This post is a response to a comment.
In 2023 roughly 8% of Chicago’s registered voters cast a primary ballot for Brandon Johnson for mayor and most primary voters chose someone else. He received a majority of the votes cast in the run-off election against an extremely unpopular incumbent and an individual cast as a Trump supporter.
A government can be validly elected and still rest on a very narrow base of participation. The rules worked. But it becomes harder to say the outcome represents a shared civic decision when so few take part.
In a democracy authority ultimately rests on the consent of the governed and consent is easier to infer when participation is broad. When participation narrows, elections begin to select leaders rather than express the public will.
I worked nearly 30 years as an election judge. Voters once approached the polls as if they were exercising power. You could see it in their postures, in conversation, in their anticipation. Today many arrive irritated or detached, as if the result exists elsewhere and they are only acknowledging it. I would call that discouragement.
Maybe ranked-choice voting would help by requiring broader coalitions, though it may also confuse some voters. Mandatory voting might raise participation, although countries that adopt it often later weaken it. I don’t know the answer, but a system in which fewer citizens feel they are choosing their government is moving away from what democracy is meant to be like.
