By IPS Correspondents
MIAMI, Nov 5 2004 (IPS)

"A French political scientist defined democracy as a system in which nobody holds power," says Manuel Antonio Garreton. Although the state does exercise power, he adds, "it can be regulated by the law and by popular sovereignty through elections."

During several days of observing the U.S. presidential vote, Garreton, director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Chile, got an eyeful of how law and popular sovereignty played out here in the streets, polling places and election offices of south Florida.

Garreton travelled to Miami with a delegation of distinguished international observers, Fair Election International 2004, organised by the California non-governmental organisation (NGO) Global Exchange.

Besides the Florida delegation, which also included members from Nicaragua, Mexico, South Africa, Wales and England, Fair Election also placed observers in Ohio and Missouri states.

In a downtown Miami hotel lobby, the courtly Chilean analyst of democratic systems, who has taught at several European and U.S. universities, spoke animatedly of the strengths and weaknesses of the democracy he witnessed in the reigning superpower.

The controversies over the 2000 elections in Florida, Garreton said, had an enormous impact on society. "A system that was supposed to be an example for the world showed weaknesses that could be manipulated to thwart popular sovereignty, a lack of transparency and important technical errors."

"I think the big turnout this time was an act of affirmation of the electoral process, not in a partisan sense but in the sense of trying to get it right," he said. "I liked the spirit on all sides that every vote counts and every vote must be counted."

Garreton also singled out public financing of elections and regulation of campaign spending, done in the state of Arizona, as a feature of U.S. democracy other countries could learn from.

Despite stepped-up efforts by voters and election authorities, though, technical problems remained in 2004. Garreton cited confusion around provisional and absentee ballots and the excessive length of time required to vote.

Other international observers have noted that having to wait in long lines can effectively disenfranchise voters, who cannot afford to take much time off from work.

While waits in some Miami precincts were two hours or more, a British monitor observed that voters at home complain if they have to stand in line more than 15 minutes.

Garreton proposed two measures to relieve that time pressure: hold presidential and national elections on a different day from local polls (which tend to generate a long ballot filled with municipal and state initiatives); and make Election Day a national holiday.

"In Chile and much of the rest of world," he said, "holding elections on a special holiday symbolises their importance to society" and lets working people vote without losing pay.

He also raised some important issues that derive partly from this country’s decentralised electoral system and government.

In the United States, the president and vice-president are determined by votes in the Electoral College, which are allocated by states on a winner-take-all basis, rather than by popular vote.

The College, said Garreton, is not a completely democratic system because votes from different states do not have the same weight. "What happened in 2000, when the popular vote and the electoral vote disagreed, was very bad."

He suggested that direct elections for president and vice president would be the most representative system; alternatively, if people want to maintain a state-based system, allocating votes proportionally according to the popular votes within a state would be a better option than the current system.

Controversies over electoral authorities’ partisanship have been a problem in the United States, most notably in Florida in 2000, because many state and local elections are run by political appointees or partisan elected officials.

"As the saying goes," said Garreton, "The wife of Caesar should not only be his wife but should also appear to be his wife. Even if there is no abuse of power, the electoral system should not only be independent but also appear autonomous."

He argued that an important reason why Mexico was able to finally hold relatively democratic elections after 70 years of one-party rule was because it now has an independent non-partisan electoral commission and autonomous voting rolls insulated from the rest of the government.

"The U.S. could benefit from strengthening the autonomy of independent electoral authorities," he suggested, as well as by standardising electoral processes on a national level to harmonise the patchwork of state and local regulations.

Garreton also noted that many eligible U.S. voters are not registered, so only one-half or less of those eligible actually cast ballots in most elections, meaning that a small minority determines the outcome.

In Chile, where only about one-quarter of young people register to vote, a law has been proposed that would make voter registration automatic when citizens get their national identity card.

Although many in the United States oppose such ID cards on civil-liberty grounds, other methods could be used to make voting registration close to automatic, said the professor: "The principle is to avoid anything that could discourage people from registering."

He also commented on the fact that eight U.S. states, including Florida, now deny ex-felons the right to vote even after they have completed their sentences, which often impacts African Americans disproportionately.

"Losing the right to full citizenship for the rest of your life after going to jail for just a year seems a bit excessive," Garreton observed. "Once a person has done their time they should be able to vote again."

Beyond such practical measures, he pointed out that transparent elections are necessary, but not sufficient, for democracy, because they do not in themselves assure the quality of democracy.

Governments and society make many important decisions at all levels by means other than formal voting, added Garreton.

The Chilean cited as a promising experiment with popular democracy the Brazilian process of participatory budgeting, in which open public assemblies at the local level debate and decide on the allocation of the public budget between housing, education and other public services.

Efforts like these and public referendums or initiatives to create laws complement representative democracy, added Garreton.

Extremes of poverty and wealth weaken democracy, he pointed out. "When there are high levels of poverty, it creates first and second class citizens, because poor citizens don’t have access to the same quality of information and participation in public life."

Concentrated wealth, on the other hand, confers disproportionate power and can polarise societies, added the professor.

Garreton singled out monopolies over communications media as a particular danger to democracy. "When the Iraq war began, I noticed that there was only one message coming across from most of the U.S. media, which restricted public information and discouraged debate on the war."

Diversified information sources are essential for informed public discussion, he said.

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