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1 Electoral Process 1962

handle is hein.beal/elecprc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS VOLuME 27 SPRING, i96 NuM~mt 2 FOREWORD Vox populi, vox dei. Although Americans might reject this rather extravagant proposition, we have created an elaborate electoral process through which the voice of the people (or what we assume to be that voice) may express itself on federal, state, and local issues. Occasionally our political mythology seems to attribute an element of immutability and divine sanction to our electoral process-as if it had been ordained at Mount Sinai. Instead, there has already occurred considerable change in our institutions and procedures for ascertaining and expressing the popular will. For example, political parties-and ultimately a two-party system-have come into being; universal popular suffrage has been adopted-at least, as an ideal; the members of the electoral college, with one or two recent exceptions, have renounced their legal right to exercise their own discretion in choosing a president; and many states have authorized initiative, referendum, and recall procedures. Events during the i96o elections-such as the first nationally televised debates between presidential candidates-and the Supreme Court's recent decision in Baker v. Carr' make it clear that dramatic new changes in the American electoral process are in the offing. Indeed, in view of the many fast-paced changes in other fields now anticipated for American life, it would be unthinkable for the electoral process to remain static. In evaluating proposed or prospective changes in our electoral process, one must remember that the utterances of vox populi are materially affected in content by the procedures through which they are expressed. For instance, some of the election procedures in the United States-such as voluntary, rather than compulsory or automatic, voter registration-are partially responsible for the fact that here a smaller percentage of eligible voters cast a ballot than in some European countries. It is quite questionable that election results would in every instance be the same in this country if a higher percentage of eligible voters exercised their franchise (although in some cases it is also questionable that the change in results would be desirable). The United States Congress and the bicameral state legislatures were structured to produce utterances of vox populi that would often be different from those which would have occurred with unicameral legislative bodies elected strictly on a popula- tion basis. Similarly, because of the form of our election procedures, not every American President has received even a plurality in the popular vote; and the current incumbent of the White House lacked a majority of the popular vote cast in the i96o election. Long before Baker tr. Carr was decided, it was unmistakable that in many states the electoral process for choosing legislators was heavily weighted 1 369 U.S. 186 (1962).

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