On democracy and elections (or when can we doubt a democracy even though elections are held)

When do people leave their homes and go to vote? Many scholars have dealt with this question, and tried to formulate an answer that will justify the very action of voting, presenting it as a rational action, since if so many people are involved with it every 2-4 years (at least in Israel), it must be a rational action.

The basic idea is to see if the voter benefits from the act of voting more than the cost of the very same action. If the cost is lower than the benefit, we can say that voting is a rational thing to do.

According to the formula, the benefit of the voter is consisted of the impact of his single vote on the outcome of the elections, and the benefit of the voter from the fact that his favourite candidate wins the elections.

How can we measure the impact of a single vote? There are several factors to consider.

First, the size of the voting body. The impact of one out of 12 residents in the house committee elections is much greater than one out of 3 million votes in the general elections for the Israeli Knesset.

We must take into consideration the size of the voting body which is influencial to begin with. In Israel a candidate party needs 30,000 votes to gain a seat in the parliament. The single voter can regard himself as one out of 30,000 who managed to put a parliament member in the knesset, rather than one out of 3 million voters.

We also have to examine the gap between the leading candidates. When the race is very close, every voter can see himself as one of the few voters to determine the general outcome. That is why the candidates tend to tell us that the gap is really small in the last few days before the elections, to recruit all those supporters thinking about staying at home on elections day (that was one of Olmert biggest mistakes during last year's campaign, when he announced his victory 3 weeks before the elections).

The cost of the voting action is consisted of several parameters as well.

A good description of one of them can be found in the opening chapter of "Seeing" by Jose Saramago, but to sum it up we can say that inscribing in the voter's card, getting to the ballot, standing in line, leaving the house in an unpleasant day, missing working hours, understanding political information and making a decision are all parts of the cost of voting.

In Israel, much is done to lower these costs as much as possible: All eligible voters are automatically inscribed, there are many ballots all over the country, and every one can find a ballot very close to his whereabouts, the weather is usually nice, election day is a sabbatical day, and the propaganda is meant to deliver the principles of the agenda suggested by each party.

However, it is still possible that the formula will result in an unfavorable manner, since a large voting body reduces the benefit to a minimum. That's why scholars seeked another way of showing the rationality of voting, thus decided to add to the benefit factor the personal benefit of the voter from the very act of voting. There are many socialization agents making sure that we vote on elections day. By voting, we see ourselves as part of a larger and important group, deciding over the fate of our nation. We all remember what happened to Stan Marsh, when he didn't want to vote for a new school mascot (He was exiled from South Park)...

So, apart from the fact that I taught a course in political economy, why am I telling you all this?

Yesterday I got a copy of a correspondence between a math student and Gil Goldenberg, head of the information department of the Tel Aviv University Student's Union, in which Mr. Goldenberg claims that the reason the last elections for the student's body looked the way they did, is that the union is doing a hell of a job, and there's no need for an opposition.

This might be the place to explain how this year's elections looked like.

Out of 30,000 students, only 2,500 voted (8.3%), and sent 75 representatives to the student's council. The elections were won by the "New Generation" party (indentified with the Israeli Labor Party). The same happened in 19 out of the last 21 years!!! 35 out of the 75 representatives got in the council without elections, since they were the only candidates from their faculties.

Now let's try to examine the elections day in light of the theory I summarized above.

Let's begin with the cost side of the equation . Every student who is a member of the student union can vote, and the ballots are all over the campus, so this shouldn't be much of a problem.

However, it is clear that not all students are present on campus on elections day, and I can't really figure out why won't they prolong the elections and hold them for an entire week. It doesn't cost much money (as it does with the general elections which is a sabbatical day), and even the Italian general elections are 2-3 days long, to allow everybody to vote. The probability that a student that doesn't have class on elections day will come especially to vote is extremely low.

There also isn't any significant elections campaign, and in many cases (especially in faculties with only one candidate), the candidate decides to run for the elections in the last minute (mostly after massive persuasion efforts by the serving members of the council), so most of the voters have no information regarding the agenda of the candidates and the benefit expected from their being elected.

This brings us to the other side of the equation - the benefit. And we'll begin with the influence of the single voter on the outcome of the elections. Being part of a voting body of 30,000 people is much better than a voting body of several millions, and the students should consider themselves very influential, however the huge difference by which the labor party has won the elections for the last 20 years makes the students understand that the gap is impossible to close, and there's no point in voting, since the result is already known.

Moreover, the student can't really see the advantage of one outcome over the other, since all the candidates offer exactly the same things: cheap photocopies, text books and class summaries, representation of student's interests in different academic committees, a happy student's day, free beer once a year, and of course, an eternal fight against the politicians aiming to raise the tuition.

If every candidate offers the same things, why whould a student even bother? The students are indifferent to the identity of their council members (this can be related to Anthony Downs' theory on elections, on which I will not elaborate here).

The only differences between candidates are sometimes the political organization with which they are identified, but since general politics have little relevancy to campus life, it doesn't mean anything.

The only student's party with an "outside" agenda this year was the "green" party, who managed to put 4 representatives in the council, bringing an environmental agenda.

Regarding the added benefit from the very act of voting, in this case we can assume that since there aren't any socialization agents making sure the students do vote, the only ones bothering to do that are the candidates' friends, interested in promoting their friends' political career (and maybe later enjoy from their connections with council members that can help them get another free disk-on-key or whatever free stuff the student union gives away at the beginning of every academic year).

Well, it is easy to understand that the successful composition of the current students' council isn't really the reason of the unfortunate semi-democratic situation of Tel Aviv University's campus.

Why semi-democratic? Here we must address Keneth Arrow's impossibility theorem, examining the essence of democracy. Arrow defined a decisive set as a group which when selects a candidate, this candidate wins. If this set is the majority group, there's no problem, but when a decisive set is a minority or a single person, the rule of non-dictatorship seizes to exist, and therefore we have a less democratic situation.

The fact that democratic procedures are practiced, doesn't assure us that we live in a democracy. This is something that the students' bodies fail to understand.

What can they do to change things? Coming to think of it, why should they? the current situation guarantees that next year the same people will continue to serve...

Let's give some advice anyway. Maybe some day someone will read this and will try to implement a better system.

As I suggested above, prolonging the elections for a few days, or even up to a week, will make sure that every student is on campus on an election day, thus raising the probability that most students participate.

Also, a better branding of the candidates might as well assist us in increasing participation levels (although when almost all of the candidates are from the same party, it is hard to think about proper branding of candidates).

In addition, we must consider changing the structure of the council and the elections' system to one which will enable us to practice general campus elections. Why can't a history student vote for an environmentalist candidate from med-school if there's no environmentalist candidate in the liberal arts faculty?

The logic behind "regional" elections (every student can vote only for candidates from his or her faculty) is clear - students want someone who they can specifically go to when they have faculty internal problems.

However, there are general issues, especially concerning students activities as an organized body towards the government or general campus activities, and this is a sufficient reason to allow students to vote for any candidate they want, no matter where he comes from. This will also prevent the absurdity of candidates making their place in the council just because there's no alternative offered in the faculty.

Splitting the council into a general decision making body, and a committee dealing with internal faculty issues will let us enjoy the best of both worlds.