Systemic Bias In The Democratic Process

Systemic Bias in the Democratic Process

Much has been made about whether or not the United States is truly a democratic country. The nature of this debate stems from the different ways that democracy is defined. Many scholars, including Howard Zinn have defined democracy operationally rather than conclusively thus creating a focus that goes beyond political institutions and addresses the quality of life of the citizens. This focus on equality and fairness of outcomes generally leads to the conclusion that America is not that democratic. On the other hand, many other scholars, including Sidney Hook, have argued that democracy does not have to do with outcomes, but rather it is about the procedural process, specifically the concept of majority

rule. This focus tends to lead to the belief that the United States is very democratic. However, the truth of the matter is that both of these viewpoints are overly simplistic because they ignore the fact that procedural and substantive democracy are inherently interconnected rather than mutually exclusive. In fact, no matter whether democracy is looked at from the procedural or substantive viewpoint, any reasonable person would argue that there are legitimate issues that make us as a nation far from an ideal democracy.

The most fundamental way that citizens influence the government is through the election of public officials. Despite being an absolute staple of democracy, in the United States, there are voter identification laws that undermine this most basic principle of democracy. These systemic barriers to the ballot box disproportionately target and effect minority and poor voters. This discrimination has been historically recognized, and in 1965 Congress responded to voter disfranchisement of racial minorities by passing the Voting Rights Act. Recently, in the Supreme Court case of Shelby County, Alabama vs Holder, the court struck down Section Five of the act essentially allowing jurisdictions to implement changes in voting procedures without preclearance from the Attorney General or from a three-judge panel in the United States district court. This ruling has severely hampered the federal government’s ability to ensure fair voting procedures. As of August 2015, a total of thirty-four states had passed laws requiring voters to show identification in order to vote and thirty-two of these laws are in force. Although proponents of these laws argue that mandating government issued identification protects against voter fraud, there is scant evidence that voter fraud even exists. What is documented, however, is that millions of Americans do not have the necessary identification to vote, and these laws make a difference. In fact, four courts have found that Texas’s implementation of an ID photo law impacts more than 600,000 registered voters and one million eligible voters. Since minority and poor Americans are disenfranchised at a far higher rate because they are less likely to have valid identifications they are silenced from making political decisions.
While it is readily apparent that voter identification laws have discriminated against minorities, the role of implicit bias is rarely even considered. This makes logical sense, as at a glance the administration of elections and the voting process seem strictly regulated with little room for elections officials to exercise discretion. A closer look, however, reveals multiple points at which election officials make important choices. These choices range from where to place new voting machines to how to assess a voter’s identification, to how much assistance to offer the disabled, elderly or minority voter. This massive amount of individual choices opens the door for implicit bias, and this can impact decisions regarding how election resources are distributed. For example, on election day in 2004 in Columbus, Ohio 15,000 people left the polls without voting due in large part to decisions made by election officials about who was likely to vote, and how to distribute election resources. These decisions often affect people of different racial groups and economic status differently as African Americans are more likely to be questioned about their identification and to live in areas with longer voting lines. In fact, in 2003, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and other groups noted that older voting devices that were prone to error at twice the rate of newer voting devices were still in use in largely minority counties in California. While eighty-one percent of African American and sixty-seven percent of Latino voters live in countries with “obsolete” machines in California, only fifty-nine percent of white voters live in counties with outdated models. The harm of denying or discouraging a person the opportunity to participate in the political process on account of his or race or ethnic background goes beyond harm to the individual. The injury is also to the law as an institution, the community at large, and as such undermines our democratic ideals.
The two-party system, through the process of gerrymandering, serves as a mechanism to preserve the status quo rather than to encourage responsiveness to the will of the people.

Every ten years, district boundaries are redrawn. Although the Constitution guarantees that your vote is secret, the fact of whether or not you voted in the election, as well as your political party, sex and age are made public. Both political parties have access to this information and use it to their advantage while redrawing election districts. The United States Constitution specifies that representative’s seats should be proportional to the decennial census but says nothing about how states should draw district boundaries for representatives. The party in control of redistricting can weaken the opposition by “packing” as many opposition voters as possible into a minimum number of conceded districts, and/or “cracking” opposition voters among numerous safe districts where they are in the minority. This process is inherently undemocratic because it often creates representative results that are substantially different from the overall population. Therefore, the will of the people is subverted for political gain because there is not equal representation of citizens in government. Furthermore, the process of gerrymandering determines many political races before they actually take place, which clearly takes away power from the individual. There are many realistic steps that could streamline this

