Electoral politics -- especially in the United States -- has powerful built-in biases against active and effective working-class participation in it.
1. Costs of Active and Effective Participation in Electoral Politics
Time
In the United States, lacking in designated campaign periods, election "seasons" are extraordinarily long. For US presidential elections, campaigning for party nomination can start two years before the election day! In most nations, official campaign periods are shorter than two months ("A Specified Campaign Period?" <http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/me/mec02.htm>). Long and indefinite electoral campaigns militate against regulation of campaign finance, too, making elections extremely costly (in fact costlier in each election cycle than the previous one), and against participation of time-poor workers, making elections an exclusive sport of monied interests, campaign experts, and employees of non-profit organizations.
Money
Electoral politics costs workers far more money than non-electoral politics, if workers wish to participate actively and effectively (e.g.. selecting candidates rather than simply voting for them, running campaigns rather than simply waiting to be contacted by them, placing ads rather than simply responding to ads, organizing ballot initiatives rather than simply voting on them); and workers can never match the ruling class purse even if they are to devote their maximum financial resources to electoral politics out of their meager disposable incomes. In this election cycle, the Democratic and Republican Parties are together spending half a billion dollars! Money speaks in elections; bodies speak in streets.
Education
The prodigious number of electoral choices -- 500,000 elected offices, numerous issues (bond issues, ballot initiatives, constitutional amendments, etc.) on ballots -- imposes severe information costs on participants, putting workers who do not have much education (or time to compensate for lack of education) at a disadvantage in elections. Workers who lack time or education or both are put at even a worse disadvantage if they aspire to become candidates rather than just voters.
2. Social and Political Exclusions
Immigrant Workers
Electoral politics, as it stands now, categorically excludes non-citizen residents from participation (which was not always the case in US history and may change in the near future in a few progressive cities as far as elections for school boards and the like are concerned), even though, in nations like the United States, an important sector of the working class as well as a critical constituency of politics on the left is composed of non-citizen workers (permanent residents, documented workers, and undocumented workers).
Low-income Workers
Electoral politics, despite partial victories of the civil rights movement, consistently excludes *one third (in presidential election years) to two thirds (non-presidential election years)* of Americans, effectively reducing regular electoral participation to the preserve of the ruling class, petit-bourgeoisie, and a thin layer of high-income workers -- at most *the top third* of the US population. Exclusion results from a variety of enduring obstacles: the government's refusal to assume the responsibility of registering voters; election days that are not national holidays and, worse yet, fall on weekdays; burdensome voter registration procedures; election laws that differ radically from state to state, confusing voters and petition circulators; obstacles against voting, ranging from ID requirements to the presence of police at polling places; and so on. Electoral politics becomes the politics of the few against the many.
Felons and Former Felons
* An estimated 4.7 million Americans, or one in forty-three adults, have currently or permanently lost their voting rights as a result of a felony conviction. * 1.4 million African American men, or 13% of black men, are disenfranchised, a rate seven times the national average. * 48 states and the District of Columbia prohibit inmates from voting while incarcerated for a felony offense (only two states -- Maine and Vermont -- permit inmates to vote). * 35 states prohibit felons from voting while they are on parole and 31 of these states exclude felony probationers as well. * Seven states deny the right to vote to all ex-offenders who have completed their sentences. Seven others disenfranchise certain categories of ex-offenders and/or permit application for restoration of rights for specified offenses after a waiting period (e.g., five years in Delaware and Wyoming, and three years in Maryland). Each state has developed its own process of restoring voting rights to ex-offenders but most of these restoration processes are so cumbersome that few ex-offenders are able to take advantage of them. Source: "Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States," <http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1046.pdf>
3. Political Discourse
The range of acceptable discourse is much narrower in electoral politics than in social movements, especially in nations whose electoral systems are not based upon full representation. Obstacles against building a new political party -- restrictive ballot access laws that differ radically from state to state, dominant political parties' legal challenges to ballot access petitions, dominant political parties' often successful attempts at gerrymandering elected third-party politicians out of their districts, etc. -- are at the same time obstacles against free speech and political association in general and working-class political agendas in particular.
4. Social Movements and Independent Political Action
Quite often, the demands of social movements and the positions of the dominant political parties run in opposite directions. A good example of that is the demands of the anti-war movement and the positions of the pro-war presidential candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties this year. The desire not to contradict and embarrass the Democratic Party, lest Republicans get elected, acts as a powerful brake on social movements on the left. Negative impacts of the presidential election in 2004 are the best argument for independent political action: social movement activists need to build a political party on the left and get involved in key electoral campaigns that help the movements grow bigger and stronger and advance the movements' goals. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>