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The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It
Despite howls for reform, the only thing separating us from another election disaster of the kind that hit Florida in 2000, and that almost struck again in Ohio in 2004, may simply be another close vote. In this lucid and lively book, Heather Gerken diagnoses what is wrong with our elections and proposes a radically new and simple a Democracy Index that would rate the performance of state and local election systems. A rough equivalent to the U.S. News and World Report ranking of colleges and universities, the Index would focus on problems that matter to all How long does it take to vote? How many ballots get discarded? How often do voting machines break down? And it should work for a simple no one wants to be at the bottom of the list.
For a process that is supposed to be all about counting, U.S. elections yield few reliable numbers about anything--least of all how well the voting system is managed. The Democracy Index would change this with a blueprint for quantifying election performance and reform results, replacing anecdotes and rhetoric with hard data and verifiable outcomes. A fresh vision of reform, this book shows how to drive improvements by creating incentives for politicians, parties, and election officials to join the cause of change and to come up with creative solutions--all without Congress issuing a single regulation.
In clear and energetic terms, The Democracy Index explains how to realize the full potential of the Index while avoiding potential pitfalls. Election reform will never be the same again.
For a process that is supposed to be all about counting, U.S. elections yield few reliable numbers about anything--least of all how well the voting system is managed. The Democracy Index would change this with a blueprint for quantifying election performance and reform results, replacing anecdotes and rhetoric with hard data and verifiable outcomes. A fresh vision of reform, this book shows how to drive improvements by creating incentives for politicians, parties, and election officials to join the cause of change and to come up with creative solutions--all without Congress issuing a single regulation.
In clear and energetic terms, The Democracy Index explains how to realize the full potential of the Index while avoiding potential pitfalls. Election reform will never be the same again.
- GenresPolitics
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 23, 2009
The subtitle of Heather Gerken's "The Democracy Index" is "Why Our Election System is Failing and How to Fix It." Gerken certainly presents many failures within the election system. However, she does not really explain how to fix it--she explains how we can gather the information needed to fix it.
Basically, Gerkin explains that there is not enough good data on why elections have problems, and until we collect better data on the process, we will not be able to solve the problems. Once we have better data, states and localities that have poor election systems can learn from the policies of the states and localities that have better election systems.
Gerkin sees two main problems with the current elelction system: partisanship and localism. Gerken also notes that "my assumption is that most election problems are caused by resource shortage, not partisanship."
Gerkin wants to "create an environment that is receptive to change." Her Democracy Index is "a data-driven, information-forcing device designed to generate pressure for reform." The Democracy Index's goal is to "rank states and localities based on election performance." The result would be that "a bad ranking provides a justification for getting more resources; a good ranking helps...protect a policy that is under attack."
Gerkin describes the good information that the Democracy Index could provide, and also identifies and discusses possible problems with the idea. It's refreshing to see someone explain both the costs and benefits of a plan. Gerkin compares the Democracy Index to other ratings system as well, to show how well such ratings work (and don't work). Gerkin also discusses the difficulties of enacting reform, and how these challenges could be overcome.
It seems to me that Gerkin may underestimate the cost of developing and maintaining the Democracy Index. The ranking system works only if "good" data is identified, and much effort would be needed to gather the data, analyze the data, verify that the data has not been tampered with, and publish the data.
Also, Gerkin does not really discuss whether or not the public truly sees election reform as a high-priority problem. Maybe it's a much more interesting problem to lawyers who study the election process and work on election campaigns?
Gerkin is a lawyer and professor of law at the Yale Law School. She worked in the "boiler room" as part of Obama's 2008 campaign's election protection team. Through this experience Gerkin had a front seat from which to observe the election process in action.
Though Gerkin worked for Obama, her book is free of partisan ideology, political sniping, and name-calling. This is a book both progressives and conservatives should enjoy reading.
Throughout the book Gerkin presents her arguments in clear, well-documented language, free of legal and academic jargon. It's a pleasure to read such a well-written book.