process and eliminate the conflict of interest. The most obvious is for state legislators to delegate the act of redistricting to independent commissions, as Arizona has already done. Since there is a mathematical way to determine the “weirdness,” specifically the polygon complexity of various districts, we could easily ensure that more districts are less complex or gerrymandered shapes. Also, the independent commission could specifically design districts so that some districts have minority majorities. This could potentially help to give some voters who do not make up the majority more representation in the government. Although this is a highly contested issue, the politics of gerrymandering often undermine the will of the people.
The monopoly of the two major parties reinforced through the media coverage crushes genuine political discourse and hampers the possibility of legitimate change. In modern presidential elections, third party candidates have virtually no chance because they are invisible beneath the elaborate infrastructure of both of the major parties. This infrastructure refers to each party’s elaborate network of campaign funding, team of volunteers, committed voting blocks, as well as data analysis and strategies. The media reinforces this narrative because they simply do not treat third party candidates seriously. Furthermore, the two parties are very similar on many matters of foreign and domestic policy. This is due to the fact that if you assume that each individual vote on their ideological beliefs, then the party that is closest to the middle receives the most votes. This is a dangerous combination that fosters complacency because there is no opportunity for legitimate change. Whichever party, we “choose” will be similar to the other. Furthermore, the system is designed to suppress dissenting political views because not only do they not have a realistic chance of winning, they are not even shared with the public because third party candidates are not taken seriously. This censorship is inherently undemocratic as it denies normal citizens the capacity to make their own decisions.
The inherent racial bias in imprisonment also makes it impossible for us to sustain and live in a genuine multiracial democracy. The uncomfortable truth is that our incarceration system is racially biased. Despite equal usage rates of marijuana, African-Americans are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for possession than their white counterparts. There is also a major disparity in sentencing. Although crack and cocaine are nearly identical on a molecular level, people who are changed with possession of just one gram of crack are given the same sentence of those found in possession of 18 grams of cocaine. There is not equal protection under the law as African Americans are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced for a longer time than their white counterparts. A system that singles out and oppresses a large group of individuals denying a disproportionate number of them the fundamental right to liberty and freedom can in no way call itself democratic. Although some scholars, like Hook, argue that true equality is not possible, if seventy percent of prisoners are people of color and there are four times as many African Americans in prison than in college, then there is a problem that needs to be addressed. This clear shortcoming of democracy in a substantive sense also reinforces a procedural flaw as millions of imprisoned people as well as former prisoners are denied the right to vote.
The influence of money in the political process as well as the overwhelming centralization of power in interest groups takes away control from the individual’s ability to be responsible for decisions that affect them. In 2010, in the case of Citizens United, the Supreme Court concluded that corporations are people and have the same inherent first amendment rights of everyday Americans. The result of this decision is that big corporations can legally donate obscene amounts of money to various political causes and as a result get preference in terms of the laws. Without question, this undermines the very nature of a democratic society as it creates a system in which big business get to dictate the political decisions of our country in a major way. As analyzed by a statistical study done by the Princeton Journal, “when the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact on policy.” If the average American has little or no power to influence decisions impacting the policies of the country then the next question is, “Who does?” The Princeton study argued that interest groups do have a substantial independent impact on policy and a few groups (particularly labor unions) do represent the average citizen’s view reasonably well. But the interest group system as a whole does not, and the most influential business oriented groups are negatively correlated with the average citizen’s wishes. This means that the average citizen is not being fairly represented. The centralization of power goes beyond the business elite and also appears in the military. As a nation, citizens have almost zero ability to determine what wars we enter a war and our military involvement around the world. In fact, we live in a society where the military has the capacity to destroy the world without a murmur of dissent. Therefore, in many instances the average citizen has no say in the most important decisions of life and death. This undoubtedly paints a grim description of the state of democracy in America because the interests of the masses are not accounted for. Much has been made about this system of power and many argue that since the average citizen is not as informed as the elites, the idea of interest groups is a good system. I reject this notion wholeheartedly and believe that —collectively—ordinary citizens generally know their own values and interests pretty well, and that their expressed policy preferences are worthy of respect.
When evaluating procedural and substantive execution of democratic ideals separately, America clearly falls short in both regards.

This is because in terms of procedures, there are voter identification laws as well as implicit bias that makes it harder for certain types of people to vote. In addition, the process of gerrymandering undermines the will of the people. In terms of substantive democracy, the monopoly of the two parties in the political realm, and the lack of other information and options available to the average citizen undermine the opportunity for real change. In addition, the unequal protection under the law, through the incarceration system, makes it impossible for us to live in a genuine multiracial democracy. Although procedural and substantive viewpoints of democracy are seen as diametrically opposing one another, the truth is that they are interconnected. If there is a threat to one it often creates a threat to the other. This is easy to see if procedural democracy is what is threatened but not easy to see the other way around. However, it still exists, for example, the substantive issue of incarceration undermines the procedural issue of voting. Furthermore, the substantive issue of the centralization and spread of power, specifically the disproportionate amount of influence that wealthy special interest groups have on political decisions, threatens the very essence of “majority rules.” In conclusion, with procedural and substantive barriers to democracy

so intertwined, America has a ways to go before we can consider ourselves “democratic.”