Voter Participation, Campaign Financing, and the Legitimacy of Elections
One of the greatest challenges for candidates in the American electoral system is securing enough financing to run a campaign. The system favors incumbents who have greater resources to solicit contributions more easily from donors (as they can already deliver on implied promises in exchange for donations) and wealthy candidates. According to Sides (2015), public funding reduces the overall advantage of incumbents and incumbent margins of victory, although when there is only partial, versus complete government funding of elections, this also results in more polarized legislatures, as “public financing weakens the influence of a maligned, but moderating, force in elections: access-oriented interest groups” by empowering smaller donors who might hold more extreme, partisan views (Sides, 2015, par. 6).
Reducing the influence of even moderate special interest lobbying groups is not necessarily a bad thing. But this phenomenon does highlight how voter reforms can have unintended consequences. A similar example may be observed in the case of voter identification laws. While requiring voters to show ID may seem to be reasonable, in actual practice it can discourage people from voting who are some of the least empowered members of society, such as people without drivers’ licenses who have no reason to secure such identification because they are too poor. This also includes people who are too disabled to drive or the elderly who lack current identification. Such laws can result in the triumph of more conservative, less representative candidates as a result, even though voter ID laws supposedly better ensure only legitimate voters can cast their ballots. The most truly legitimate election, one might argue, is the one least influenced by special interest groups and is the one that is most democratic in its patterns of participation. Achieving this balance can be elusive in actual practice. Erring on the side of letting everyone vote may actually be a more inclusive policy.
References
Sides, J. (2015). How public funding of elections makes politics even more polarized. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey- cage/wp/2015/01/15/how-public-funding-of-elections-makes-politics-even-more- polarized/?utm_term=.8f2251104584
