Minds made up, polls unreliable, it's time to vote

The presidential election is over.  All that’s left is the voting.

So many voters have made up their minds that no new revelation about Clinton’s emails or Trump’s harassment of women will make any difference.

Many, possibly most, voters believe, “I’m not voting for the person, I’m voting for the policy.”

That thought may explain why the national election boils down to a choice between two unpopular candidates.  It became evident a few weeks ago that their differing views matter more than they do.

Voters often make their choice based on the personality and character of candidates.  While some wedge issues matter, the election is a vote of confidence in the person.

Oddly, in a campaign dominated by the candidates’ foibles and failings, issues are the driving force.  Admittedly, some are voting against one of the candidates, though that may be at least somewhat based on the issues.

Supreme Court appointments, gun control, social issues, immigration and the state of the economy divide the candidates.  Is America great?  Or must it recapture lost greatness?  Almost all voters have made up their minds on these issues, and the candidates are vehicles for the desired outcomes.  

That explains why Speaker Paul Ryan, the GOP House leader, condemns what he considers Donald Trump’s racism, but has already voted for him.  More than 20 million people have also voted.

Many Democrats have doubts about Clinton, though they view her faults as less grievous than Trump’s.  They support her because of her promise of a renewed government role on many fronts.   

Some remain unenthusiastic and distrusting, but see her as an essential alternative to Trump.

The myriad differences between the two candidates and their well-publicized defects have been widely known since the national conventions in July.  Voters have been bombarded heavily with campaign news.  Almost certainly, most have made up their minds and no new revelations can change them.

The number of voters who are truly undecided in the week before the election seems to be quite small.  It is likely that those who still can truly be swayed between the two candidates are not numerous enough to tip the balance of the election.

Wait.  The polls suggest that conclusion may be wrong.  The margin between Clinton and Trump varies from day to day, even hour by hour.  After each new bit of negative news about either of them, the polls swing. 

Can it be true, that, every day, millions of people are changing their choice between the candidates?

Perhaps the problem is not that many voters are undecided and still open to persuasion, but rather that many polls are just plain wrong.  News reports relay them as if they are reliable, but both their methodology and the refusal of many to participate indicate they are not.

Compounding the uncertain poll results are the political forecasters, most of who rely heavily on polls as the raw material for their predictions.  As a result, the forecasts may be no better than the faulty data on which they are based.

We may never know how bad they are.  If the election results differ significantly from the polls, the pundits will claim there was “a last-minute shift” in opinion.

The biggest election unknown may be how many voters each party gets to vote.  The Republicans have a weak get-out-the-vote operation, trying instead to block likely Democratic voters.  Clinton and the Democrats are better able to get people to the polls.

Get-out-the-vote aside, the election has already been determined.  People say they are tired of the campaign, probably because their minds are made up. 

Congressional and state races are different.  In these contests, local factors count.  In many cases, people may vote the party or the personality.

Senate races are particularly important.  Clinton-Trump has some impact, depending on who you think will win and whether you want them to be counterbalanced or supported by Congress.  The Senate could swing to the Democrats, influencing Court nominations.

In the House, the Democrats look like they can gain seats.  The result, if hard-line conservatives lose even some influence, could indicate how much room for compromise with Clinton there might be, if she’s elected.

Maine’s Second District race between incumbent Bruce Poliquin, a Republican loyalist, and newcomer Democrat Emily Cain is a prime case of an election that could have national impact.

Contrary to the view that policies matters more than persons, in the Maine legislative races, the campaign is heavily about one person – the always controversial Gov. Paul LePage.

Bottom line: on Tuesday, your vote matters.

Maine’s split electoral votes in national focus

Maine has been unexpectedly featured on this year’s national political scene, thanks to its unusual way of voting for president.

Each state gets a number of electoral votes for president that adds together the number of senators (two per state) and the number of members of the House of Representatives (based on population). 

Maine has four votes.  Unlike almost all other states, each of its two congressional districts votes separately from the two statewide votes. 

Much attention has been focused on the Second District, where Donald Trump is thought to have a chance.  If he won there, he would be awarded one of Maine’s four electoral votes.

The situation results from a mistaken attempt at electoral reform.

In 1968, there were three major candidates for president – Republican Richard Nixon, Democrat Hubert Humphrey and Alabama Gov. George Wallace.  All of Maine’s electoral votes could have gone to a candidate winning as little as 34 percent of the popular vote.

That year, Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie ran for vice president on the Democratic ticket headed by Humphrey.  Humphrey-Muskie got 55 percent of the Maine vote, so the anticipated problem did not arise.

Still, the Maine Legislature was wary and set up the current system with both a statewide election and two congressional district elections.  The districts represent no particular regions, and their boundaries change every ten years as the result of the census.  The Maine vote has never been split.

The measure was designed to discourage third parties, like Wallace’s American Independent Party.  The theory was that even if he could have carried one district, he would not have carried the state.

All other states, except for Nebraska, continue to use a winner-take-all system for their electoral votes.  Since 1996, the cornhuskers have used the Maine system.  In 2008, Nebraska gave one vote to Democrat Barack Obama while its other four went to Republican Mitt Romney.

The Maine system has attracted little attention, because it would have had no real effect on the outcome in either the state or national result.

In the 2000 election, Democrat Al Gore beat Republican George W. Bush by half a million popular votes, but lost in electoral votes, leading some to urge using the popular vote.  Moving to the national popular vote in presidential elections would require amending the U.S. Constitution. 

The Maine system may give the impression of being closer to the popular vote than is the winner-take-all system.  Adopting it requires only state action.

But, no matter how much attention Maine’s Second District gets this year, it is unlikely that other states will be tempted to adopt it in an effort to better approximate the popular vote.

The reason?  The Maine system doesn’t work.

Take the last presidential election.  Obama defeated Romney by 332-206 electoral votes and carried a majority of states.  The Democrat also won 65.9 million total popular votes to 60.9 for the Republican.   Electoral vote tracked popular vote.

If the Maine system applied nationally, Romney would have won, having carried more congressional districts.  The sharply different result would have been 274-264 for the Republican.

Few people would have considered that a fair result, possibly tipping the balance in favor of amending the Constitution to allow for a national popular vote.

Electoral votes result from the compromise that made the Constitution possible.  To get small states to accept it, the Founders weighted each state’s vote by counting its senators as well as its population.  Without that deal, small states would have reduced effect on the presidential election.

If only Maine’s popular vote counted, its influence on the outcome could be cut in half.  To get rid of electoral votes would upset the basic founding deal that treated all states equally.  But perhaps a deal made two and half centuries ago needs to be updated.

The Maine system is clearly not the answer.  Not only does it weaken the influence of states by splitting their votes, its danger is in producing an undemocratic outcome quite different from the will of the voters.

Maine and Nebraska don’t cause much concern.  But the weakness of the Maine system becomes evident when it is applied nationally.  In both the country as a whole and in Maine, a candidate could get the most popular votes, but lose in the electoral vote count. 

The Maine system sounds better than it is.  It could undermine majority rule.

If nothing else, its inherent weakness, revealed when looked at closely, should serve as a warning that so-called “electoral reform” can produce unexpected and undesirable results. 

Ranked-choice voters, please note.

Dislike deadlock? Don't back divided government

This year’s elections could produce a Democratic president and Congress with one house or both controlled by the Republicans.

Many voters say that’s just what they want.  They believe that divided government prevents excess and promotes compromise.

But they have a good chance of being disappointed – again.  Here’s why.

On the night in January 2009 of Barack Obama’s first inaugural as president, Republican congressional leaders met and decided to maintain wall-to-wall opposition to anything he proposed.  They wanted to make sure his presidency would fail and he would not be reelected.

A couple of years into Obama’s first term, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” 

But he left Obama an out.  If the president would do a “backflip,” accepting Republican policies, they would work with him.  Of course, there would be no backflip by the GOP.

Obama got some of what he wanted – like the Affordable Care Act – without a single Republican vote.  Some of the responsibility was his, when he failed to master the congressional relations game.

Obama was reelected and continued to face GOP opposition.  That’s probably why he resorted to the extensive use of executive orders on major issues.  The Republicans attack his use of these orders, but allow him to act on his own rather than compromise with him.

Now comes Hillary Clinton, probably the next Democratic president.  It seems highly unlikely that she will be able to do any better than Obama.

She promises to seek compromises with Republicans, but they would have to be willing to deal with her.  Even if she were to back off some of her campaign positions, they are so committed to opposition that deals could be impossible.

To be sure, Clinton has faults and must continue to work on being more open.  She gives the impression that she thinks she’s better than the rest of us, not a recipe for success.

But she has been demonized to such an extent that many voters dismiss and distrust her.  That attitude would undoubtedly support a GOP attempt to block any of her policy initiatives or nominees to the courts or regulatory agencies.

