The timing of elections matters (Ferguson edition)
Ferguson is two-thirds black, but its local government 鈥� the mayor along with five of six council members 鈥� is white. One reason is how elections are structured.
Ferguson is two-thirds black, but its local government 鈥� the mayor along with five of six council members 鈥� is white. One reason is how elections are structured.
Brian Schaffner, Wouter Van Erve and Ray LaRaja writing at The Monkey Cage note the following:
The results on turnout are quite dramatic (see below).
More at the link (and some links to follow from there, if one is interested).
Now, some will no doubt say that it is the fault of voters for not showing up at the appointed time, and that is all well and good. However, the bottom line is this: Design choices matter and if the goal of elections is to actually elect representative bodies, then issues such as timing and ballot structure should be examined and reformed in a way that better conforms to actual human behavior. Further, situations like the one we are seeing in Ferguson would be less likely to happen with more representative local government.
Steven L. Taylor appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.