Basically, Gerkin explains that there is not enough good data on why elections have problems, and until we collect better data on the process, we will not be able to solve the problems. Once we have better data, states and localities that have poor election systems can learn from the policies of the states and localities that have better election systems.
Gerkin sees two main problems with the current elelction system: partisanship and localism. Gerken also notes that "my assumption is that most election problems are caused by resource shortage, not partisanship."
Gerkin wants to "create an environment that is receptive to change." Her Democracy Index is "a data-driven, information-forcing device designed to generate pressure for reform." The Democracy Index's goal is to "rank states and localities based on election performance." The result would be that "a bad ranking provides a justification for getting more resources; a good ranking helps...protect a policy that is under attack."
Gerkin describes the good information that the Democracy Index could provide, and also identifies and discusses possible problems with the idea. It's refreshing to see someone explain both the costs and benefits of a plan. Gerkin compares the Democracy Index to other ratings system as well, to show how well such ratings work (and don't work). Gerkin also discusses the difficulties of enacting reform, and how these challenges could be overcome.
It seems to me that Gerkin may underestimate the cost of developing and maintaining the Democracy Index. The ranking system works only if "good" data is identified, and much effort would be needed to gather the data, analyze the data, verify that the data has not been tampered with, and publish the data.
Also, Gerkin does not really discuss whether or not the public truly sees election reform as a high-priority problem. Maybe it's a much more interesting problem to lawyers who study the election process and work on election campaigns?
Gerkin is a lawyer and professor of law at the Yale Law School. She worked in the "boiler room" as part of Obama's 2008 campaign's election protection team. Through this experience Gerkin had a front seat from which to observe the election process in action.
Though Gerkin worked for Obama, her book is free of partisan ideology, political sniping, and name-calling. This is a book both progressives and conservatives should enjoy reading.
Throughout the book Gerkin presents her arguments in clear, well-documented language, free of legal and academic jargon. It's a pleasure to read such a well-written book.
April 8, 2017
A Democracy Index would rate the performance of state and local elections systems in a way similar to the 'U.S. News and World Report' ranking of colleges and universities. The reason the author believes it would work is simply because no one wants to be at the bottom of the list. The Index would focus on problems that matter to all voters and would work with political incentives, not against them. The Index would be a data-driven, information-forcing device designed to generate pressure for reform while helping us make more sensible choices about which reforms to pursue.
January 26, 2016
There is enough reason to mistrust this author if one so chooses. For one, the closing of the book shows that the author was part of Obama’s election campaign, a fact she does not disclose until the very end, presumably because she believed she had made a persuasive enough case without putting all of her cards on the table about which side she ultimately favors. In addition, even before this disclosure, the author makes it plain that she is operating from a flawed set of premises, which is alarming as she teaches constitutional law, a subject that she is manifestly unqualified to do given her political worldview, which presupposes that America ought to be a democracy rather than a republic, and in her continual griping about federalism and localism as being bad things rather than very good things. She spends a lot of time talking about getting from here to there, but where she wants this country to go is nowhere where it ought to go.
In terms of its contents, this book is written as a wonky policy brief with a shrewd and cynical approach. The book itself is a proposal for the development of a government-funded collection of political data to rank the states and counties of the United States according to various metrics, equally weighted, as to the ease of registering, the ease of voting, and the ease of ensuring that all ballots are counted correctly. It should be noted, as the author does not note, that the book provides no proposals for the funding of this robust data collection, and wishes this to be the job of a fairly useless and fairly new government bureaucracy. The first chapter looks at the politics of political reform and the aspects of our contemporary society that make it hard to reform politics in the ways that the author and others of her ilk desire. The second chapter, and easily the best, looks at the promise of data-driven reform from the point of view, which I share, that better decisions are made through data. The third chapter looks at the politics of reform and the promise of ranking, providing a mechanism to use positive peer pressure and competition among states to spur reform efforts, a cynical but rather shrewd calculation. The fourth chapter looks at the question of whether the gains are worth the costs, which is an open question that the author does not successfully manage to answer, only arguing against ignorance. The fifth chapter looks at the question of how to get the Democracy Index passed by noting that both Hillary Clinton [1] and Barack Obama [2] endorsed the plan while they were senators competing for the Democratic nomination in 2008. This is not a rousing endorsement that it is a good idea. Quite the contrary, in fact.
