See below for this new group’s ground rules.
This diary is going to focus on the plans for improving democracy of the 2020 candidates, especially Harris and Warren.
Democracy reform is a funny kind of issue. If somehow you had a magic wand to enact any policies you wanted, you’d definitely start with other issues — climate change, jobs and economic equality, health care, peace, civil rights and reproductive rights, criminal justice, all these concrete issues are arguably more important and more urgent than just how we vote. But the point is, better democracy isn’t in competition with all those issues. Better democracy is the magic wand. And it’s also the counter to that other, evil wand — the gerrymandering, malapportionment, voter suppression, corruption, radicalization, and norm-destroying that has allowed monsters like McConnell to win on policy even as they lose the popular vote.
So what are those amazing women above planning to do about it? I’ve found 2 relevant plans from Warren, and one from Harris. Here they are:
Warren’s plan for federal voting standards
Warren’s plan to get rid of the electoral college
Harris’s plan for government for the people
I’ll make some comments on these plans as I lay them out, from the perspective of a longtime voting theorist / activist. I have qualifications here: for instance, I invented and helped campaign to pass the voting system used for nominations for the Hugo Awards. (E Pluribus Hugo. If you google that, you’ll find my real name; but please don’t share it here.) I was one of the organizers for the British Columbia Symposium on Proportional Representation. And I’m on the board of the Center for Election Science, a nonprofit that focuses on reforming single-winner voting methods. (I don’t speak for them here.)
Without further ado:
Warren proposes:
- A Federal agency to take charge of equipment, ballot design, and cybersecurity for all federal elections
- She loses a few small points with me for not including the magic words “voter-verified paper ballots” and “risk-limiting audits”, but I’m sure she’s thinking them.
- Binding federal standards for all Federal elections
- Automatic voter registration and same-day registration; opt-out, not opt-in.
- No purging voters unless they request it or there’s clear objective evidence of a reason (death, change of residence, loss of eligibility).
- Right to vote for all free citizens, including those who’ve served their time
- (Personally, I agree with Bernie that this should extend to all citizens, even those still in prison. Removing rights is a slippery slope. But I understand that this isn’t popular.)
- Election day a national holiday, and plenty of ways to vote
- I believe that there should also be a refundable tax rebate to encourage voting; otherwise, making election day a holiday could encourage people to go out-of-town.
- No more gerrymandering for Congress; states must use independent redistricting commissions
- This would be challenged on constitutional grounds, and state-level actors would try to subvert it and find loopholes. Personally, I think that it would be easier (on political, practical, and constitutional grounds) to end gerrymandering by requiring any states with partisan-gerrymandered districts to use a proportional representation method that gives a fair result even with such districts. Still, having standards that are hard to enforce is better than having no standards at all, so I applaud Warren for at least including this point.
- Incentives and enforcement to improve state and local elections too
- Federal government will pay for election administration for states that meed the standards above.
- Bonuses for states that improve turnout.
- Improved Voting Rights Act would include nationwide preclearance for possibly-discriminatory changes and the possibility of temporary court-ordered federal takeovers for states that don’t follow the laws
Though I’d go further than Warren in a few ways that I mentioned, this is a solid, comprehensive plan for making our country more democratic.
The plan here isn’t really Warren’s; it’s just the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Here at Daily Kos, Stephen Wolf has been great at showing how this could actually go into force by 2024.
Technically, this is a change of voting methods, so it’s a chance for me to plug other possible reforms like approval voting, STAR voting, and proportional representation. But I won’t derail the diary too much by discussing these.
Harris proposes:
- Restore the full protections of the Voting Rights Act
- Require states allow early voting
- Automatic voter registration
- Election day a national holiday
- Overturn Citizens United
- Disclosure rules for all campaign finance; no dark money
- Secure Elections Act;
- Federal funding and standards for cybersecurity
- Replacing outdated paperless electronic voting machines
- Fund ballot-counting for states that use paper ballots
This is definitely lighter on detail than Warren’s plans above, but it covers the same main points. Overall, I’d give Warren’s plan a 9/10, Harris’s an 8/10. And remember, with Trump and McConnell in charge, we’re currently at -10/10; or if you want to include complex numbers, Trump’s imaginary voter fraud would make it (-10-10i)/10.
