James K. Galbraith - America's Democratic Future

[Celerity]

Notwithstanding the lasting shock of the January 6, 2021, attack of the US Capitol, the Democratic Party can take comfort in the broader demographic trends. Not only was the 2020 presidential election an administrative triumph; record-high turnout showed that the real problem has always been barriers to voting.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/america-electoral-map-turning-democratic-by-james-k-galbraith-2022-01

AUSTIN – With the anniversary of the January 6 riot now over, let’s focus on the big picture. The great anomaly of the 2020 US presidential election was that Joe Biden won the national popular vote by seven million votes, yet came within 43,000 (in three close states) of losing the Electoral College, and thus the election. In California alone, Biden had five million more votes than he needed, and in New York, another two million. So far this century, only Barack Obama has won decisive victories in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. In 2000 and 2016, the popular-vote winner lost the election. In 2004, the result turned on a single state: Ohio. This anomaly is not only persistent but constitutional, which makes it practically unsolvable.

Nevertheless, the 2020 election was a triumph for democracy. Turnout, as a proportion of eligible voters, was higher than in any election since 1900 (when the franchise was limited to males, almost all white). The COVID-19 pandemic forced local election administrators to innovate, and they did so with expanded voting by mail, early-voting days, 24-hour voting, and drive-in voting. More than 100 million ballots were cast before Election Day. In the end, Donald Trump’s final count was 11 million higher than it was in 2016, and Biden’s exceeded Hillary Clinton’s 2016 total by 15 million.



Low turnout in America is usually blamed on voter apathy, but 2020 proved that the real problem has always been barriers to voting. In previous elections, polling places were scarce, the ballots long and complex, and the whole process a slow one, with queues often stretching for hours. Many people lack the time, the patience, or the physical stamina to wait. The system also discouraged any change in voting patterns, because local election boards allocated machines and poll workers according to past turnout. So there were never enough machines for new voters whenever turnout surged, anywhere at all, for any reason. The 2020 election was thus a great unintended experiment in blowing up the barriers to voting – and it worked.

Those now crying fraud cite the vast increase in turnout as evidence. In fact, the growth in turnout in so-called swing states was no greater than in states where the outcome was not in question. One exception was Arizona, where turnout grew by 30%. But once you adjust for Arizona’s rapid population growth, the proportionate increase is similar to California, where turnout fraud would have been pointless. In any event, the Arizona vote was administered by Republican officials. Nor do the vote counts look suspicious. Votes are recorded and reported by county, and not merely at the state level. Any tampering with vote counts would have had to happen in specific counties. And because the 2020 election had a close precedent in 2016, strange changes in county voting patterns should be easy to spot.

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[Kid Berwyn]

1. Thank you! Excellent article!

From Galbraith:

…There is a great irony in how US presidential elections now play out. The states with the greatest growth in income inequality since the early 1990s – including California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts – invariably vote Democratic. And the states where inequality has grown less largely (though not entirely) vote Republican. This pattern has been clear for decades, and it grows stronger with each presidential election.

What explains it? It is not about attitudes toward inequality – most people don’t know (or care) about inequality levels in their home state (which we computed for our study). Rather, it is that the Democratic Party has become a coalition of two major groups representing the tails of the distribution: high-income urban professionals and low-income minorities. The Republican strongholds are in exurbs, small towns, and the countryside, in the middle of the income scale. Republicans thus dominate where inequality is lower, and Democrats where it is higher. It is a simple, consistent, and compelling pattern.

Continues…

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/america-electoral-map-turning-democratic-by-james-k-galbraith-2022-01