In my estimation, the most important question as to the efficacy is this plan is how is it to be paid for without increasing the overall tax burden on citizens. My own thought is that those who pay for political speech, and seek to thereby influence the voters, should be footing the bill for the collection of data on the accuracy of the data and the effectiveness of political systems. If political offices or the passage of propositions is worth fighting for, then it is worth paying to make sure that the playing field is a level one, and those who play the political game should be the one to pay for making sure that it’s a fair competition. The author believes that data-driven reform is a better option than top-down control, but even in designing rankings and metrics, one has the question as to whether the ends are worth moving towards. In this case, the author makes a good case that better data is needed, but nothing else about what she says is even remotely trustworthy. Part of the reason why reform is so hard to pass is a good reason, and that is that people like the author who want reform simply cannot be trusted to point the way towards any worthwhile end.
[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
In terms of its contents, this book is written as a wonky policy brief with a shrewd and cynical approach. The book itself is a proposal for the development of a government-funded collection of political data to rank the states and counties of the United States according to various metrics, equally weighted, as to the ease of registering, the ease of voting, and the ease of ensuring that all ballots are counted correctly. It should be noted, as the author does not note, that the book provides no proposals for the funding of this robust data collection, and wishes this to be the job of a fairly useless and fairly new government bureaucracy. The first chapter looks at the politics of political reform and the aspects of our contemporary society that make it hard to reform politics in the ways that the author and others of her ilk desire. The second chapter, and easily the best, looks at the promise of data-driven reform from the point of view, which I share, that better decisions are made through data. The third chapter looks at the politics of reform and the promise of ranking, providing a mechanism to use positive peer pressure and competition among states to spur reform efforts, a cynical but rather shrewd calculation. The fourth chapter looks at the question of whether the gains are worth the costs, which is an open question that the author does not successfully manage to answer, only arguing against ignorance. The fifth chapter looks at the question of how to get the Democracy Index passed by noting that both Hillary Clinton [1] and Barack Obama [2] endorsed the plan while they were senators competing for the Democratic nomination in 2008. This is not a rousing endorsement that it is a good idea. Quite the contrary, in fact.
In my estimation, the most important question as to the efficacy is this plan is how is it to be paid for without increasing the overall tax burden on citizens. My own thought is that those who pay for political speech, and seek to thereby influence the voters, should be footing the bill for the collection of data on the accuracy of the data and the effectiveness of political systems. If political offices or the passage of propositions is worth fighting for, then it is worth paying to make sure that the playing field is a level one, and those who play the political game should be the one to pay for making sure that it’s a fair competition. The author believes that data-driven reform is a better option than top-down control, but even in designing rankings and metrics, one has the question as to whether the ends are worth moving towards. In this case, the author makes a good case that better data is needed, but nothing else about what she says is even remotely trustworthy. Part of the reason why reform is so hard to pass is a good reason, and that is that people like the author who want reform simply cannot be trusted to point the way towards any worthwhile end.
[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
July 22, 2010
I’m not going to say that I enjoyed reading this book. I vote occasionally but, at most, I investigate which of the candidates rates most dismal when selecting an option. For you see, my interest in politics peaked during a few years spent in Memphis, Tennessee. The main issues of the day encompassed major international issues such as Monicagate all the way down to the most dismal lot of City Councilors that any mentally disturbed fiction writer could possibly dream up. My interest ended abruptly on 07, November 2000, for any number of reasons.
