By Mark Bauer
At Rank the Vote, the work we do to get ranked choice voting on ballots across the country is an attempt to expand democracy by making elections more competitive. The current gerrymandering arms race playing out across America is decidedly not that.
In a healthy democracy, our laws work best when politics is shaped by a free market of ideas.
Candidates compete. Voters decide. The best solutions rise to the top. That’s the theory, anyway.
Gerrymandering throws a wrench into that process and turns democracy on its head.
Instead of introducing innovative ideas that might attract voters, state legislatures carve out “safe” districts that all but guarantee their party maintains power. So by the time the next election rolls around, choice is an illusion and voting becomes more of a formality. The result is political gridlock and dysfunction.
If this were the business world, we would already have laws against this kind of anti-competitive manipulation. We recognized long ago that monopolies are bad for consumers. It’s why we created anti-trust laws to prevent corporations from price fixing or colluding to block competition. When one company corners too much of the market, consumers pay the price, literally and figuratively.
Conversely, we’ve seen what kind of innovation we’re capable of when competition is allowed to thrive. Before personal computers were ubiquitous throughout households in the 1990s, the rivalry between Apple and Microsoft spurred innovations that helped make the technology more affordable and accessible to everyone. When airlines were deregulated in 1978, the increased competition led to more routes and lower fares.
In places where ranked choice voting has been on the ballot, voters have gotten a wider range of candidates to choose from. That’s what excited District 3 Councilor Tricia Canonico in Fort Collins, CO, where voters used ranked choice voting for the first time this year.
“It’s really enlightening for people to recognize this isn’t so binary as it is in a regular election and they have more choices,” Canonico said.
In order to ensure more states and municipalities get to experience free, fair and competitive elections like in Fort Collins and other places across the country, more guardrails are necessary to prevent politicians from rewriting the rules to their advantage.
Protections like independent redistricting commissions are democracy’s version of anti-trust to prevent a system where the people drawing the lines are the people who benefit from them. These bipartisan commissions draw voting districts with clear rules and public oversight. Guidelines that focus on compactness, contiguity, keeping communities together, and compliance with the Voting Rights Act would go a long way to restoring both fairness and trust.
These ideas for guardrails aren’t encountering stiff resistance, either. In a recent YouGov survey, 75 percent of Americans say partisan gerrymandering is a major problem, while 67 percent want districts drawn in a way that doesn’t advantage either party.
No political party has a monopoly on good ideas. But as long as political parties are preoccupied with a gerrymandering arms race instead of governing, we’ll continue getting congresspeople and state legislatures that fail to innovate.
The race to the bottom doesn’t end on its own. If we want a democracy that works for us, we need to stop politicians from manipulating the outcome before voters even reach the ballot box. Fair districts, public input, and independent commissions are starting blocks. Join us in putting the country back on a path where it values competition and doesn’t stifle it.
Help get ranked choice voting on ballots across the country by joining us or by donating.
###
Mark Bauer is a producer, entrepreneur, day trader and former Independent candidate for Congress in Texas. Previously he spent 10 years as a legal journalist covering the legal market in Texas and regulatory issues in Washington DC.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Rank the Vote, its members, supporters, funders, or affiliates.
