Democracy and Electoral Mandates

Upon winning an election in a democratic country, a politician gets the right to govern.  They also get the right to push their agenda. The first is a legal right, the second is social. There is nothing in our constitution that says that an elected official should not be harassed, delayed, or disrupted by any legal means by the opposition. But there are things that are not acceptable for the opposition to do, even if they are legal. Redrawing district lines may fall into this category. Or purposefully slowing the operations of government. It is, I think, more or less unacceptable to go to extreme lengths to thwart a reasonable agenda from a elected official who campaigned and was elected on that agenda. Not all agendas are reasonable, and what counts as what is reasonable may be a matter of taste. But everyone can think of some policies favored by the opposition that they have a suitable right to promote. This, I take it, is the phenomena people mean when they talk about electoral mandates.

Common sense says that a mandate does not apply to an agenda that was hidden from the public and that was adverse to the announced policies of the elected official. A democrat who campaigned on economic reform has no mandate to suddenly swerve and defend the established order. Why should this be so? The natural rationale for this is that the populace, in choosing to elect a person, indirectly choose that person's policies. There may be some amount voting-for-good-sense too, but this has limits. The pre-announced policies of an elected official are democratically sanctioned. Hidden policies are not. In opposing democratically sanctioned policies policies, the opposition courts thwarting the will of the masses.

Political mandates are often the topic of discussion after an election. This recent presidential election provides a case in point. Just what kind of mandate does Donald Trump have? Trump was elected after campaigning on a variety of controversial policies that are repulsive to a large number of Americans. He lost the popular vote. (Though, of course, who's to say who would have won had the popular voted been decisive?) Yet he won the election.  To what extent is it appropriate to throw up bureaucratic obstacles to his carrying them out?

There is, I think, something deeply misguided about the notion of a political mandate, justified by appeal to democratic sanctioning, within the present system. Given a number of factors, there is little reason to think that the candidate actually elected better reflects the views of the population. At best, winning an election (even winning the popular vote) is a very weak bit of evidence for democratic sanctioning. For this reason, I think that we should refrain from attributing a electoral mandate except in the rarest of situations.

This factors are the following.

1. Votes may reflect a rejection of the competitors policies, rather than an endorsement of the winners policies.

The United States is a two party system. Third party candidates are seldom serious or reasonable choices. Thus a vote for one candidate is just as much a vote against his or her opposition. This may mean that a sizable portion of the population chose to vote for one candidate because they disliked the other, not because they liked that candidate's policies. The fact that someone disliked another set of policies less is hardly a ringing endorsement.


2. Votes do not reflect the strength of the public's desires.

Votes are an all or nothing thing. Everyone gets the same single vote whether they care much about the results of the election or not. Individuals vote for the candidate they prefer. Thus the electorate might be lop-sided: with many people strongly disliking the winning candidate, but slightly more people vaguely preferring them. In such cases, it is incredible that the winning candidate should truly reflect the will of the people.


3. Partial votes do not provide evidence for the total public, especially given the fact that there are biases on who votes.

Many many people do not vote. If the segment of the population who does vote is a random sample of the whole population, this isn't an issue. But it isn't. There are systematic distortions introduced by the fact that some segments of the population are less likely to vote than others: the young, the busy, causal decision theorists, those without politically active friends/family/spouses, etc. Their interests are no less a matter for state protection. If slightly varying the turnout among subsections of the population would lead to a different outcome, then no mandate should be forthcoming.

4. Voters are often very poorly informed, both about the policies of their candidate and about the circumstances relevant to the assessment of those policies.

Not everyone knows an equal amount about the candidates and their policies. Even if some groups are as likely to vote, confusion about which candidate best represents their particular interests makes their vote worth less. There are huge differences in political awareness among different populations, with definite systematic biases. Very busy individuals have less time to follow the news. Less intelligent, or gullible, individuals are less able to understand what different policies truly mean for them. Thus, there desires are not so clearly reflected in their selection.

5. Votes are often nearly split.

On top of the fourth previous factors, the fact that votes tend to be very close is disconcerting. A 40/60 split is a landslide. 48/52 splits seem far more common. When a different choice by 3 out of 100 people would make the difference in the outcome, and given the various distortions involved in the electorate and the limitations they face in making their collective will  heard, it is hard to believe that the winner actually definitively represents the will of the people, rather than merely the outcome of a highly chancy and random process. There is surely some evidence provided by victory, but it is weak evidence. Therefore, I think we should relinquish the idea that the winner of an ordinary election reflects the will of the people. If that is where a political mandate comes from, then we should also give up on the idea that a winner has any sort of mandate to govern, beyond what is legally entitled to them.