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.
When eligible voters choose not to vote, they essentially have voted for the winner. If they do not vote, their unfavorable opinion does not matter.
If Mayor Brandon won the primary with 8% of the vote, the total number of voters must have been less than 30% of the registered voters. I suspect the runoff had less than 50% participation. So, Mayor Brandon essentially got their vote, including the unregistered eligible voters.
If a recall election is based upon voter rolls, there would not be enough people voting to recall him.
Part of the problem is participation. I am part of the problem. I do not vote. In essence, I vote for “none of the above”, and I accept the winner. I am an outlier, but it seems I am becoming less so.
President Trump won by all measures, but half the country refuses to accept the results. Without election fraud, they have rejected the process. Trump claimed President Biden won because of fraud, but from what I have read, that is based upon statistics. (It would be interesting to look at the statistics from the 2024 election to determine if he stole the election.)
Ranked-choice is supposed to solve the problem of open primaries, and open primaries were supposed to solve the problem of closed primaries. Primaries were meant to solve the problem of previous nominating schemes. So, rank-choice will be replaced with something new, eventually.
Mandatory voting would solve the problem of participation, but forcing people to vote would quickly become a greater problem. It might temporarily result in better candidates, but as soon as people figured out how to “game the system”, even crappier candidates would win.
(Public unions were a great idea. Until, they weren’t.)
I am not convinced that the country wants to be self-governed, or rather, most people want to be self-governed by their person of choice. It cannot work like that.
The Roman Republic did not fall because of a failed coup by Brutus. It was in the process of falling, and the Empire saved what remained. The Republic became corrupted from its initial concept. It began long before Brutus, and it eventually corrupted the Empire.
I suspect that the rate of change affects how much a society can resist corruption, but it requires some minimal rate of change to sustain itself. If you view countries, empires, etc. that way, I think it makes more sense, but it does not explain everything.
I can point out the problems, but I do not have any solutions. I am not sure there are any solutions.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”