I will say that I’m a bit of an impulse library patron. In a hurry, there was something about the cheesy “As Seen on TV” graphic style of the cover that compelled me to grab this one. The book’s relative thinness didn’t hurt. Because I’m about as attuned to political election machinations as your average Papua New Guinean, I don’t really know how to review this except perhaps in a dumb, hypothetical Q and A form (and, yes, I acknowledge that in no way should I even add my two cents to this, but I got nothing else going on):
Q: Was the implied promise of digging up dirt on various municipalities by the goofy, bullet-point cover fulfilled? You know, all that Ballot Box #13 and hanging chad crap…
A: No, not really. I still don’t know within which states my “vote really counts” nor who has the “shortest lines.”
Q: So…the book sucked then? What gives with the four stars?
A: As usual I didn’t do the requisite research of looking at the table of comments before diving right in. So I’m an idiot but I repented by reading the whole thing. It’s basically a proposal for a unified indexing system that can reign in many of the inconsistencies of election methodology, issues, etc. across all the different municipalities. If we’re a nation that historically respects state and local rights, then a more European centralized system will likely never gain traction. That’s great but instead we’ve evolved this chaotic, Wild West network of individual election systems that preclude any serious investigations into the inevitable registration, polling place, and ballot-counting problems, Gerken proposes a system that can serve as an armature with which to compare and appropriately coordinate the disparate municipal systems. This is about establishing a matrix or matrices to be utilized to measure and compare most or all of the various aspects of the process regardless of the particular local protocols.
Q: Good God that sounds dull. So was this like some lengthy Excel document of percentages, formulas, rankings, and other mind numbing data?
A: Well, it wasn’t overly dull because she does not have the details formalized. This is more of a reform manifesto without much in the way of specifics. She envisions a living system that can’t be predetermined by one lawyer and can constantly evolve in the face of inevitable inconsistencies. Really it all seems logical and, other than three typos, this was extremely well written.
Q: So it was significantly better than this stupid imaginary conversation?
A: Yes.
I will say that I’m a bit of an impulse library patron. In a hurry, there was something about the cheesy “As Seen on TV” graphic style of the cover that compelled me to grab this one. The book’s relative thinness didn’t hurt. Because I’m about as attuned to political election machinations as your average Papua New Guinean, I don’t really know how to review this except perhaps in a dumb, hypothetical Q and A form (and, yes, I acknowledge that in no way should I even add my two cents to this, but I got nothing else going on):
Q: Was the implied promise of digging up dirt on various municipalities by the goofy, bullet-point cover fulfilled? You know, all that Ballot Box #13 and hanging chad crap…
A: No, not really. I still don’t know within which states my “vote really counts” nor who has the “shortest lines.”
Q: So…the book sucked then? What gives with the four stars?
A: As usual I didn’t do the requisite research of looking at the table of comments before diving right in. So I’m an idiot but I repented by reading the whole thing. It’s basically a proposal for a unified indexing system that can reign in many of the inconsistencies of election methodology, issues, etc. across all the different municipalities. If we’re a nation that historically respects state and local rights, then a more European centralized system will likely never gain traction. That’s great but instead we’ve evolved this chaotic, Wild West network of individual election systems that preclude any serious investigations into the inevitable registration, polling place, and ballot-counting problems, Gerken proposes a system that can serve as an armature with which to compare and appropriately coordinate the disparate municipal systems. This is about establishing a matrix or matrices to be utilized to measure and compare most or all of the various aspects of the process regardless of the particular local protocols.
Q: Good God that sounds dull. So was this like some lengthy Excel document of percentages, formulas, rankings, and other mind numbing data?
A: Well, it wasn’t overly dull because she does not have the details formalized. This is more of a reform manifesto without much in the way of specifics. She envisions a living system that can’t be predetermined by one lawyer and can constantly evolve in the face of inevitable inconsistencies. Really it all seems logical and, other than three typos, this was extremely well written.
Q: So it was significantly better than this stupid imaginary conversation?
A: Yes.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews