By Barry Healy
The Center for Voting and Democracy, an organisation in the United States that focuses on voter participation and fair representation, has released a report on elections to the House of Representatives titled "Monopoly Politics". Long before the next Congressional elections (scheduled for November 1998), the report predicts the winners in 360 seats.
Monopoly Politics explains how and why the great majority of Congressional elections will be non-competitive in 1998, as they have been previously. It identifies the near-certain winners based on presidential voting patterns in each district and the last three election results, stating that the federal voting consistency is unaffected by vast disparities in campaign spending.
Public funding of election campaigns has become a hot topic in the US as voters tire of big business's influence in politics.
"All the talk of how campaign finance reform can provide a 'level playing field' overlooks one glaring fact", says the centre's executive director, Rob Richie. "Demography is destiny ... either because of redistricting — the legislators use sophisticated computer techniques and polling to gerrymander their own favourable districts — or because of other factors."
Richie says: "... big donors are buying influence, even if they aren't buying elections. Which is worse? Asking for money to help win a competitive election, or asking for money for an election you have no chance to lose?
"If we want competitive elections and if we want to give citizens a reason to get involved in politics, campaign finance reform is simply not enough ... We have to reform our methods ... as soon as possible through forms of proportional representation as used in most of the world's democracies."
Monopoly Politics lists only 75 out of 435 seats that are truly up for grabs, with well over half of all seats predicted to be won by "untouchable" incumbents. Using the same method, the centre last October listed 219 "untouchable" incumbents — all were re-elected, only three by less than 10%.
The report also shows how more voters are likely to directly elect a representative of their choice under a proportional representation voting system.
Only 31 countries use a form of proportional representation to elect their main legislature. Another three use proportional representation for at least one nationally elected legislative body. Only Canada, Jamaica and the US exclusively use winner-take-all elections in single-member districts.