Tom KandoMy Dutch friend Paul and I exchange views on various sociological and political issues. He recently brought up the idea of “weighed voting”, with an emphasis on age: Give young people’s vote a greater weight than old people’s.
His rationale for this is that young people are inheriting the earth. They have a much larger stake in the (future) world than us old-timers. As climate change inexorably affects their future, their voice should count more heavily than ours, in determining future policies.
So I’m thinking: Interesting idea, but not terribly original, as it is one variant of the generic and age-old idea of “different votes for different folks.” Actually, history has seen far more cases of votes being weighed differently for different groups, than the basic egalitarian democratic principle of one-man-one-vote. The preferential voting treatment of some groups over other groups has been the rule rather than the exception.
The two basic questions are: 1. WHICH GROUP’s vote do you weigh more heavily and which group’s less so? 2. On the basis of which criterion or criteria do you weigh different groups’ votes differentially?
Only in the 20th century have some advanced democracies come close to universal equal vote for at least all adults. Even so, we do precisely the opposite of my friend Paul’s suggestion, namely denying the vote to one fourth of the population on the basis of age.
His rationale for this is that young people are inheriting the earth. They have a much larger stake in the (future) world than us old-timers. As climate change inexorably affects their future, their voice should count more heavily than ours, in determining future policies.
So I’m thinking: Interesting idea, but not terribly original, as it is one variant of the generic and age-old idea of “different votes for different folks.” Actually, history has seen far more cases of votes being weighed differently for different groups, than the basic egalitarian democratic principle of one-man-one-vote. The preferential voting treatment of some groups over other groups has been the rule rather than the exception.
The two basic questions are: 1. WHICH GROUP’s vote do you weigh more heavily and which group’s less so? 2. On the basis of which criterion or criteria do you weigh different groups’ votes differentially?
Only in the 20th century have some advanced democracies come close to universal equal vote for at least all adults. Even so, we do precisely the opposite of my friend Paul’s suggestion, namely denying the vote to one fourth of the population on the basis of age.
Universal equal vote for all adults has been utterly absent in all societies throughout history. Ancient Athens is said to be the cradle of democracy, and Rome was a republic. However, neither of these two states nor any other one in antiquity came even close to universal equal adult suffrage. To begin with, the female half of the population was excluded. So were slaves and non-citizens. And various states added many additional criteria, such as the requirement to have served in the military, being minimally affluent, belonging to a given social class, etc.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous way to deny a large segment of the population the vote has been socio-economic. This has been either overt - the requirement to own a certain amount of land and other property - or covert, as in the poll tax - a required voting fee.
However imperfect antiquity was, the Middle Ages were worse. The West returned basically to full-fledged theocratic monarchy, and the rest of the world was by and large even less democratic.
But vote weighing has continued even in modern countries into modern times. For example, as recently as in 1893, Belgium proposed the following: Give two or more votes to any male head of a household who owns his house, has a savings account and has a college degree. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algemeen_meervoudig_stemrecht
(The proposal was not adopted).
Limiting voting rights to society’s upper strata has often been rationalized on the grounds that those strata are more educated and therefore politically more qualified. Plato envisioned a utopia ruled by philosophers. Many US states still employed literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting as recently as 1965.
Vote weighing is equally important in the corporate world, and this is where it is most strongly linked to wealth: In the business world, the number of votes you have is proportional to the number of shares you own.
So, age and socio-economic status ($$) are among the most frequent criteria used to grant voting privileges to some and deny them to others. As to age, my Dutch friend Paul would give preferential treatment to the young over the old. I’m not sure about that. This may be premature. Should we not first consider lowering the voting age? Right now, the young don’t have the vote, period!
Gender has been just as ubiquitous as a basis for voting denial: It was not until the 19th amendment (1920) that American women acquired the right to vote.
And then there is race/caste: In the past, the most obvious caste denied voting rights were the slaves. In 1787 the US Founding Fathers devised the so-called three-fifths Compromise: For purposes of counting a state’s population and determining the size of its congressional representation, blacks counted as three fifths of whites (while still being denied voting rights). While this abomination was repealed after the Civil War, the Republican Party is currently feverishly busy bringing back voter suppression. It may yet succeed in curtailing the vote of poor people and people of color, reducing them to a caste, and perpetuating the rule of a numerical minority of the population over the majority.
