Reforming the Reforms

Christopher T. Gates

It is easy to forget that our political system was not originally designed to be a democracy. The Electoral College, the indirect election of senators and the restrictions on suffrage were the ideas of 18th Century political leaders who distrusted mob rule as much as they disliked monarchy. Democracy came gradually, not by design but as a result of specific reforms, or in some cases, reforms of reforms.

As president of an organization with roots in the "good government" movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s, I am acutely aware that reforms sometimes need reforming. During the Progressive Era, civic leaders advocated sweeping political changes, some of which strengthened and expanded our democratic institutions. Others had the opposite effect. In their efforts to clean up corruption, reformers embraced procedures that made voting more difficult, especially for immigrants and poorly educated Americans. Literacy tests, increased residency requirements, early poll closings and complicated registration procedures – all of these barriers to voting came into common use during the age of “Reform.”

But something changed in American political life in the early 1900s. The raucous democratic spirit of the mid-to-late 19th Century gave way to a more pristine but less participatory political culture. Voter turnouts began to decline. This was not all the doing of reformers. Partisan differences were less dramatic in the early 1900s. Political passions cooled as memories of the Civil War faded. Political parties were weakened. In all the agonizing over "under-votes" and "over-votes" in the recent presidential election, there was little notice of the large number of eligible Americans who didn't vote at all, slightly less than half the electorate. Few of us would want to go back to the days of party bosses and ballot box stuffing, but the 70 to 80 percent voter turnouts of late 19th Century look pretty good by contemporary standards. In countries like Sweden and Australia, turnout often approaches the 90 percent mark.

Turnout, however, is only one way of looking at the problem. Community leaders tell us that Americans are less willing than in past years to run for local political offices, attend public meetings, or serve on boards and commissions. Interestingly, there is significantly less decline in the willingness to volunteer for community improvement projects, suggesting that community spirit has not disappeared, only the appeal of organized politics. This lingering culture of political disengagement raises new challenges for good government groups. In the year 2001, encouraging participation is probably more important than discouraging corruption. In doing so, however, reformers have to go beyond the usual pious rhetoric about civic duty, stop blaming the people for their lack of engagement and look for ways of removing the barriers – both practical and psychological – to active participation.

Reforming the reforms is nothing new. In as early as the 1920s, efforts were underway to streamline registration voter procedures. One such effort was the Model Voter Registration System published by the National Civic League in 1927. In the past, voters in most large cities were required to register every two to four years but were only allowed to do so on specific days in each precinct. The 1927 model advised local election officials to provide for permanent registration at centralized locations that were open year-round. In 1993, the National Voter Registration Act or "Motor Voter Bill" made registration even more convenient by allowing voters to register when applying for driver's licenses or by mail. More than nine million new voters registered after that legislation was passed.

These reforms of reforms improved our procedures, but they did not change one unique feature of American democracy – that the onus for registration falls on the individual voter. In most democracies, government election officers register voters going door to door like census-takers. Why doesn't the government register voters in this country? Why don't we allow voters to register on Election Day? Why do we vote on Tuesday instead of Saturday? Why do we vote at an elementary school down the street when a workplace location might be more convenient? On the other hand, why limit voting to one location? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves. Too often we take these political traditions for granted without questioning their value.

The world of politics has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. When the reforms that shaped our current political system were enacted abuses such as ballot box stuffing and false vote counts were primary concerns. Today old-fashioned voter fraud is far less common than in the past. In the few states with completely open registration laws, the instances of fraud are numerically insignificant, which suggests that the barriers established at the turn-of-the-century may no longer be necessary. The most serious challenge we face today is to encourage political participation. To tackle this challenge, we need to be creative and we need to question past assumptions. In other words, we need to reform the reforms.

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