How The "Winner-Take-All" System Encourages Election Fraud
Two bits of primary detritus have inspired this post. The first: Lake County's assertion that "no hanky panky" was to blame for their late, suspenseful primary results in Indiana last night. The second: the Clinton campaign's quizzical talking point that if we used the GOP primary rules, she'd already be the nominee.
I can believe quite easily that no election fraud took place in Lake County — not because of any trust in the elected officials, but because it wouldn't have been worth it. The risk of getting caught stuffing the ballot box would've been too great compared to the small, small reward of "winning" Indiana — a net shift of no more than 3–4 delegates.
(This risk/reward calculus is the crux of any criminal act; as a result, tipping that balance away from would-be criminals is a far better crime preventative than increased vigilance.)
In this case, the potential reward is small because Democratic primaries allocate delegates based on proportions of the popular vote. Indiana, like most states, gives a certain number of delegates to each congressional district, and then splits those delegates among candidates; a handful of "at-large" delegates are split according to the statewide returns.
Other states have different rules. Some award a cache of delegates to whomever gets the most votes statewide. Some, like Texas (my home state), have no at-large or "bonus" delegates whatsoever — the Texas primary was a set of 31 smaller primaries (one for each of our state senate districts) that had no influence on one another.
The only constant, really, is the lack of "winner-take-all" contests, which abound on the Republican side. The Democratic Party forbids them.
Now, as I mentioned, the Clinton campaign has been spouting the useless non-sequitur that, if the Dems played by GOP rules, Hillary would already be the nominee. I don't think she's lobbying for a rule change for 2012; she's just playing the hand she's dealt. But let's take this comment at face value.
The climax of the GOP nomination race was the Florida primary — the January 29 contest in which John McCain beat Mitt Romney, 36% to 31%. For winning by five percent in a primary where four candidates got over 10%, McCain got all 57 of Florida's delegates. The loss was the final nail in Romney's coffin.
In other words: the winner-take-all format of Florida's GOP primary penalized Romney far more than the outcome would warrant. But apart from any question of fairness, consider that risk/reward proposition we talked about earlier. If a few thousand voters had moved to Romney's column, all 57 delegates would've gone to him, not McCain — a net change of 114 delegates. With such a tantalizing reward, some political operatives might convince themselves that election fraud is worth the risk.
I am not alleging that voter fraud took place in any GOP contest this year — don't misunderstand me. I'm only saying that a winner-take-all system is an awful way to choose a nominee. It incentivizes election fraud even as we demand more and more transparency from our elections. And it's a poor way to choose a candidate. If I were Hillary Clinton I wouldn't be so keen to give it a try.
I can believe quite easily that no election fraud took place in Lake County — not because of any trust in the elected officials, but because it wouldn't have been worth it. The risk of getting caught stuffing the ballot box would've been too great compared to the small, small reward of "winning" Indiana — a net shift of no more than 3–4 delegates.
(This risk/reward calculus is the crux of any criminal act; as a result, tipping that balance away from would-be criminals is a far better crime preventative than increased vigilance.)
In this case, the potential reward is small because Democratic primaries allocate delegates based on proportions of the popular vote. Indiana, like most states, gives a certain number of delegates to each congressional district, and then splits those delegates among candidates; a handful of "at-large" delegates are split according to the statewide returns.
Other states have different rules. Some award a cache of delegates to whomever gets the most votes statewide. Some, like Texas (my home state), have no at-large or "bonus" delegates whatsoever — the Texas primary was a set of 31 smaller primaries (one for each of our state senate districts) that had no influence on one another.
The only constant, really, is the lack of "winner-take-all" contests, which abound on the Republican side. The Democratic Party forbids them.
Now, as I mentioned, the Clinton campaign has been spouting the useless non-sequitur that, if the Dems played by GOP rules, Hillary would already be the nominee. I don't think she's lobbying for a rule change for 2012; she's just playing the hand she's dealt. But let's take this comment at face value.
The climax of the GOP nomination race was the Florida primary — the January 29 contest in which John McCain beat Mitt Romney, 36% to 31%. For winning by five percent in a primary where four candidates got over 10%, McCain got all 57 of Florida's delegates. The loss was the final nail in Romney's coffin.
In other words: the winner-take-all format of Florida's GOP primary penalized Romney far more than the outcome would warrant. But apart from any question of fairness, consider that risk/reward proposition we talked about earlier. If a few thousand voters had moved to Romney's column, all 57 delegates would've gone to him, not McCain — a net change of 114 delegates. With such a tantalizing reward, some political operatives might convince themselves that election fraud is worth the risk.
I am not alleging that voter fraud took place in any GOP contest this year — don't misunderstand me. I'm only saying that a winner-take-all system is an awful way to choose a nominee. It incentivizes election fraud even as we demand more and more transparency from our elections. And it's a poor way to choose a candidate. If I were Hillary Clinton I wouldn't be so keen to give it a try.
