Is First Past the Post a threat to US democracy?

It’s been a frequent refrain from Democrats at this US Presidential election that “democracy is on the ballot”. Donald Trump’s overt and continued attempts to subvert the electoral process make this an understandable claim. But is another challenge for US democracy not just on the ballot, but how the votes will be counted?

Unequal votes 

Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin. Even to non US politics watchers, the names of the states that hold the key to next week’s Presidential election will be familiar.

Only a few states are key because, like in the UK, elections are decided by a tiny slither of the electorate. According to the BBC’s US special correspondent and co-presenter of The Rest is Politics US, Katty Kay, “from 40,000 people to 100,000 people in five states” will determine the outcome of a Presidential election in which over 150 million people are expected to vote. Even at the upper range, less than a tenth of 1%.

So while the scale of US national elections is an order of magnitude greater than those in the UK, the inequities of its First Past the Post electoral system are remarkably familiar. Some will argue that the US’ electoral college changes things. But in practice, it’s FPTP as normal.

Unequal states

In most states, all its electoral college votes are awarded to the candidate with the most votes, much like in all 650 UK constituencies where the candidate with the most votes becomes the MP. Only rather than the UK’s system where each of the 650 contests counts for one MP, in the US there are 56 elections of different weight.

Why 56? Because, as US election enthusiasts - among whom this author is happy to count himself - will delight in explaining, Maine and Nebraska are the two states not to allocate their electoral college votes simply according to statewide popular vote. Here, each of the states’ congressional districts awards a single electoral college vote to the candidate with the most votes in that district, with two further votes awarded to the overall winner in the state. So, in Nebraska, three of its five electoral college votes are divided equally between its three congressional districts. (1)

This method can result in more representative outcomes. In both 2016 and 2020, the votes were split between candidates. This time round, it could even prove decisive. Kamala Harris would need to carry Nebraska’s second congressional district to win if she only manages to win the three ‘blue wall’ swing seats of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Unequal influence

The intricacies to one side, the point remains the same. Votes under First Past the Post are not equal. Or even more bluntly, some voters matter far, far more than others. And the parties know this. A glance at political advertising spend in the swing states shows as much. Billions of dollars are being spent - bankrolled by the super-rich - to try to win over the voters of a few counties in Pennsylvania or Georgia. Meanwhile, voters in Alabama or Vermont are left on the sidelines.

More troublingly still, these swing states hold such sway that people are prepared to stretch the law to its limits to try to achieve their desired political outcome. Through his Political Action Committee, Elon Musk is offering a variety of financial incentives to eligible voters in the seven swing states in return for signing a petition (open only to registered voters) or referring others who register to vote. 

Whether an attempt to put his hand on the scales or not - readers can draw their own conclusions - what is clear is that targeted behaviour of this sort is made possible by a voting system that privileges a handful of voters in particular places rather than allowing everyone an equal stake in democracy.

Rays of light

Amid concern about what might happen on election day and afterwards, there is nonetheless some cause for optimism. As well as choosing a president, congressperson, and countless other local positions, voters in four states - Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon - plus Washington DC, will also have the choice to adopt a system of ranked choice voting. Similar to the way voters in England used to elect Mayors and PCCs, this change would ensure that voters can back their preferred candidate without risking wasting their vote, in turn obliging candidates to seek broad-based support.

Maine and Alaska already use this system for their elections, as well as two dozen more counties and cities, including New York.

With recent statements by figures in the Labour government suggesting that they will return mayoral elections to preferential or ranked choice voting, there is cause for hope here in the UK, too. More broadly, the Pew Research Centre found that electoral reform was among the top five issues for people in both the UK and the US, and came second overall of seventeen topics studied in their wide-ranging What Can Improve Democracy report. 

Here and in the States, safeguarding democracy cannot only be achieved by the victory of one side over another. Voters across the spectrum are increasingly fed up with being pitted against one another by a First Past the Post voting system that values the few rather than the many. For democracy to flourish, we must restore the principle that every person’s vote is of equal value.

(1) Counting one for each bundle of winner-takes-all electoral votes, Nebraska scores four and Maine scores three. Add one for the District of Columbia and you get to 56.

A joint blog for Unlock Democracy and Make Votes Matter.