The concept of bipartisan government makes sense, so long as both sides are willing to seek compromise.  A president proposes, but should accept some of the ideas of the opposition to arrive at a broadly acceptable policy.

That takes political courage.  Members of Congress and even the president must be willing to take heat from some of their own supporters to bring about compromises on major issues.

If the partisan divide among the voters is truly deep, as seems to be the case now, the degree of political courage needed is high.  Exercising that kind of commitment to public policy, instead of clinging to partisanship, is what constitutes leadership.

But the American system seems to have reached a point where policy differences are equated with moral differences.  Your opponent is not merely “wrong,” he or she is “bad.” 

The presidential campaign illustrates that point.  Many Clinton supporters think Donald Trump, the GOP candidate, is morally bankrupt.  Many Trump supporters think Clinton is criminal.  That’s not the path to compromise.

Perhaps it’s an argument for one-party government, not divided control between the two major parties.  Though many people want government to work through compromise, the U.S. government seems to be beyond the point where that’s possible.  (In passing, it’s worth noting that the Maine Legislature is much better at striking compromises.)

Given the big picture of national partisanship, a voter in federal elections should recognize he or she is not choosing between candidates so much as between parties.

Perhaps the most important action by a senator or member of Congress is who they support to control the Senate or House.  That single vote is far more important than their vote on any issue.

In the obvious absence of the chance for compromise, it’s possible that the only hope for the end of the federal government deadlock is single party government.

Thanks to Clinton’s big lead and her political “coattails,” the Democrats have a reasonable chance of taking control of the Senate and a slim chance of achieving a House of Representatives majority.

Few voters may have this big picture.  For example, in Maine’s Second District, the issues are not about economic or social policy.  That election, like many others across the country, boils down to which party will control the House –Emily Cain’s Democrats or Bruce Poliquin’s Republicans.

Three 2016 state referendums have legal, procedural defects

Things may not be what they seem.

Half of the six Maine state referendums have been drafted with legal or operational problems, according to the state Attorney-General, lawyers and past legislative practice.

They are likely to produce results differing from their sponsors’ intention.

The three at issue are marijuana legalization (Question 1), the special fund for education (2) and ranked-choice voting (5).

The marijuana bill is meant to allow possession of the substance by people 21 years of age and above.  To accomplish that result, the law completely repeals the ban on such possession by any persons of any age, except for limited purposes.

Because the proposal deals with people 21 and over and but is silent on those younger, it has the presumably unintentional effect of allowing unfettered possession by children and others under 21.  That’s the Attorney-General’s view.

If the proposal passes, it would be up the Legislature to move quickly to eliminate the under-age loophole.

The education proposal would place a surcharge on the state’s highest income taxpayers and places the revenue into a special account to be used only for education.

Whenever the Legislature fails to appropriate funds to cover 55 percent of the education cost, as required by an earlier referendum, it would use funds from the special account to boost outlays up toward the required level.

In practice, the Legislature has never appropriated sufficient funds to meet the 55 percent mandate.

The new proposal places no new requirement on the Legislature for the covering base education funding.  It could take advantage of the new special account to replace some of the outlays it might otherwise have supplied. 

If the Legislature chose to use dollars from the special account to displace other education funding, thus missing the 55 percent target, it would be following its own precedent.  In fact, it could choose to negate the current proposal entirely by cutting base education spending.

It’s difficult to find a way the Legislature could fix the situation and guarantee the voters’ intentions would be followed, having failed repeatedly to obey the earlier referendum.

On ranked-choice voting, the Maine Constitution now states clearly that a plurality of votes produces an election winner.  Passing ranked-choice voting won’t override that constitutional rule, according to the state Attorney-General.

To overcome that problem, the Constitution would have to be amended.  That requires a two-thirds vote of each house of the Legislature and a majority vote in a statewide referendum.

Some lawyers see another constitutional problem, this one under the U.S. Constitution.

If all of a voter’s ranked choice candidates were eliminated before the final round, only the votes of those who picked, by ranked choice, one of the surviving candidates would count in that last round.  They would vote at least one more time that voters who had picked only eliminated candidates.

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees Americans “the equal protection of the laws.”  This equality could be undermined by allowing some people more votes than others.

The Legislature could not repair this problem even if the Maine Constitution were amended to allow ranked-choice voting.  Only some kind of run-off could replace plurality election with a majority vote.

A U.S. constitutional challenge to ranked-choice voting could create prolonged confusion.

In all three cases, the ballot question may seem simple, but the implications are complicated and potentially open to lengthy dispute.