Cato Daily Dispatch for November 2, 2004
Subscribe to the Daily Dispatch via email
Subscribe to the Daily Dispatch via PDA (AvantGo)
(Links to outside sources were active as of the date of this dispatch; however, not all news sources maintain links to current stories indefinitely. Some links also may require registration.)
Record Voter Turnout AnticipatedCampaign Costs $4 Billion
Electoral College Still Serves Its Purpose
Record Voter Turnout Anticipated
"Legions of get-out-the-vote volunteers, the bloodhounds of democracy, pursued the electorate across a dozen states yesterday as the most expensive and successful voter drive in history drew to a resounding close with experts predicting a record turnout at the polls today," the New York Times reports.
In "Three Myths about Voter Turnout in the United States," John Samples, director of Cato's Center for Representative Government, writes: "If higher turnout is better for democracy than lower turnout, negative ads may make a valuable contribution to American democracy." Samples examined election studies from the past three decades and found that voter turnout has actually increased over the periods of time that campaign spending and negative ads have been at their highest. In fact, "if negative ads did not exist, fewer people might well turn out to vote," he argues.
"Many things are taken for granted in American politics -- and none more than the belief that voter turnout has steadily decreased over the past 30 years largely as a result of a noxious combination of big money and negative ads," Samples writes. "General data as well as careful studies of the causes of voter turnout indicate that neither campaign finance nor negative advertising has alienated voters and kept them away from the polls. No justification exists for limiting the rights of citizens to donate to campaigns or fund political advertising as a way to promote voter turnout."
Campaign Costs $4 Billion
"The price of democracy in 2004: $4 billion, and that's not even counting all the ballots, poll workers and election lawyers," according to the Associated Press. "Add the expenses borne by states and local government -- to be determined later -- and the price tag rises anywhere from hundreds of millions of dollars to possibly upward of $1 billion more."
In "The Benefits of Campaign Spending," John J. Coleman, associate chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, argues that democracy prospers as more money is spent in political campaigns. According to several studies he has conducted over the last decade, increases in campaign spending do not reduce public trust in government; instead, the stepped-up outlays increase the public's political knowledge.
He writes: "Studies indicate that campaign spending does not diminish trust, efficacy, and involvement, contrary to what critics charge. Moreover, spending increases public knowledge of the candidates, across essentially all groups in the population. Less spending on campaigns is not likely to increase public trust, involvement, or attention. Implicit or explicit spending limits reduce public knowledge during campaigns. Getting more money into campaigns should, on the whole, be beneficial to American democracy."
Electoral College Still Serves Its Purpose
"The Electoral College is a weird mechanism for choosing the American president --as zany as a Marx Brothers movie, but not funny," according to an editorial in Sunday's Newsday. "To paraphrase a Groucho song, 'Hello, I Must Be Going,' it has outlived its original shaky rationale, and it's time for it to go."
In "Lessons of Election 2000," Cato scholars John Samples, Tom G. Palmer and Patrick Basham write: "No doubt the Electoral College may produce a president-elect who did not win a plurality of the popular vote. No doubt that's unfortunate. Is it enough to justify getting rid of the Electoral College? Hardly. The Electoral College still has several advantages over direct election of the president.
"The framers of the U.S. Constitution were worried that, like the republics of antiquity, the new nation could degenerate over time into a political tyranny. They sought to constrain and limit the exercise of arbitrary political power through constitutional checks and balances. Their debates about how to elect the president focused primarily on limiting power.
"... How does the Electoral College limit the abuse of power? The framers fully considered direct election by the people. In 1789 and today, direct election would mean election by the great population centers, now mostly found along the two coasts. The framers feared that the populous states would abuse this power and mistreat smaller states. By allocating electors partly on the basis of statehood (each state gets at least three), they created an Electoral College that provides some protection for small states."
Wyatt DuBois, editor, wdubois@cato.org
/div>