What about the other major candidates?
Biden has 2 paragraphs about democracy on his website, with some nice generalities. 4/10
Sanders has the following 8-point plan:
- Restore the Voting Rights Act.
- Secure automatic voter registration for every American over 18.
- Overturn Citizens United.
- End racist voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering.
- Abolish burdensome voter ID laws.
- Re-enfranchise the more than 6 million Americans who have had their right to vote taken away by a felony conviction, paid their debt to society, and deserve to have their rights restored.
- Make Election Day a national holiday.
- Abolish super PACs.
- Replace corporate funding and donations from millionaires and billionaires with public funding of elections that amplifies small-dollar donations.
Without specifics, especially on gerrymandering, that’s weaker than Warren. But the public election funding (democracy vouchers???) point goes beyond what Harris proposes; and though it’s not written above, Sanders has supported giving the vote to those currently incarcerated. So, 8.5/10
Buttigieg actually devotes 1 of 3 top-level issue groupings to “democracy”; more focus on this than any other candidate. His proposals include:
- Paper trail for every vote
- Federal election administration (nonpartisan and fully-funded)
- Consequences to foreign countries who meddle
- Introduce automatic voter registration
- Expand early voting
- Restore voting rights for the formerly incarcerated
- Institute voting by mail
- Make Election Day a holiday
- Protect birthright citizenship
- Provide access for people with disabilities
- Protect voting rights on tribal lands
- Ensure an accurate and depoliticized Census count
- Small-donor matching system for federal elections
- Strengthen the Federal Election Commission
- Overturn Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo, if necessary by constitutional amendment
- Establish independent, statewide redistricting commissions (how???)
- True political representation for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico
- A national popular vote to replace the Electoral College, via a constitutional amendment (good luck with that one; NPVIC is much more viable.)
I’d personally still ask for proportional representation, improved single-winner voting methods, and tax rebate for voting.
Still, you can’t deny that this plan is the most comprehensive of any here. 9.5/10
Her Plans 2020 Group: what is this?
This is a new group. Join us on our planning spreadsheet and sign up to write one of these diaries yourself. Don’t be a dick.
Ground rules:
- We’ll discuss plans from all 4-5 major candidates, if available; and from other minor candidates, when they have something that stands out.
- Keep it civil. Criticizing policy or record is OK, as long as it’s on-topic; but no personal attacks against candidates or other commenters.
- The primary focus is here on Harris and Warren. I’m not going to state my reasons for de-emphasizing the other major candidates here (see the point above), but this is not up for discussion. You’re welcome to start your own group if you disagree, but plenty of Kossacks agree. Still, we’ll try to be objective, and say when other candidate’s plans are superior.
- The rest of the rules and policies are up for discussion on the planning spreadsheet. My current goal is to eventually get 1-3 policy-focused diaries on the Rec List per week, but that could change.
Note that the planning spreadsheet has a list of 33 issue areas and links/copies of most major candidate plans/platforms on most of them. You can help fill it in, or just use it to browse policy.
I’m not making this a hard-and-fast rule, but I think it’s a good idea to post 4 fundraising links on each of these diaries: for the two presidential candidates we’re focusing on, for one group or candidate on lower-level elections, and for one nonprofit focusing on the issue area of the diary. Here goes:
EWarren2020 has an ActBlue thermometer.
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To retake the senate (important so that the 2021 Democratic president can accomplish anything), help Stacey Abrams register and engage voters in Georgia or support Theresa Greenfield in Iowa.
A great nonprofit working on election reform issues specifically is the Center for Election Science. (Disclaimer: I’m on the board).
*Please remember none of the above are Daily Kos sponsored activities or endorsements.