Page 153 - Freedom in the world_Neat

formation of a permanent third party and a focus on any single personality. Using secure
internet voting, the project’s backers intend to craft a centrist alternative to what they see
as polarizing and unconstructive partisanship.3
More than two centuries after the adoption of the Constitution, the American political
system is, in many critical aspects and depending on one’s perspective, either still a work
in progress or in need of serious repair. Some points of contention date back several
decades (low voter turnout) or even to the adoption of the Constitution (the Electoral
College), while others have crystallized in the modern era (campaign finance regulation).
No American would say the United States is a perfect democracy, or even that it
administers elections as well it should. All three branches of government, every one of the
50 states, and more than 3,100 counties each play a distinct role in defining and
implementing the political process in our federal system. This means not only that ours is a
broadly inclusive, locally based democracy, but that many, many people and entities have
collaborated in the construction of an electoral framework that has lately dismayed
America’s admirers, and brought glee to critics of the United States.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the flaws discussed below, the American political
system basically works. New actors constantly enter the arena, while incumbents and
majority parties are turned from office at each election. Public opinion matters, and those
citizens who choose to mobilize can affect outcomes very directly. The country is almost
continually engaged in debate about how to improve the system.

In the 2006 midterm elections, owing to the corrupt practices of a handful of officeholders
and rising opposition to the president’s policies in Iraq, the dominant Republican Party lost
its majorities in both chambers of Congress. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the
Congress now controlled by Democrats will address either the corruption issue or the war
in Iraq in ways that satisfy the recently energized voters. But the election results
demonstrated anew that, despite concerns about the impact of gerrymandering, the
presumed fund-raising and other advantages of incumbency, and efforts at vote
suppression in key areas, the American people can change who governs them when they
choose to do so.

Incumbency Advantage

Gerrymandering. The practice of gerrymandering, perhaps the most visible means by which
incumbents seek to engineer their reelection, is an American political tradition rooted in
the system of single-member legislative districts. It dates back at least to 1812, when
Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, at the behest of Jeffersonian Democrats,
approved a district that had been tortured for political purposes into the shape of a
salamander. He was promptly excoriated in the press by opponents of the plan, who
preserved the governor’s name for posterity by coining the term “gerrymander.” Two
centuries later, the growing power of computing enables mapmakers to draw lines with
great precision based not only on election statistics, but on data about voters’ history of
political contributions, race, education, income level, and other factors that may correlate

Page 153 of 168