[Vision2020] The Mega Millions Solution

[Art Deco]

[image: Campaign Stops - Strong Opinions on the 2012
Election]<http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/>
April 23, 2012, 10:43 pmThe Mega Millions SolutionBy NORMAN
ORNSTEIN<http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/author/norman-ornstein/>

The Mega Millions lottery last month with its whopping $656 million prize
captured the intense interest of Americans across the country. Estimates
suggest that as many as 100 million people participated. No matter that the
odds of winning the jackpot were known to be much less than being struck by
lightning twice. Investing a few bucks (or in the case of Washington
Wizards forward Chris Singleton, ten thousand) for the chance to become a
centa-millionaire was irresistible for nearly half of the adult population
of the country.

The overwhelming success of the Mega Millions enterprise makes it an
irresistible target for something more — a way to transform American
elections and along the way reduce our deep political dysfunction. Our
take-no-prisoners tribal politics have at root the reality that the two
parties’ narrow ideological bases have far more influence on the selection
of candidates, the positions taken by the candidates and the pressures
placed on elected officials than the rest of the population. With turnout
in presidential elections hovering between 50 and 60 percent, 30 to 40
percent for mid-term congressional contests, and sometimes 10 to 20 percent
for primaries, it is the bases who rule.

At the same time, political consultants focus the bulk of their energies on
a two-prong strategy for driving the base voters one way or the other —
both making sure that your party’s base is energized and that the other
party’s base is depressed. The obvious fallout is that the issues that
dominate are the ones that excite or infuriate the bases — abortion,
same-sex marriage, guns, immigration— and the language used to whip up the
bases is harsh and extreme. All this does even more to turn off voters in
the middle.
Who Votes?<http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/category/voting-rights-2/>

A series about the complexities of voters and voting.

Other countries like Australia have ameliorated this dynamic by
implementing mandatory attendance at the polls — Down Under, if one does
not show up, even to cast a ballot for “none of the above,” a fine of
roughly $15 is imposed. The result has been turnout of 90 percent or more.
High turnout is nice in and of itself. But Australian politicians of all
stripes say that the main impact has been to turn the campaign, the issues
and the discourse away from the extremes and toward the persuadable voters
in the middle.

After all, the pols know that both party bases will be there, with
predictable results — and that what they need to do is persuade the
persuadables. This means a sharper focus on the big issues that concern
them and the country, from budgets to energy and climate change to
education and jobs, and more moderate rhetoric, since fiery words will turn
away moderate voters.

I would love to implement the Australian model in America, but I recognize
that mandatory voting — actually, mandatory anything — is a hard sell in
this country. So here is another idea: a series of Mega Millions-like
lotteries for primary and general elections, with awards that can range up
to the hundreds of millions for a big general election — where your lottery
ticket is your voting stub. It is a reasonable guess, given what we have
seen with big lotteries in the states, that a billion dollars for all
federal primary and general elections in a cycle (a small sum to enhance
democracy and reduce dysfunction) would, by providing a very powerful
incentive to get Americans registered and to actually turn up at the polls,
result in a robust increase in turnout, perhaps to as much as 75 or 80
percent. The idea could be applied in states and localities with smaller
prizes and not simply using public money; perhaps auto dealers could donate
cars, for example.

Another way to implement the plan would be to use a state’s voter
registration rolls and pick five names at random as winners — with the
names announced after the election, but the prizes given only to those who
actually voted. All it would take to send a powerful message to other
non-voters is one example in an election where an individual was picked but
lost a Corvette or $100,000 because he or she did not vote.
Will Lester/The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, via Associated Press:  Would
thousands line up to vote if they knew they had a chance of winning money?

To be sure, the basic concept is not new. In 2006, a doctor named Mark
Osterloh managed to get a proposition on the Arizona
ballot<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10ballot.html>to
offer a $1 million prize for a voter in the state’s upcoming primary
or
general election (those who voted in both would have two tickets, or
chances at the prize) with the lottery winnings coming from unclaimed
rewards left in the state’s own lottery pool. The initiative was widely
panned as tawdry, or as dangerous for encouraging uninformed citizens to
cast uninformed votes, or as aiming at increasing turnout for no good
reason beyond having a higher turnout. It failed.

Six years later, after still more dysfunction and acrimony, those
objections are much less resonant. The idea of encouraging voting to
provide more muscle for the broad center of America should be more
appealing; the counterargument that we should not be bribing people to
vote, less so. The experience of countries like Australia shows that there
is no real downside to having near-universal turnout. And the idea of using
a carrot to enhance turnout and depress the role of ideological extremists,
instead of a stick like a fine for not showing up at the polls, may be more
attractive now than it was in 2006. Enhanced voting in primaries, for
example, would probably lead over time to fewer bomb-throwers and more
problem solvers in state legislatures and in Congress.

The best way to implement this idea is to provide some empirical tests. It
would be nice if, say, Mayor Bloomberg’s foundation kicked in $10 million
as a prize for the next New York City election in 2013 to see what impact
that had on turnout in New York. Or perhaps a small state or a city could
try its own version of a vote lottery, using a combination of public and
private funds. If people are willing to stand in line for hours to get a
precious Mega Millions ticket, it is reasonable to assume that they would
take the steps necessary to vote to have a chance at the same dream.
 Plenty of Americans go the extra mile, sometimes literally, to cast their
vote. But lots of others do not. Adding an incentive to bring more of the
latter to the polls would enhance democracy, not trivialize it.

*Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute. His new book on America’s political dysfunction, “It’s Even
Worse Than It Looks,” written with Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution,
will be published next week.*
-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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