We have previously explored the hyper-partisanship and polarization that exists in America.
A past client of mine disagreed with my bleak assessment and said reform is “easy” – just make all races non-partisan and THEN the campaigns will be about character and not politics.
I am known for my candor, and how that has gotten me into trouble in the past. I have been making an effort – a true effort – in selecting my words more carefully. Instead of saying “You could not be more wrong!” I found myself saying “Well, let’s see if we can find any research that agrees with your position….”
We are fully aware that party identification is the leading factor in voting – said another way – “Republicans tend to vote for Republicans and Democrats tend to vote for Democrats”.
In voting behavior, most don’t need to know details other than party to vote the “right way”. If we both identify as a member of the same party, we are very likely to share values and I don’t need to know much more than the party of a candidate in a general election to “vote correctly.”
So, the conventional wisdom – if we REMOVE the party especially from the ballot by making all elections non-partisan, it will force candidates and voters to go deeper. The short cut is removed…..so simple, right?
Not so fast my friend! Chris W. Bonneau, University of Pittsburg, and Damon M. Cann of Utah State explored the non-partisan elections of judicial candidates.
I believe this is a brilliant way to approach this subject. The state bar associations take many extra steps in a futile attempt to remove “politics” from a political process. In addition, judicial elections are … lower intensity races (said another way – kinda boring) with lower spending and lower voter engagement.
PERFECT for exploring the strength of party ID on nonpartisan races.
In short, what they found is there is no shortage of cues or shortcuts available to interject partisanship into a campaign. In fact “voters are able to identify the partisan identification of candidates from ideological and issue based cues even when candidates’ explicit partisanship is omitted from the ballot.”
In fact, the results show it is kinda easy.
In a sense, they conclude “nonpartisan elections ineffective at removing the partisan element from elections.”
We observe the exact same thing in municipal races we have worked in and or polled. Whether it is the local party interjecting to activate party ID or outside groups endorsing to activate party ID – there are NO shortages of signals and for the most part – the numbers don’t lie.
CONCLUSION
Sorry to be the popper of bubbles – but the proposed reform of nonpartisan elections being a solution is not backed by research. In fact it is explicitly dis-proven.
Sadly, in America, for the most part there is no such thing as a nonpartisan election – especially if one party has an incentive to interject partisan cues.
