Changing the Voting Structure

A detailed Summary of Changing the Voting Structure

As a minority in the United States, Black people start off from a disadvantaged position from birth. Racism, prejudice, and systematic manipulation of economic, social, and educational structures in the United States lead to securing the disadvantaged position that black people maintain. The role and impact of majority rule, single member districts, and Black representation will analyzed in its effects on Black Americans' in a watered down Democracy. In contrast solutions such as interest representation, cumulative voting and super majority rules will be discussed and analyzed to interpret what impact they could have on the current system if any.

Majority rule is defined as "the proposition that 51% of the people should be able to get whatever they want" (Guinier xvi). Guinier points out several problems with majority rule, which include: a disproportionate distribution of power, voter dilution, and racial polarization within the legislature. These all serve to point out the fact that majority rule is not a just form of rule. Guinier hypothesizes that in order for a rule to be fair, "it must comport with the stability, accountability, and reciprocity assumptions." In light of that, Guinier says, "A system i

Interest representation assesses the fairness of the election system against the potential of an alternative. In other words the solution of interest representation would look at the voting scheme of a particular area and try to maximize the opportunity for minority individuals to receive representation. Guinier states that interest representation locates "politically cohesive minorities" and demonstrates existence of alternative electoral processes that give better results. The whole purpose of interest representation is to combat voter dilution.

Some things in life provide the material for a comic routine. Single member voting districts are one of them. Digressing momentarily let the role of government be reiterated upon. The role of government is to carry out the duties of the state as directed by the people. The government represents the objectives, wishes, and goals of the people at large. The government's duty is to carry out actions, which satisfy those objectives, wishes, and goals of the people it represents. With that stated, we can look at the purpose of a legislator. A legislator's primary objective is to represent the needs of the people whom he or she was elected by. In representing a given people, the legislators optimal function includes satisfying the demands of the people he or she was elected by. What kind of customer satisfaction would a store get if it sold broken goods to everyone who came into their store? What kind of athlete would someone be if they lost every contest? What kind of teacher would a person be if every student flunked every exam? Each one of those individuals would be unfit to have their position, unless someone corroborated against their success. In the case of single member districts, that's the present situations. There are black legislators getting elected, fighting tooth and nail at times, for initiatives and change only to consistently be outvoted by their constituents. Guinier says that, "in order to spend any money in the majority-black district, other than through servicing individual, constituents, the black representative however, needs a majority of legislative votes, not just one or two legislative seats." This brings up the point of inclusion vs. active involvement. There are many people who are included in a company, but who are never actively involved in the company's decisions. Black representation via single member districts means nothing. Black representation holds weight when black legislators are actively involved in the decision making process. Guinier directly addresses this in her Theory of Black Electoral Success and concludes "the black electoral success empowerment model fails to provide a realistic enforcement mechanism for establishing either leadership accountability within the black community or representational effectiveness within the legislative deliberation and

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Approximate Word count = 1926
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics