I’m NOT talking about any actual real world election, past or present. And while some examples in this post are obviously inspired by some real life incidents and thus could be thought of as partisan one way or the other, I’m trying to discuss things here in a purely theoretical sense.

So… in various debates about campaign finance reform, voter fraud and registration laws, gerrymandering, and other such issues, I’ve wanted to stick my nose into the thread and say “ahh, yes, well, that is (or is not) a good idea because it does (or does not) change what the ‘proper’ result of the election is”. But I haven’t actually posted that, because of course “the ‘proper’ result of the election” is a pretty darn meaningless phrase. So I figured I’d start a thread about the topic.
So… let’s imagine they hypothetical city of Anytown, USA. It has a population of 100,000 generally civic-minded individuals, it usually has a voter turnout rate of around 60%. It’s divided roughly 40/40/20 between registered Republicans, Democrats and independents. In general, most Dems live on the north side of town, and most Republicans live on the south side.

So there’s a race for mayor going on in this particular hypothetical year, and the two main candidates are Debby Democrat and Rachel Republican. So they’ve each raised some money from their respective constituencies, run some ads, there’s been a debate or two, and all the polls show that it’s going to be a close race.

Then something happens. And one of the candidates wins, with the thing that happened likely having affected the outcome. And the question is, did it (and here’s where it’s a bit hard to define precisely what I mean) subvert the democratic process? Did it operate contrary to the will of the people?

So I’m going to list a bunch of possible “something happensed”, and I guess for each one there are three questions:
(A) If this happened in the US today, would it invalidate the results of the election? And did anyone violate any laws?
(B) In an “ideal” democratic society, should it invalidate the results of the election?
© Do you think that it potentially subverted the democratic process, in some holistic sense?

(Feel free to comment on as many or as few of these as you like, or on the overall topic… there’s a LOT of stuff to talk about here.)

So… here we go (I’m making the Democrats the “bad guys” in all these examples just because my natural instinct, being a liberal, would be the opposite… but they could obviously be the other way just as easily):
(1) Democratic operatives bribe the election officials who take several thousand Republican votes (without counting them) and throw them in the trash (obviously not an interesting example, I’m mainly tossing it in so there’s an example which unambiguously DOES subvert the democratic process)

(2) Democratic operatives invent a totally fabricated story about a scandal in Rachel’s past and “leak” it, with fabricated supporting documents, to the media a few days before the election… and the forgery isn’t discovered until after the election

(3) Democratic operatives find an incident in Rachel’s past which, when taken grossly out of context, seems horribly scandalous. The “leak” a story about it which is all technically true, but grossly misrepresents the overall situation, and the full story doesn’t come out until after the election. (For instance… “Rachel was once accused of molesting a junior high school student”, when the full story is that the student was mentally unbalanced and had accused dozens of random adults of molesting him.)

(4) On election day, there are 5 separate really bad traffic incidents on the south side of town, causing massive gridlock, and voter turnout is much lower than expected. An investigation comes up with no evidence that this was anything other than freakish bad (or good) luck

(4a) Same as (4), but an investigation finds that all the accidents were orchestrated by a single rich and unscrupulous supporter of Debbie, but one with no actual connection to her campaign

(4b) Same as (4), but an investigation finds that all the accidents were arranged by democratic party operatives

(5) The elections board decides that based on changing population and lack of funds and so forth, they should reassess where the polling places are. Under the old plan, the polling places were spread equally around town. Under the new plan, there are far more polling places per capita in the north side of town than in the south. They offer no particular justification for this.

(6) The elections board announces that the new ID policy is that anyone showing up at a polling place to vote must present a valid library card. Library cards are issued free of charge to anyone producing 3 different pieces of paperwork demonstrating their legal residence in Anytown. This must happen at the main library, which is in the north side of town, between 3 and 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus the Democrats of Anytown, being elitist chablis-sippers, have library cards in larger numbers to begin with. The justification for this is to reduce voter fraud, but no substantial number of cases of voter fraud are known to have ever actually occurred in Anytown.

