An international
commission led by former UN chief Kofi Annan warns that the world's democracies
and the United States specifically, are being corrupted by the increasingly
strong role of "uncontrolled, undisclosed, illegal and opaque" financing of
political campaigns.
The report by
the commission, staffed with former world leaders and Nobel prize laureates,
stipulated that powerful financial institutions and the surging influence of
money in politics was harmful to both emerging and more developed democracies
across the globe. "The rise of uncontrolled political finance," warned the
report, "threatens to hollow out democracy everywhere and rob democracy of its
unique strengths".
The Global
Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security is presenting its finding in
London.
Regarding
elections in the U.S., the commission's report, Deepening Democracy: a Strategy
for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide, took special issue with the
Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case.
Citizens United
has "undermined political equality, weakened transparency of the electoral
process and shaken citizen confidence in America's political institutions and
elections", the report said.
According to the
Guardian, the report criticizes individual states "which have sought to
introduce voter identification laws and other measures that have the effect of
suppressing African American participation in the political process." Common
Dreams
A national
survey this year by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law
school found a majority of Americans believe nominally independent Super PACs to
be a danger to democracy. brennancenter.org Nearly
two-thirds of Americans said that they trust government less because big donors
have more influence over election officials than average Americans do.
brennancenter.org Another big flaw
of the democratic process in the U.S. is the Electoral Colleges. The American
president is not elected directly by the people but by a group of political
elite known as the Electoral College. The Electoral
College system makes it possible for a candidate to win the presidency without
winning the popular vote. There have been four cases where a candidate won the
national popular vote only to see someone else walk into the White
House. Moreover,
studies suggest that larger states are at an advantage under the Electoral
College system. Because of the winner-take-all nature of the system, candidates
ignore the small states and concentrate their resources on states with the
greatest number of electoral votes.
AHT/HJ
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