Thus, whether based on social class, age, sex, race or caste, the differential weighing of votes for different demographic groups has been widely practiced throughout history. The practice continues, and it is a dangerous game to play. Democracy means one person = one vote. We are all equal. Voter suppression can go in any direction. Pol Pot denied the vote to those born in cities, then causing the death of 2 million Cambodians. India could treat its untouchables preferentially with unforeseen consequences. Societal response always depends on whose ox is being gored. It is therefore important to proceed with prudence. Today, the US is experiencing the return of voter suppression. Combating this vicious attempt to disenfranchise blacks and other under-privileged groups must be a priority. This is not the time to experiment with weighted votes in favor of one demographic group or another. It is the time to reaffirm that democracy means one person = one vote, period. leave comment here
© Tom Kando 2021;All Rights Reserved
11 comments:
Good points all and thanks for raising the issue. Just a couple of comments that deserve to be discussed by someone with more specialized knowledge than I have.
You refer to the compromise by which “blacks counted as three fifths of whites (while still being denied voting rights).” What’s in parentheses needs to stress that those who wanted to have the 3/5th counted were those who least wanted to give black slaves the right to vote. But they wanted the benefits that come with having voters: a greater share of representative in congress, I suppose, and a greater share of federal funds. The compromise is dramatically outrageous in this particular case, but the same essential compromise has other incarnations still present in today’s reality, and the unequal power of individual votes has other incarnations.
Two senators per State, whatever the population, gives each voter in States with smaller populations incredibly more voting power than voters in States with large populations, to the extent that some States have two senators but only one congressperson. That ‘compromise’, I think, had a lot to do with slave States wanting more power in Washington than their voting population justified.
Am I right that some states give all their congressional seats to the winning party while others share representatives more or less proportionately? Or that some states let independent commissions reapportion seats every 10 years while others let the ruing party do so to their full advantage? And of course, US citizens living in Washington D.C. or Puerto Rico do not have the vote.
In EVERY ONE of these cases, it seems, California voters have the short end of equal power through equal votes.
How about only people with the baccalaureate degree vote?
Gail said,
I will add that perhaps groups who are marginalized in society are especially in a good position to be a part of social policy decisions especially in poor underserved communities. Voting in other parts of the world has been a contentious issue and now we see this playing out in the United States in front of our very own eyes.
I also think that the history of voting behavior can tell us a lot about peoples attitudes about building national unity across diversity and inclusion. I hope that civility and kindness is on the ballot one day! I will vote for these two in a heartbeat!
Gail:-)
I thank anonymous, Tom and Gail for their useful comments.
Anonymous makes many good points. Yes. as it has been said many times, the senate is a highly undemocratic institution, what with Wyoming’s half million people having the same number of senators as California’s 40 million. The electoral college is another travesty. Etc.
Tom G. is being provocative. I suppose , speaking subjectively, self-servingly and facetiously, I could say that I agree with treating my category preferentially: Going along with Plato, let society be ruled by university professors, preferably sociology professors (being somewhat synonymous with philosophers, as in the case of Auguste Comte). But seriously: No. Bad idea.
Gail brings up another possibility: give nice people a heavier vote than nasty people. Hmm...Let me think about this...
'Anonymous' will remain so officially until he can figure out what the URL "host name" required of him to show his name is all about. Unofficially,he responds to Edric Cane.
Each point I make is well known individually, but they deserve to be seen together, how they build on one another. For instance, I never see the Senate filibuster rule discussed in terms of the voters that the 40 senators versus 60 represent. It could well be that,on a given topic where 40 senators balance off the other 60, in terms of the individual voters each opinion represents, the ratio might be 20 to 80.
Nice piece. The only argument I'd make is $ is already the determining factor, e.g., lobbying, buying judges, congressmen, etc.
I agree with Scott’s and anonymous’ (Edric’s) points.
Politicians are full-time money chasers. Their campaigns for their next term begin the day after their election.
