Why so crabby electoons

Newsletters Donate My Account. Research Topics. Next: 3. Follow Us. They are not simply figureheads or symbolic leaders. Finally, democratic elections are not limited to selecting candidates. Voters can also be asked to decide policy issues directly through referendums and initiatives that are placed on the ballot.

In the United States, for example, state legislatures can decide to "refer," or place, an issue directly before the voters. In the case of an initiative, citizens themselves can gather a prescribed number of signatures usually a percentage of the number of registered voters in that state and require that an issue be placed on the next ballot--even over the objections of the state legislature or governor.

In a state such as California, voters confront dozens of legislative initiatives each time they vote--on issues ranging from environmental pollution to automobile insurance costs. Democratic Ethics and the Loyal Opposition Democracies thrive on openness and accountability, with one very important exception: the act of voting itself.

To cast a free ballot and minimize the opportunity for intimidation, voters in a democracy must be permitted to cast their ballots in secret. At the same time, the protection of the ballot box and tallying of vote totals must be conducted as openly as possible, so that citizens are confident that the results are accurate and that the government does, indeed, rest upon their "consent.

It means, in essence, that all sides in a democracy share a common commitment to its basic values. Political competitors don't necessarily have to like each other, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge that each has a legitimate and important role to play.

Moreover, the ground rules of the society must encourage tolerance and civility in public debate. When the election is over, the losers accept the judgment of the voters. And people make mistakes. For example, as the glue that attaches the screen to the machine gets degraded, you get alignment issues, Norden explained.

Poll workers and technicians have to recalibrate these machines regularly to ensure the buttons are aligned correctly, he said. But if and when mistakes like that happen, she added, voters can go back and fix them. In states like North Carolina, where there have been a several reports of vote flipping during early voting in the past few days, all machines produce a hard-copy paper print-out of every vote cast.

Norden, who has pushed for state and federal governments to invest in new voting machines, says recent concerns over vote flipping should be seen in the larger context of allegations of election rigging. Kay Stimson of the National Association of Secretaries of State said the real problem is the current climate of conspiracy, which threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the election itself.

You've read 1 of 2 free monthly articles. Learn More. In , a Mississippi state house race ended in a tie, after which the winner was decided by drawing straws. A mayoral race in the Philippines was deadlocked and resolved with a coin toss. A legislative election in Austria was decided by a single vote, after wrangling over the validity of a ballot featuring a vulgar cartoon. But there is one election that is so consistently close, and so important, that it deserves special consideration—the United States presidential election.

I plotted the top two popular vote-getters in every U. The top two contenders, typically a Democratic and a Republican, but occasionally a Whig, have danced closely around the mark for nearly years. Only four times since has the winner received more than 60 percent of the popular vote. Since , the candidates have been separated by an average of 3.

The median and average separations have been 8. This is a feature of U. So is it unsurprising? Not really. I n September , the Mitt Romney campaign was gasping its last breaths in an ultimately unsuccessful race to unseat the incumbent President Barack Obama. The journalist Matt Taibbi took to the pages of Rolling Stone to lament that the race was even as close as it was. We called Greg Carr the other day to talk about the spread of the coronavirus in Africa.

Carr, who has been featured in Nautilus, is the founder of the Gorongosa Restoration Project, a partnership with the Mozambique government to revive High drama brings eyeballs.

Eyeballs bring subscribers and ad revenue. Rinse and repeat. Yepsen agrees that media attention can drive a race toward the point.