Electoral Conduct in a Multi Party Democracy

 I know that it might be news to you, but the US just had one of its most controversial elections so far. 

When nobody trusts any side but their own, they excuse themselves and blame everyone else for their failures and any action against them becomes a grand conspiracy theory to discredit them for personal profit or power (or both, as is usually the case). 

There are certainly times in history when we know that fraud has happened, violence happens during elections (Tiberius Gracchus was murdered by the Senatorial class as he was running for a second term as Tribune, doing so was a literally a sacrilege). But this is not inevitable, and a multi party system has many benefits that can help to limit this.

Some institutional problems, those established by ordinary laws and sometimes constitutional (mostly state constitutions but not necessarily only state constitutions), amplify this very much so, others depend on executive action (or inaction), the conduct of voters themselves and those rallying to support a candidate or faction, the candidates themselves, and others are just accidents but few believe them.

Lets start with some of those institutional problems. Gerrymandering is a persistent problem in America. There are some alternatives though. California about a decade ago approved by plebiscite a commission deliberately limiting the risk of gerrymandering. It still has problems inherent to first past the post, a competitive election means that you can end up with those almost winning feeling unrepresented at any particular time in history, but to perfectly represent them, so that almost every person voting for one side faces virtually no competition for power from outside their own party or faction. 

A proportional system, say a 5 member district using single transferable vote, will represent approximately 16.667% of the voters with one representative, and at most will leave just under 16.667% without a representative, but given practical experience of countries using it, most still have voted for someone who isn't your first choice but is acceptable, so in practice very close to everyone gets a representative they voted for or an ally of one of those representatives they voted for, leaving very few votes truly wasted. Gerrymandering becomes a lot less useful when you have competition both within and among parties and any independent candidates running. 

It can still be useful to have an independent commission to redraw districts to make it even more clear and unambiguous to voters that their needs are heard and that nobody has a conflict of interest. California's specific model needs a modification in that the presiding officer needs to be replaced with the majority leader, as the speaker in a system where all elections are held by ranked ballots means they can get support from both factions to win rather than the primary support of their own side and a zealous advocate of those needs, but otherwise works well. A representative of the third place party may be a useful idea, as would legislative adoption by supermajority (which can represent third parties well) or runoff by a judicial decision if the legislature can't make up its mind.

Elections in America are run by the county boards of elections in most cases as a practical matter, running every precinct station, with most general policy and some of the funding coming from state secretaries of state, and with oversight from the FEC or Federal Elections Commission, with some sanctions power especially over campaign finances. The composition all changes with a multi party system. Appointed bodies will generally be named by either a legislative body acting alone as perhaps a county board of supervisors would, named by a president or governor or mayor elected in a ranked ballot to be part of the middle path but confirmed by a multi party legislature, ideally by a supermajority if you can enact such needs. Elected electoral officers such as secretaries of state would generally also find themselves elected by a ranked ballot election to be in the middle path but surrounded on all sides by parties none of which has a majority on their own and so appealing to many more is necessary. Judges also play a crucial role in the oversight and are chosen in similar means, either elected in a ranked ballot to trend towards the middle path, retained by a majority of a divided electorate believing in many parties and appointed at first by a commission named itself in a multi party manner, or appointed by a president or governor and confirmed by a multi party legislature. 

All this helps to cancel out the biases of one another and limits their powers sharply. The legislature's laws governing elections is also decided on by multi party votes and probably a governor or president elected by a middle path ranked ballot to the middle approving of it (or at least not vetoing it needing a supermajority to overturn). 

That brings up the next topic, some legal means of voter suppression. Things like arbitrarily changing the number and distribution of polling locations, limiting the USPS, changing voter identification laws arbitrarily or in a way where the poor are often struggling to get the papers and money (and simple opening hours) necessary to get an ID, felon disenfranchisement, disinformation campaigns, and some choices related to the machines used to print ballots (especially machines that don't print a paper receipt), long lines, hours changing, what day of the week you vote on (more specifically if you have time off to vote or is a holiday), access to early voting, registration diminishment and roll purges and having to file provisional ballots, among others. 

When you have say ten parties and a few independents all having good candidates with a chance, they all send out their poll monitors to observe the polling stations and count monitors to observe counting the votes and all have legal standing to bring challenges to decisions like this of any secretary of state or board of elections. They all know they can be policed by each other after an election, especially maintaining their image so as to be able to get allies to pass their legislative and budgetary agendas. Any success with this voter suppression and any fraud is also much less likely to swing an election, given that in an election of a state legislator with one district with 100 thousand votes and 5 seats to win, every 16,667 votes wins you a seat, rather than merely losing or winning outright and gambling everything on this chance. You also risk alienating supporters within your own party with competition between parties for legislative seats in multi member districts, if one of the candidates benefits disproportionately to the other candidates. 

Active fraud, illegally casting a ballot when you are not entitled to, is a common concern, and while not common, is something to address in your laws in a transparent manner, as does violation of what laws there are concerning campaign financing. Thankfully, the previously mentioned rules of a multi party democracy with ranked ballots in all elections helps to protect against fraud as well, given that any fraud, even thousands of ballots somehow cast illegally, have a much reduced risk if the number of votes is high, are distributed among many areas, demographic groups, parties, and candidates, and if many more groups can observe the process and influence the selection and tenure of those responsible for implementing the vote, all police each other. 

A democracy in a popular republic doesn't work without broad trust in that the vote is valid and that even when you lose an election you don't become an outlaw, that it is acceptable to wait for a future election, that the problems will be addressed even if you have some disagreements with the particular way it is being done, that issues from previous administrations can be corrected without making you look like a partisan, and that the world on average will get better. We have seen the voting process get mangled for decades as a slow rot but like Ernest Hemmingway said, you go bankrupt slowly, and then suddenly. America is approaching the bankrupt stages, but there is still time to find the debt counselor.