this is similar to the argument that was used in California to support the
current "top two" primary system that we had shoved down our throats in
California by Arnold and the Republicans. The Democrats in the legislature
made the mistake of voting for it to resolve a situation that held up the
state budget process several years ago. Most everyone in California bemoans
the current Top Two primary system but when both the Democrats and
Republicans had an opportunity during the current election cycle to undo it
through another ballot initiative of course they didn't run with it. Of
course the top two system excludes or prevents third parties from getting on
the ballot. In cases where preferential voting is used it might allow for
third party candidates to be considered when lower choices are considered.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, April 7, 2016 5:48 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] moaning Political Attacks Won't Fix the Problem
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/bemoaning-political-attacks-won-t-fix-the-problem/
moaning Political Attacks Won't Fix the Problem
There's a possible solution—but it would take a constitutional amendment
to make it happen at the presidential level
By Natalie Jacewicz on April 7, 2016
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Advertisement
Almost everyone bemoans the attacks and finger pointing that have become
an inevitable part of virtually every political campaign. Candidates who
agree on little else claim to share this frustration. Bernie Sanders has
emphasized that he’s “never run a negative ad in his life,” and Ted Cruz
has lamented debates designed to create a “cage match” atmosphere.
So why do so many elections nowadays, including the current presidential
race, ooze with negativity?
Researchers say that cultural trends and human psychology may help
explain why such attacks infect campaigns with the persistence of a foot
fungus. But they have some welcome news as well: Tweaking the voting
system could help treat the chronic hostility.
First, the bad news: Cultural shifts may have set the stage to make
negative campaigns the rule rather than the exception.
On its face, this might seem surprising. Research suggests that voters
have grown increasingly reluctant to identify with a political party.
According to a paper in the March issue of the journal Electoral
Studies, only 63 percent of voters identify as Republicans or Democrats,
the lowest number since 1952, when the American National Election
Studies survey began.
Despite record low identification with political parties, however voters
split along party lines more than ever. Americans are more likely to
cast votes for the same party down an entire ballot than at any other
time since World War II.
“Among people who call themselves independents, the vast majority are
what I call ‘closet partisans,’” says Alan Abramowitz of Emory
University, who coauthored the study with Steven Webster. Most
“independent” voters still lean toward the left or right, and their
voting behavior reflects that tilt.
The social scientists analyzed decades of survey trends and found that
as parties became more aligned with other cultural divisions like race
and religion, voters on the left and right viewed each other more and
more negatively. The division has driven a boom in “negative
partisanship”—an increased tendency to vote consistently against one of
the parties, even if one self-identifies as an independent.
Another factor in the rise of negativity, according to political
psychologist Jon A. Krosnick of Stanford University, is that negative
politicking taps into how humans process facts.
“One piece of negative information has more of a damaging effect than a
piece of favorable information has a positive effect,” Krosnick says.
“If I can only hold your attention for a few minutes, and I can either
tell you how I helped an old lady cross the street or how my opponent
kicked a cat, it makes more sense for me to tell you about the cat.”
Humans cling to negative facts more than positive ones, even outside of
political contexts, Krosnick says. He suggests this inner-Debbie-Downer
may be tied to fear. Hanging onto negative information might have helped
humans’ evolutionary ancestors avoid danger and survive to reproduce.
But elections aren’t necessarily doomed to be slugfests, according to a
paper to be published in June, also in Electoral Studies. A research
team led by Todd Donovan of Western Washington University found that the
way elections are set up can make a significant difference.
Most elections rely on a system that allows each voter to cast one,
nontransferable vote for one candidate. For example, a single voter can
vote for Donald Trump or John Kasich, but not both. Some American
cities, however, have adopted an alternative system called "preferential
voting" that allows each voter to divide his or her loyalties.
Preferential voting can take different forms. In one system, each voter
receives a lump sum of points and allocates those points among
candidates. A gung ho Kasich enthusiast might give all of his point to
Kasich, but a more conflicted voter might allot 70 percent of her points
to Kasich and 30 percent of her votes to Trump. In this way, voters can
support multiple candidates, and the candidate with the most points wins
the election.
Another system of preferential voting allows each voter to rank
candidates as first choice, second choice, and so on. (The voter above
would rank Kasich as first choice, and Trump as second choice.) If no
candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, then second-choice
votes come into play, and if necessary, third-choice votes, until one of
the candidates has enough votes to win. The Australian House of
Representatives relies upon this method, as do about a dozen U.S.
cities, including San Francisco, Minneapolis and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For his study, Donovan focused on ranked choice voting. Donovan says
cities that adopt ranked voting often do so to save money because the
system allows instant runoffs. But when he compared mayoral races in
cities with conventional voting to those with ranked voting, he found
the ranking method had another benefit: less negativity.
“I was kind of surprised,” says Donovan. “The civility thing is a bonus
that I didn’t expect to see so pronounced.”
In cities with plurality voting, more than half of the voters said
candidates criticized one another. But in cities with ranked voting,
only 25 percent of voters reported similar hostility between candidates.
“It’s not a zero-sum game, so you’re not as likely to attack your
opponents,” Donovan explains. Of course, candidates want to be ranked as
first choice by voters, but candidates may also need to win second or
third place votes, which could come into play after the first round of
ballot counting. In the example above, Trump may want to win over Kasich
voters, but attacking Kasich too much could sabotage chances of winning
second or third place votes from supporters committed to Kasich. If
Trump were too hostile to Kasich, Kasich supporters would be much less
likely to rank him as second-choice, perhaps casting their second-choice
votes for Ted Cruz instead. If attacks have more potential to backfire,
candidates seem less inclined to draw blood in scraps with one another.
The national electoral process is unlikely to change in one fell swoop,
according to Donovan; doing so would require a Constitutional amendment.
But states can individually choose to adopt alternative voting systems,
as can party-run caucuses and primaries. That might allow candidates to
emerge from elections without the stench of negative campaigns wafting
behind them.
For now, however, the foot fungus endures.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily
those of Scientific American.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Natalie Jacewicz
Natalie Jacewicz is a journalist in the science communication program at
the University of California, Santa Cruz. She holds a bachelor's degree
in evolutionary biology from Harvard. For more of her work, visit
http://nataliejacewicz.com/
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