(6a) Same as (6), but in fact there have been lots of cases of voter fraud, and everyone agrees that this is bad (but the election board offers no particular justification for why they chose library cards as the required type of ID)

(7) A big liberal company based in another state (Amalgamated Soros) has plans to open a big factory in town, which Debbie supports but Rachel opposes. They buy $5,000,000 worth of ads supporting Debbie and attacking Rachel (previously the campaign budgets had been $50,000 or so for each candidate0

(7a) Same as (7), but it’s a foreign company

(8) Debbie’s rich uncle dies, leaving her $5,000,000, all of which she spends on campaign ads

(8a) Same as (8), but it’s not Debbie who has a rich uncle die, but a random friend of hers (who doesn’t mind spending $5,000,000 to get her friend elected)

(9) Despite the fact that Anytown has been electing its mayor by direct popular vote for over a century, the election board finds an obscure clause in the town charter that lets them change the election to an electoral-college-style affair in which the town is divided into 7 districts, each districts’ voters elect a single elector, and the electors then vote for mayor. They invoke this clause, and come up with some savagely gerrymandered disctricts pretty much guaranteeing that Debbie will win

(9a) Same as (9), but the town charter specifies the boundaries of the 7 districts. They do some math and figure that the districts are drawn in a way that favors Debbie, and thus invoke this clause.

2

I read that as “What is the ‘proper’ outcome of an erection?”
That would’ve been a much cooler thread.

3

No, that would have been a much hotter thread.

[Boom-chicka-wow-wow]Oh, yeah[/b-c-w-w]

4

Everyone is satisfied and nobody is happy.

5

Bump, hoping for some more serious replies. My OP may have been a bit unwieldy, but I think this is a fascinating topic. In particular, think about example (8), in which one candidate hugely outspends the other. It’s hard, on a sort of basic emotional-common-sense level, for me not to say “well, if A would have defeated B 52 to 48 if they’d both had equal money to spend, but B spent way more money, and B defeated A 52 to 48, then the democratic process and the ‘real’ will of the voters was subverted”. On the other hand, trying to encode that into a set of formal laws and restrictions seems like a nightmare, not to mention massively unconstitutional. And on the third hand, it’s certainly the case that in the real life US right now, it’s usually the Republicans outspending the Democrats, and maybe my reaction is a purely partisan one?

6

You’re fixating on the ballot numbers, you need to rewind to consider issues like who stands (or is allowed to stand), and (b) why they stand (who they represent, etc).

How many genuine working class Americans are there in Congress?

p.s. don’t be sucked in by the ‘immigrant grandparents’ bullshit.

7

Does this refer to erection or election?

8

One of the big traditions of en election is “no do-overs.” We have a tradition of re-counts, but very, very few elections are sent back to the people for a whole new vote.

You give several examples of corruption in the election process. These need to be investigated and severely punished. Election fraud is a crime against the very concept of democracy itself.

You give other examples of things that stink, but which are legal. The use of “dirty tricks” in elections, which don’t necessarily rise to the level of crimes, is so traditional in the U.S., it’s almost enshrined. Sending out last-minute ad blitzes saying “Look at this picture of him laughing at a funeral” is sinfully wicked…and totally fair. That’s the ugly side of freedom.

The same for one guy spending millions more than the other guy in campaign advertising. I don’t like it one little bit, but, well, it’s called Liberty, and we gotta love it. Imagine how you’d feel if there were laws preventing you from posting your opinions here on this BBS forum, because it could be construed as a political endorsement. That’d stink a lot worse.

You give an example of an “act of God,” in the string of traffic accidents. This falls into the “shit happens” category. At one election, I had to wait an hour to vote, because the new voting machines wouldn’t start up properly. One poor bloke had to leave to catch an airplane: he didn’t get to vote at all. I feel very sorry for him, but, well… Tough.

Imagine if every election were as contested as, say, Al Franken’s Senatorial election. Every Senator would be held up for months before being seated. Significant issues could be passed into law with a state being deprived of half its Senatorial representation. This did happen. Now, you want to make it worse, by mandating new elections if things seem dicey? The Senate would be half empty, all the time!

Worse, holding new elections would be even more to the benefit of those who can afford to pay millions for advertising. You’d be giving them more leverage.

Personally, I’d like to see ways to make it easier to “pierce the corporate barrier” for campaign committees, so that when they do something illegal, the people who actually made those decisions actually go to jail. Right now, it’s simply too easy for a big advertising company to form itself, ad hoc, commit arrant fraud, and then simply dissolve itself, and nobody is at fault. Let’s follow these guys, make them responsible, sue them for their personal property, jail 'em, and stop the corruption that way.

Or…maybe not?

