Checkpoint: The Long Road To Election
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI
US elections capture the attention of people across the world. To some degree, this is a result of the influential role played by American politics in events that happened globally. Democratic control of the House of Representatives could mean that the European Union wins a lucrative trade deal instead of the United Kingdom after Brexit. This election’s victor could be the deciding factor whether America will re-enter the Paris Climate Accords or not. Few countries exert enough influence on the global stage to warrant people on nearly every continent taking an interest in their politics, but the United States is certainly one of them.
Aside from the international affairs angle, American elections also provide a certain level of spectacle for those who follow them. Campaigning for a Presidential election begins over a year before the actual voting date, with candidates first seeking the party nomination before going toe to toe with their opponent in November. It would not be entirely unfair to say that a four year term as President of the United States is three years of governing followed by one year of campaigning.
On election day, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives, 35 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate, and 13 state and territorial governorships will also be contested. For many of these elections the build up will have been going on for months, perhaps even stretching back into 2019. Not all countries treat their elections as such a grand event.
However, many countries have laws dictating how long a campaign period can be, while the US does not. In Mexico, a 2007 law limited the length of campaigns. In Argentina, advertisements can begin only 60 days before the election, and the official campaign itself can start only 25 days after that. In France, the presidential campaign is generally only two-weeks long. The system of government can also dictate the campaign season length. In many parliamentary systems, the campaign season is tied to the date when the prime minister dissolves parliament. In August 2015, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dissolved Canada's parliament 11 weeks before a scheduled election, making for one of the longest modern campaign seasons in that country.
Another example of a different way looking at elections can be found across the Atlantic, in the UK. For the British and Northern Irish, elections are held 25 working days from the dissolution of Parliament. That roughly four week window is all the time given to politicians and political parties to start campaigning and convince the public why they deserve votes. This was not always the case. Before the introduction of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2011, the British Prime Minister had full leeway in setting the length of an election period. Labour leader John Major gave himself six weeks in 1997, believing a long campaign would be the only way to claw back a big Labour lead.
The downsides of America’s lengthy campaign period are pretty clear. Nearly 60 percent of Americans are exhausted by the amount of election coverage. Voter turnout in the US is abysmal compared to much of the world, and this could be linked to the fatigue induced by long elections. The length of the campaign also means billions of dollars are poured into US presidential contests, when mere millions are spent on elections in countries like Canada and the UK. The steep cost of running for president only makes the campaign longer as candidates need time to fundraise. America’s combination of a relatively short presidential term and a long election process also obstructs the work of US policymakers, particularly those focused on foreign relations. For at least a quarter of each presidential term, politics eclipses policy in government and in public discourse.
There are, of course, advantages to the American system as well. The length of time it takes from start to finish gives grassroot campaigns a chance to properly fundraise, something that is essential if those candidates are going to take on much richer candidates like Trump or Michael Bloomberg. A long campaign also allows for much greater scrutiny of candidates and their views on a variety of topics. Primary elections, which have been a fixture in US presidential campaigns since the 1970s, do drag out the race. However, they also afford American voters more say in who their party’s presidential nominee is than they would have if party leaders chose them, which is a positive development for those who favor more direct forms of democracy.
Implementing a shorter campaign period in the US would face numerous challenges and difficulties. Especially for presidential candidates, the sheer size of the country already makes appearing everywhere they need to shore up or gain support a difficult feat to manage. This would become impossible if the length of the campaign was reduced to a month or two. The main aspect of the race that would have to go, in order to implement this measure, would be the Primaries. This would strip support from grassroot supporters of both parties, but would also drastically cut the time taken to choose a candidate to stand for election.