Hope For Democracy

In the USA, that is. Two stories in the OpinionJournal's Political Diary today (and I thought I might lapse my subscription after the election...) show good signs for 21st Century Democracy.

1) Computer Voting in Florida was fertile soil for conspiracy theorists, but in the end "drastically reduced the margin of uncertainty in this month's vote counting. In 2000, some precincts threw away as many as 12% of presidential votes as uncountable because of hanging or dimpled chads in punchcard ballots. 'This year,' the paper reports, 'discard rates were often cut to half of 1 percent or lower, in some cases as little as a quarter percent. That's almost entirely thanks to new technology, such as touch-screen machines that do not allow for overvotes -- when voters choose two candidates for a single office -- and limit undervotes by alerting voters when they don't make a choice in a race.'"

2) The other story that inspired hope was a possible fix to a computer-caused malady: the efficacious Gerrymander. We've lost the House of Representatives to GIS-drawn districts. There are almost no competitive races anymore.

The fix? Why, Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course!

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is fed up with the bipartisan incumbent gerrymander that seems to have made most California state political races uncompetitive. In this month's elections, not one out of the 153 races for Congress, State Senate or State Assembly resulted in any shift of party control. The only personnel changes came in the legislature through voter-imposed term limits.

That's why the state's governor has now become a fan of redistricting, which he calls "a very, very important" element of his agenda to reform California's antiquated and hidebound government. His likely vehicle is an initiative circulated by Ted Costa, the populist taxpayer advocate who led the recall effort last year against Gov. Gray Davis. The Costa plan is relatively simple. New redistricting plans would be drawn up by a group of retired judges. The judges themselves would be picked by state legislators -- but with a catch: Legislators would not be allowed to nominate judges from their own parties, but only from opposing parties.

The measure has already been endorsed by Kevin McCarthy, the GOP Assembly leader, as well as by some Democrats in county and city government. Last month, Gov. Schwarzenegger privately told a major donor that he backed the measure, which would most likely be voted on in a special election next fall so new districts could be in place for the 2006 elections.

Accurate voting and competitive elections. My heart swoons. We should start a ballot initiative in Colorado. Every state should; Iowa already has.

Posted by jk at November 23, 2004 12:04 PM