Majoritarian Ideals & Democratic Backslide: RCV in New Jersey, 1910-31

• In Event: Ranked-Choice Voting in a Difficult Voting-Rights Climate

Abstract

Analyses of electoral-system reform tend to proceed from elites' office- or policy-seeking motives (or both). Further, when the right to vote appears in such analyses, it is often on the rise as a background factor. We argue that democratic ideals can contribute to democratic backslide. In particular, popular views about majority rule can facilitate reforms that undermine democracy in the long term. We illustrate this process in New Jersey state and local politics, 1910-31. New Jersey led the nation in two respects: popularizing both 'preferential voting' and the commission form of government (i.e., nonpartisan elections through the numbered-post system to an undersized city council). Local proponents of 'better' electoral rules found traction as Progressivism bisected the state's party system. To facilitate adoptions at the local level, reformers' allies in state government passed both vote-suppression laws and restrictions on preference expression. Yet reformers' main cause, the 'preferential ballot,' lasted only as long as the coalition for it. Vote suppression and commission government each lasted much longer. With others, we bring the United States into the comparative electoral-reform literature. We also underscore the role of ideas -- in this case, about democracy -- at critical junctures American political development.

Authors

• Andrew Rosenthal, Drexel University

• Jack Santucci, Drexel University