Most democracies are representative democracies. Voters choose a representative, and for 2, 4 or 6 years this person represents his or her voters, or constituents, in his or her decisions. If the voters are dissatisfied they can vote for someone else after the 2,4 or 6 years are up. Some places, however, have what is called direct democracy. California is a famous example. Anytime a new issue is brought to ballot, a vote or a referendum takes place on that specific issue.
So what does this mean? How does a direct democracy operate differently from a representative democracy? Well, it requires voters to be much more informed. Rather than educating themselves once every 2,4, or 6 years about certain representatives, they should theoretically be informed for every ballot measure that can be voted on. Is this the case?
It seems not. As reported by the Economist, the Public Policy Institute of California recently polled its voters and the results are embarrassing, or at least disheartening. Only 22% of voters knew public schools were the biggest spending category of the state (most guessed prisons, which have been in the news more in recent times). When asked the main source of state revenue, most replied motoring charges (which only constitutes 2%) rather than personal income tax.
These are very general questions, while often the propositions being proposed are quite specific. Another study, the Field Poll, asked voters about Proposition 13; a measure which has been front and center since it passed in 1978. This “Prop 13″ applies the same tax to both residential and commercial properties, while reforms have always tried to apply different taxes to the two. So when this poll asked voters whether Prop 13 applied “only to residential properties, only to commercial properties, or both”, only 1/3 of the respondents replied correctly.
Before the self-righteous start quipping about how five minutes with the average voter is the best case against democracy, the study also found that the more education a voter had the worse their response would be, with those with Master’s degrees scoring much worse than the high school dropouts. Also, the longer someone lived in California the more misinformed they were.
All of this is a result of direct democracy. With ballot initiatives and propositions occurring all the time, it simply takes too much effort for the voters to inform themselves sufficiently each time. So, rather than reading the impartial material, such as the wording of the initiatives themselves (regularly containing more than 10,000 words) or the official voter-information guide, voters rely on advertisements and media coverage. This comes to mean attack ads, sensational stories and short, catchy slogans or special interests. More than that, it means that voters tend, after some time, to be disillusioned with the system but still want to perform their civic duty, so they see how their ‘side’ (essentially their preferred political party) votes and follow it blindly. This, in turn, leads to more and more polarization and therefore more disillusionment.
Alexis de Tocqueville stated, over 200 years ago, that American Liberty should be mitigated in order to protect individual liberties against the “excesses of the public”. It seems he was right. Most politicians live in fear of keeping up with public opinion, while the more respected institutions are not those that are most representative, but less transparent, like independent central banks and the supreme court.
The fact is, as much as politicians like to remind us all of our civic duty, most voters are busy working at their jobs and raising their families. Once they have some free time, they’d much rather relax with friends or watch some TV than become properly informed about the next ballot initiative. Might it be better, perhaps, to ask voters to be informed once every 2,4 and 6 years, and let them judge their representatives’ performance once the terms are over? We certainly think so.
So how does this “no direct democracy” position hold up against the “wisdom of crowds” position? Or even the “Dumb Agent” position? hmmm…
Quite well, actually. A requisite for the Dumb Agent theory is that the individual decisions made be independent. That’s hardly the case when special interests, politicians and, most importantly, friends influence your decisions.
In an ideal world we could give each voter the voter-information guide and let each voter make a decision without being influenced by what is considered “left-wing” or “right-wing” or what the celebrities are endorsing. In that situation, even if only 22% of voters know what the biggest spending category is, the aggregate outcome of their decisions would still be optimal.