Selectorate Theory & Upcoming Elections

Calendar July 12, 2010 | Posted by Michael S. Langston

Friday last week, I posted random links including a short story about the current Senate race between Carly Fiorina & Barbara Boxer (here):

…In what has to be either a sign of the end times or a sign of our bright future, Senator Barbara Boxer is in a tight race against former HP CEO Carly Fiorina…

While the true impact of the 2010 midterm elections is still ultimately up to a vote which hasn’t happened, the signs seem to all be pointing to good news based upon selectorate theory (DA post here):

..the theory is also powerful due to its simplicity.  It states that leaders will pay back those people that helped them become leaders in order to stay leaders.  This seems fairly intuitive and agrees with most understanding of incentives, but from here they can make predictions based upon the ration between what they call W, the Winning Coalition, and S,the selectorate or those who can affect who the leader is….

…The corollary with W/S is that when W is small as compared to S, the revenues spent will be mainly private and conversely if W is large compared to S, expenditures will be mostly public….

The basic idea is that the leader will use their power to pay back those who helped them get elected and the larger that coalition is, the less likely that money can come in the form of direct payoffs.

Now theoretically, in a free election system, W is 1/2 of S + 1.  IE – in order to get elected I need 50% of the votes plus one.

What happens however, if the voters through their actions artificially limit W?

How can they you ask?  Easily actually.

Every 10 years post census, each state will redraw district boundary lines based upon population numbers.  The problem is this “redrawing” isn’t done based on some objective science or even just basic math, but based on politics.  The way it currently works is the party in power redraws the districts.

Typically, the only ones who argue against these plans are the parties out of power.  Historically, the minority party would go to court, but courts have answered these challenges by stating that unless specific acts of discrimination or such can be proven, political redistricting is not something the court will actively change.

The reasoning is that voters have recourse already, so legally speaking the point is moot.  Their recourse is to elect those who redraw the district boundaries.

Now in states that change majority party from time to time, there are incentives for politicians to not gerymander individual districts too badly, least they be on the receiving end next time.

However, in states like CA or TX, where one party dominates, there are no incentives for the party in power to do anything but draw district boundaries in such a way as to ensure they can maintain power.

This is how we end up with politicians like Barbara Boxer or Nancy Pelosi, who win their individual districts in landslide elections, but whose national approval rating is slightly higher than the IQ of a prune.

This is also the reason (here) “polls showing voter disgust, such as the dismally low congressional approval ratings, only show feelings.  The reality is even with rates of congressional approval as low as 16%, the rate for the election of incumbents is well over 90%.”

But his only works through voter ignorance.  The reality is voters are free to vote for whom they want.  Just because a district is redrawn to include mostly Democrat supporters, doesn’t mean those voters must vote for the Democrat.

We know the truth however for many voters is party loyalty and party identification are much stronger forces in their life than political analysis.

There are reasons for this as well, including the sheer complexity of the government itself.  This level of complexity means for a voter to be truly informed, a good deal of time is needed to sort through the information.  Time most people would rather spend with their families after work.  But I digress…. (read more about The Myth of the Rational Voter here via Cato)

The point is that while voters don’t have to vote party loyalty, the evidence is very strong to suggest they do.

Therefore - back to W/S as a ratio – if voters allow a district to always put a Democrat (or Republican) in that seat, they are effectively making the general election a formality whereas the real election is during the primaries.

This combined with the facts that primary voters represent a very small percentage of total voters & primary voters tend to be true believers, results is an artificial reduction of W in our ratio of W/S, ultimately reducing voter power.

While I tend to stay away from any predictions, the current trending of certain national Senate and Congressional races is showing a promising sign of reversing this trend for at least one election cycle.

Of course for now, these are only polls.  They only tell us what people think during a given time period and nothing more.  The true test for voters will be on election day:

Will voters stand up against incumbents?  Or will they do what they’ve done for the past couple of decades; complain about the worthless government while simultaneously voting to keep the same government?

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