9

I have to admit, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and what it has to do with my OP.

10

So what would you do in example (2)? Presumably people committed a crime (libel), but is there (should there be?) a provision in the election law which allows the results to be thrown out because of that crime, even if the crime did not involve any fraud in the election process itself?

But where’s the dividing line? Is there anything that someone can do short of actually vote-tampering that, to you, would invalidate the result of the election? Sending out official-looking flyers with incorrect polling place information? Organizing peaceful marches and demonstrations, that happen to make it much harder to reach polling places in specifically chosen districts?

I find it a very hard line to draw, but to me last-minute flyers with a photo that looks stupid but which is in fact a real photo is on the should-be-legal side of the line and a totally fabricated story about a scandal that never happened at all is on the should-be-illegal side of the line, but there are still plenty of things between those two. And again, what do you do? “Well, someone committed a crime, and the crime almost certainly affected the result of the election, which is presumably why they committed it, but hey, we have a tradition of no do-overs, so…”

Sure, but “writing a law to differentiate between those two things would be difficult, so we shouldn’t even bother” isn’t a conversation-ending vetoing final argument in and of itself. But that’s a separate argument (more or less this one). For purposes of this thread, the question is to what extent the “will of the people” is being “violated” (again, clearly difficult to define terms). Again, think of a town with 40% one party, 40% another party, 20% independent. One candidate from each party, each of whom excites their base about the same amount, gets the same amount of volunteers to go out and help decide the undecideds, they debate to a draw on local TV, but… one candidate gets a bazillion dollar donation from a (scare quotes) “outside company” and buys way way way more TV ads, and then wins. Is that what democracy should be?

Reasonable points, although as far as I can tell I’m not actually mandating holding re-elections very often if at all. But I agree that having them be a frequent remedy would just lead to a never-ending appeals process.

I think the pernicious influence of money in politics spends plenty of its time going through perfectly legal ads which no one could or should or would be arrested for. In fact, a lot of the problem (I learned, after listening to a fascinating This American Life episode on the topic a few weeks back) is not so much the basic “senator needs money, oil company gives senator money, senator now does what the oil company wants” as it is “senator spends such ridiculous amounts of time and energy raising money that it crushes his soul and he has no energy left to actually try to make good laws and help his constituents.”

11

To me, this sounds like an electoral example of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. You seem to indicate that your voters are all walking around with a determination of who they wish to vote for. Then, in the act of measuring that determination, “Something Happens” that changes the result. So, the question becomes, “Is it possible to accurately poll for an election without the run-up to the election changing the results?” I don’t know the answer to that question, but it does seem to be an interesting topic.

12

The only practical way to get 'em in there would be to choose Congresscritters at random from the population, by sortition, like jury duty. This is known as demarchy. It has its obvious downsides.

13

Generally speaking, if there was a direct subversion of the ability of voters to have their votes counted, someone should go to jail and you should schedule a new election. If no crime was committed, tough luck. If a crime was committed by someone unaffiliated with the candidates, they can go go jail for what they did. If some board changed the rules before the election, file suit before the election and work during your campaign to mitigate the effect of those rules.
1 Someone should go to Jail let’s have a New Election SJNE
1a (bribes made by rich supporter) SJNE
2 Tough Luck TL
3 TL
4 TL
4a Someone should go to Jail no change to the election
4b SJNE (I add the new election item here because a candidate’s organization subverted the process)
5 File Suit before the Election FS
6 FS
6a TL
7 TL
7a TL
8 TL
8a TL
9 FS
9a FS

14

Have you folks really given up on people from relatively conventional backgrounds representing your interests?

How is anything else democracy?

15

Wha?

16

People from relatively conventional backgrounds are not qualified to represent our interests. The “citizen legislator” is a misconceived idea – we need career politicians just like we need career civil servants, and both sets need to be persons of more than ordinary education, etc. Government is no game for amateurs, it’s far too complex for that.

17

Democracy means that the people get to choose, not that the choices are mediocre.

And a candidate’s background means nothing to me. What is important is education, expertise, ability, intelligence, and positions. What I want to know is that the person is capable and will make policy in accord with my views. Background means dick.

18

You speak as if there is some Platonic democratic ideal to be achieved, and that therefore we can find a metric which tracks how closely a given election matches that ideal.

