McAuliffe Warned: “Its About Jobs and the Economy”

Election results are in, and it seems Terry McAuliffe has gained some political points in the wake of the loss of the Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia, Creigh Deeds to the Republican winner, Bob McDonnell. Despite McAuliffe’s warning at the beginning of the race for Governor that the issue of note was jobs and the economy, the Democratic Party did not heed. And now they are reaping what they themselves sowed. Although McAuliffe is not an “I told you so” kind of guy, it is possible that Terry’s prescience might help him decide to make a come-back bid in 2013 as the best Virginia candidate the Democratic party there will have to offer.

Runoff Voting Could Improve Democracy in America

Terry McAuliffe, Brian Moran and Creigh Deeds recently faced-off in the Virginia primary to choose the Democratic candidate for governor. Although Deeds received less than the majority of votes, since he did receive more votes than any of the other candidates he was declared the winner.

In the United States there is a distinct dislike for our leaders to be picked by virtue of receiving the “most” votes. We want ruling mandates to be bestowed by “majorities.” If not we feel we are not really choosing our representatives, rather they are being picked “for us.”

There is a relatively simple solution to this problem, by conducting runoff elections.

There are two ways of conducting runoff elections.

Less financially efficient, not to mention prolonging the time we are engaged in the unpleasant communal pastime of “election season” is to have a runoff vote at a later date after the initial elections. Not a pleasant prospect, its enough to dissuade most people from promoting such a solution.

However, it is possible to conduct what is known as “Instant Runoff Voting”, or IRV, which has already been tried in San Francisco and Vermont in 2004 and 2009, respectively.

In IRV voters rank the candidates according to their first, second and last choices. Not only will this allow two candidates to go head to head for the majority of the voters, but it has been shown that IRV actually increases voter turnout by giving the feeling that what the voters want and do really can make a difference.

Ruling Minority is Rule of the Day

In the recent primary election in Virginia to choose the Democratic Party’s candidate for governor, none of the three  candidates, including Terry McAuliffe, Brian Moran and even the winner Creigh Deeds, received the endorsement of the majority of voters.

Winning by only a plurality, or the most votes, Deeds was indeed not picked as the majority of Democrat’s first choice for governor.

In this particular case our discomfort level is minimized due to the fact that Deeds received almost 50% of the voters’ approval, and the losers, McAuliffe and Moran only received a bit more than half the votes between them. But what about a case where the “winner” only wins with 35% of the vote? This could happen if the two other candidates split the 65% of the remaining votes between them. There is an instinctive aversion to having our leadership given mandates based on the votes of only 35% of the people voting. And if you factor in the people that don’t come to the polls at all, well, we get a lot less than the ideal of democracy’s clarion call “majority rules.”

One solution to this problem could be to have runoff elections.

More about this in a future post.

Plurality Rules Sometimes in the US of A

One of the more “taken for granted” beliefs of democracy in the United States is that our elected leaders are able to lead based on the notion that they were chosen by a majority of the voters.

Unfortunately this is a misconception and all too often it is a mere “plurality of voters” that actually picks the winner. This was the case in the recent Democratic primary race for governor of Virginia. In this election Terry McAuliffe, Brian Moran and the ultimate winner, Creigh Deeds all finished with less than 50% of the vote.

Yes, Deeds got the most votes of the three, which is what winning with a plurality means, but he did not get the “yes” from a clear majority. Therefore he is not leading by virtue of the wishes of the majority.

The problem with this can be made even starker when we examine what happened in the Tazewell County primary held  for Board of Supervisors which took place on the same day as the gubernatorial election. In this race the two losers received 63% of the vote between them. That left only 37% of the voters supporting the ultimate winner, David R. Woodward II.

In the fiercely democratic United States most people would feel uncomfortable with the fact that their leaders are leading by virtue of only 37% of the vote.

“Minority Rule” Chooses Democratic Candidate for Governor of Virginia

Democracy can certainly mean different things to different people, and “majority rule” is usually one of those things. In the recent Democratic primary race for the governor of Virginia none of the three candidates, Terry McAuliffe, Brian Moran or even the winner Creigh Deeds reeled in a majority of the votes.

That’s right. Together, the losing candidates actually received more votes than the winner.  Therefore, although we don’t like to admit this in the world’s “greatest democracy,” the winner in this race did not receive his mandate from a majority of voters.

And you should not think this is a fluke or an unusual event by any means. Or that this only happens in party primaries. Not at all. In the year 2000 George W. Bush was elected by a minority, and Bill Clinton led the country by virtue of a minority in both 1992 and 1996.

Something to think about, yes?