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Time to End the Elections Duopoly

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RGBStock.com Vote PencilCalifornia’s elections system is making news again (“Top-two primary system survives challenge,” by Thomas Elias, Salinas Californian, February 17). “Top two,” in California and elsewhere, is the latest effort to strengthen the Republican and Democratic parties’ monopoly — “duopoly” — over  American politics.

Supporters’ justifications for “top two” laws are that too much choice on the November ballot “confuses” voters, and that permitting only two candidates avoids run-offs and plurality rather than majority winners. So while those pesky third party (Libertarian, Green, etc.) and independent candidates can run in the earlier primary elections if they jump through enough hoops, in November voters must choose between the “top two” primary vote-getters — almost always  a Republican and a Democrat.

The single largest voter identification in the United States, exceeding any party’s, is “independent.” Polling consistently shows that pluralities or majorities of Americans support the idea of a “third major party” and would consider voting for non-duopoly candidates for political office.

Yet every other November, the vast majority of non-duopoly candidates go down to defeat. A few win local office. Even fewer become state legislators. Bona fide independent or third party governors, US Representatives and US Senators are rarities. And the next US president who isn’t a Republican or Democrat will be the first since those two parties coalesced into their current forms in the mid-19th century.

Why? Well, for one thing, those two major parties control access to election ballots. And they use that control to make it as difficult and expensive as possible for third party and independent candidates to even offer themselves as alternatives.

Prior to 1884, printed ballots were provided to voters by political parties and candidates. Those voters were also free to write out their own ballots by hand if they didn’t vote “straight party ticket.” Between 1884 and 1991, the states adopted the “Australian ballot” — a uniform ballot printed at government expense.

Standardized, one-size-fits all ballots, of course, have to come with rules. And guess who gets to make those rules? The two ruling parties, of course. Over time they have sewn up their “duopoly” with increasingly draconian restrictions.

In most states, Democratic and Republican nominees for office appear on the ballot automatically or nearly automatically. Third party and independent candidates might be allowed to run as well, if they spend lots of money collecting petition signatures — money which then becomes unavailable for their actual campaigns.

“Top two” proponents seek to tighten the screws even further and eliminate any chance whatsoever that a third party or independent candidate without, say, the personal wealth of a Ross Perot, might “spoil” the election of one of the establishment candidates, or even surge to victory.

They refer to their systematic diminution of voter choice, with straight faces, as “democracy.”

The rest of us refer to it as “rigging America’s elections.”

If voters want real political choice, it’s time to start voting for candidates who support free and fair elections … while the duopolists still allow us to.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Immigration: “Deferred Action” is not “Executive Overreach”

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RGBStock.com PassportsLast November, president Barack Obama announced an executive order allowing nearly five million undocumented immigrants to “request temporarily relief from deportation” provided they meet certain requirements: Register with the government, pass a criminal background check, pay a fee and submit to taxation.

Immigration opponents seized the moment, but in an odd way. Instead of trotting out their usual unsound arguments against immigration freedom as such, they advanced the claim that Obama’s order constitutes “executive overreach” and “unconstitutional amnesty.”

On February 16, a federal judge in Texas — one of 26 states suing over the order — issued an injunction temporarily blocking implementation of the plan, the first stages of which were scheduled to roll out on February 18.

There’s a lot to consider here, from the years-long standoff over “immigration reform” in Congress leading up to Obama’s order, to the question of whether or not the US Constitution allows Congress to regulate immigration at all (it doesn’t; that power was dreamed up by an activist Supreme Court in 1875).

But sticking to the terms of the suit itself, its “unconstitutional” and “overreach” arguments are unsound on their face.

Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution is clear and unequivocal: “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

Per the 1913 edition of Webster’s, to reprieve is “[t]o delay the punishment of; to suspend the execution of sentence on …”

Obama would be well within his constitutional powers to outright pardon every “illegal alien” residing in the United States. But he stopped well short of that, merely allowing a subset of immigrants to request postponement — reprieve — of deportation under specific conditions. The states’ suit is without merit and deserves immediate dismissal.

But the larger issue remains: What to do about immigration?

The interests of the US would be best served by returning to the older, wiser, more American policies of its first century, during which Congress understood that it had no power whatsoever to regulate immigration. Failing that, we might at least retrench to the relatively relaxed policies of the early 20th century. The US didn’t even issue or require passports until after World War II. Somehow we survived. In fact we thrived.

We know that freedom works. Time to demand that our politicians let it work on immigration. It’s the American way.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Cybersecurity: Beware Untrustworthy Partners

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RGBStock.com LockBefore the ink had time to dry on his February 12 executive order “promoting private sector cybersecurity information sharing,” US president Barack Obama launched a campaign to re-write history and make the case for trusting government to bolster network security and data privacy.

“The Snowden disclosures,” Obama told Re / code’s Kara Swisher in an interview the next day, “were really harmful in terms of the trust between the government and many of these companies.”

Well, no. It was the government — Obama’s administration and its predecessors — which betrayed the trust of American enterprise, the American people and the world. Edward Snowden is mere heroic messenger, telling us what we should have already known: That any such trust was misplaced.

The executive order itself raises two key questions: Does Obama not understand network security and data privacy issues? Or is he insincere in his claims to want improved network security and data privacy?

The obvious answer, based on decades of experience, is yes to both questions. Obama’s assurances, “with almost complete confidence, that there haven’t been abuses on US soil,” don’t pass the laugh test.

The US intelligence community has a long history of doing its best to hobble communications security, going back at least as far as 1977’s “Federal Information Processing Standard,” adopted only after the National Security Agency talked IBM into hobbling its Data Encryption Algorithm to make it more vulnerable to the kinds of brute force attacks that NSA could bring to bear.

As the 20th century drew to a close, NSA fought losing rear-guard actions to prevent widespread access to and adoption of strong cryptography. Among the Snowden revelations was that coming out of that period, NSA took its efforts to a stealthier level, spending billions to subvert the crypto they couldn’t stop.  For example, we learned that a leading encryption company (RSA) worked at NSA’s behest to “[i]nsert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems, IT systems, networks, and endpoint communications devices used by targets.”

Anyone who believes that these efforts stopped at any point,  don’t continue to this very day, or won’t continue into the foreseeable future  is living in a fantasy world. The US government always has been, and remains, the single worst global  and domestic threat to network security and data privacy. Those two laudable goals are inherently incompatible with trust in Barack Obama or the organization he represents.

If American politicians want real privacy/cybersecurity reforms, here are some suggestions:

First, dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, drastically cut the budgets of US intelligence agencies, and levy draconian penalties for rogue operations targeting Americans for any reason or foreign “cyber warfare” operations absent a congressional declaration of war.

Secondly, repeal the US PATRIOT Act, “Know Your Customer” rules, and other laws putting personal  and business information at risk by requiring its transmission to government.

Finally, forbid government interference or “consultation” in development of private sector encryption standards or algorithms.

That would be a start. Anything less is mere theater.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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