In practice, democracy is just a way of avoiding some of the worst abuses of the process of selecting a leader. It manages, imperfectly, to bypass some kinds of corruption (nepotism, etc.) while inviting others (ballot stuffing, etc.). It’s flawed, but we don’t know anything better.

The ideal leader doesn’t exist. The best leader we have isn’t running. The best leader that’s running probably won’t win. However, there’s a good chance that the worst leader won’t win either, and that the leader that does win won’t be all that bad.

Your examples are interesting, but in the end they’re just points on an arbitrary spectrum. Sure, we can try to rank them according to our best idea of how democracy is supposed to work, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about an alleged will of the people, let alone who the best leader is.

19

My intuitive takes, without a ton of reflection, and without comment on the real world legal implications:

(2) [Fake Scandal]: This is sort of an ontological puzzle posing as an ethical one. In a world in which we could objectively and publicly determine the facts in the premise, and could do so in every case, and could do so without infringing on anyone’s rights, then this should invalidate the results. Because at least one of those things isn’t true in the real world, this is a tough luck scenario because we don’t want to give anyone the power to overturn elections based on claims that a certain position or claim is false. But in the magical world in which those conditions were met, then it invalidates. There’s no principled distinction between a fake claim, a lie by omission, and dosing someone with LSD to get their vote with respect to the validity of the electoral choice. The differences arise from the external consequences of attempting to police such things. Same result for (3) [Fake by omission of context scandal]

(4) [Bad luck effect on turnout]: Even if this merits a do-over in some abstract sense, this presents an impossible line-drawing problem since there is no principles baseline for turnout. The only principled and fair solution is to say that random effects on turnout are something we accept.

(4a) [Third party affects turnout]: Sort of melds the epistemological and the ethical, since can’t ever really know there was no coordination. But taking the premise as knowable, I think we cannot allow a third party’s conduct to upset the otherwise proper results, so the election is not invalidated. Obviously, we criminalize that conduct, however.

(4b) [Intentional turnout sabotage]: Clearly invalidates. Re-do.

(5) [Disparate impact on ability to get to polls]: In these cases I would weigh the following factors: (1) evidence of intent to achieve particular result; (2) degree of disparate impact; (3) how compelling the justification is; (4) how tailored the policy is to the justification. I’d apply the same test for (6) [Less substantial disparate impact with hollow justification]; (6a) [Less substantial disparate impact with solid justificaton but not narrowly-tailored]; (9) [Change of electoral scheme that favors Debbie]; (9a) [Intentional change of electoral scheme to favor Debbie] .

(7) [Out-of-state interest group spending]: Meh. I’m pretty conflicted when it comes to campaign finance. But whatever rules there should be for spending, I don’t think we ought to view any spending as invalidating an electoral result, because unlike falsehoods that come too late to be disproven, or dosing someone with LSD, nothing prevents a conscientious citizen from being unmoved by campaign spending. Because that line can be drawn, and because of the potentially pernicious external implications of regulating spending (on free speech), I think this stuff stands. Same result for (7a) [Foreign interest group spending]; (8) [Debbie spends a bunch of her own money from inheritance]; (8a) [Debbie spends a bunch of her own money from friend].

    • To answer the question of what the law actually is, I highly recommend this text. IIRC, it addresses most of these scenarios, including, surprisingly, 9.
20

To add…

I’m not sure your scenarios really strike at the heart of your question, which seems to be about what makes an election valid – i.e., what makes an election comport with the goals we have for the democratic process.

For most of the examples, I don’t think it matters whether you think the goal is to most accurately represent the actual will of the majority, most accurately represent what the will of the majority would be if people were perfectly rational, most accurately represent what the will of the majority if people were perfectly rational and informed, choose the best leader according to some criterion, hope for the best while avoiding the problems of other systems, or something else.

I think the real tough questions that put people on opposite sides of these questions are about practical problems of what can be objectively known, the consequences of any prophylactic rule for situations other than the scenario in question, and how much you value the things for which the rules have external consequences (rights to free speech, for example). While there are some people who think unlimited campaign spending is fine because giving rich people more power is good for society, the majority of principled opponents of campaign finance regulations acknowledges the problems that moneyed influence causes, but sees the alternatives are more destructive. To me, that doesn’t really go to the heart of what makes elections valid as much as it goes to our background assumptions about human nature, knowledge, the ability for governments to enforce impartial rules, the value of certain freedoms, and other separate issues.