And speaking of the filibuster: Biden’s speeches about the need to set it aside so as to pass the Voting Rights Act are valiant, but probably unsuccessful. As he himself said, there are “50 presidents sitting in the Senate.” Actually, it’s at least 52, if you include the 50 Republicans plus Manchin and Sinema. Any one of these 52 individuals has the power to single-handedly prevent suspension of the filibuster and passage of the Voting Rights Act by simple majority. What a mess.
Hi Thomas,
It may surprise you, but I wholeheartedly agree with the final conclusion you reach in your blog 'Different votes for different folks?'. However, I think that your conclusion does not do justice to the considerations behind my idea of giving younger generations more voting rights in connection with their longer-term interests in the fight against climate change.
Of course the near-desperate efforts president Biden has made public in recent days to get his Freedom to Vote Act through Congress is a testament to how crucial this is — not just to the success or failure of his presidency, but in the first place to the future of democracy in the USA. Recently I read a razor-sharp article about this: : https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-american-polity-is-cracked-and-might-collapse-canada-must-prepare/?utm_source=Shared+Article+Sent+to+User&utm_medium= Email:+Newsletters+/+E-Blasts+/+etc.&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links
When you ask what criterion is important when manipulating suffrage, my response is "I think that depends on the nature of the political struggle in which you would like to use it". It is therefore about the politically eternal adage 'chose your battles'. In the current situation in the USA, the Freedom to Vote Act clearly deserves the highest priority. But in the longer term, the fight to control climate change also deserves more attention - also in the sphere of suffrage.
In response to your previous blog about 'vigilantism', I asked you in my previous email: "Are certain forms of vigilantism aimed at a firmer control of climate change so unthinkable in the long term? And wouldn't it make sense to try to navigate these forms in democratic frames through some form of multiple suffrage for younger generations?"
I'd like to repeat that question here to conclude my response to the blog on the matter.
Paul
Paul:
Thank you for your good words. Your English is certainly better than my Dutch. All these months that we have been communicating, it’s been in Dutch. I left your country nearly 60 years ago, so that’s my excuse for my clumsy Dutch. However, I want to continue to use that language, because it prevents my Dutch from completely atrophying. Also, I absolutely love trying to say things in other languages.
Regarding the points you make about voting, the youth vote, the importance of the climate issue, etc., all excellent points.
Regarding the “razor sharp” article about the death of American democracy: I am quite aware of the problems which Thomas Homer-Dixon discusses. I live in the very forum where the battle is raging, books and the political media
are my lifeblood. I have always found it puzzling to receive so many communications from overseas in an effort to educate me about America's problems. It’s like bringing coal to Newcastle.
I don’t see American journalists sending advice to the Dutch on how to form a coalition government in less than a year, something with which you seem to have some difficulty. But there is the never-ending fascination on your side of the pond with American misfortune and ineptitude, and what makes it so ugly is that it seems to be motivated by sheer Schadenfreude.
My never-ending fascination on your side of the pond with American misfortune and ineptitude has noting to do with Schadenfreude! The motivation behind my fascination comes purely from the awareness of how much the political future of Europe is still heavily depending on the future of the USA. See e.g. the current struggle about Oekraïne between Biden, Poetin and in their supporting roles European leaders as Macron and Scholz. What will become of that if Trump will win the ’24- election?
Thanks for your rebuttal, Paul.
I suppose you are right. I cannot guess the motives of Dutch intellectuals, when they send me articles about American problems (which they often do). It’s just that I am so aware of these problems, and after a while, I get cranky about being reminded of all the bad news, over and over again. So I apologize for mis-interpreting your motive.
You make a good point about the fact that Europe’s future is still intertwined with that of the US. By now, many people have predicted that Europe is bound to gradually “move away,” at least to some extent, from the US. That’s inevitable, and probably desirable.
As to Trump winning in 2024? No chance in hell, in my opinion (although I have been wrong in the past). I’m not saying that this country’s rightward drift is going to be reversed. The Republican Party is noxious and strong, and there is no evidence that it’s losing strength. But it has many other a...holes. Just think for example of Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis...popular as hell, and wrong about everything!
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