* * Our elections aren't working for us

Having made a fitful, fruitless attempt at bucking the system in my 2013 campaign for the Virginia House of Delegates, 7^th District, a recent article in the Washington Post decrying our utter fall from the tenets of a democracy struck a chord with me. (Google, “Virginia’s Powerless Voters”) When I committed to run, I thought I had a small, but tangible chance to win. I didn’t.

My opponent was a one-term Republican incumbent and ours is a heavily Republican district. It is almost impossible to defeat an incumbent. In that election cycle 88 incumbents ran and 86 won. My opponent effortlessly out-raised me by almost 4-1, with 99% of my money coming from individuals and 75% of his coming from corporations, political action committees, special interest groups, and other candidates who didn't face challengers.

Mine was one of the overwhelming majorities of districts that was non-competitive, but at least I gave my opponent someone to run against; less than half our delegates face an opponent at all. Unsurprisingly, voters know their votes don't matter. Voters realize elections are rackets, pre-determined shams designed as bacchanalias of incumbent bliss. Down from almost 50% a generation ago, voter rolls have plummeted to fewer than 30% today.

The typical approval rating these days for this august group is around 30%, yet they are re-elected at over 95%.

I remember one experience while canvassing door-to-door in Christiansburg during the campaign where a woman said to me, “I don’t vote any more. My vote doesn’t matter.” My mind reeled with potential come-backs. “It’s your patriotic duty.” “It’s a responsibility of citizenship.” What did I end up saying? “You’re right; your vote doesn’t matter. Please vote anyway and consider voting for me.”

Gerrymandering isn’t new, but the computerized tools today have laser-pinpoint accuracy and scientific precision these days, allowing politicians to select their voters and not the other way around. Even the information tools available to me while canvassing showed me at each address who lived there and their likelihood of being receptive to me because of my party.

And gerrymandering works! In Virginia, this has given us a legislature that is far to the right of its constituency. Did you ever wonder why in a state that voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections and has all five state-wide offices (two U.S. Senators, Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General) are all Democrats, 66% of the Delegates and 73% of our Congressmen (yes, all men) are Republicans?

My complaining here may seem like a bad case of sour grapes. But the truly ugly side of this is that, once elected, these people are not motivated towards compromise, conciliation, or progress, but instead towards polarization and uncooperativeness. (Joke: What’s the opposite of “progress”? “Congress.”) In our current system, elected officials are incentivized to be as beholden to rigid ideology as possible. Most incumbents are more likely to be challenged by even more radical challengers from their own parties than from the other, as seen in Congressman Eric Cantor’s in-primary loss to Dave Brat last year.

We’re hearing cries from well-intentioned people to limit campaign contributions and remove the partisanship from districting. While an obviously essential steps, these won’t fully solve the problem.

Consider that the region we call Southwest Virginia is approximately 60% Republican. Shouldn’t it have 60% Republican representation in the House of Delegates? Instead, it is 100%, as every voting district gets a majority of Republican votes and it only takes a majority to win. A variety of “Proportional Election” counting schemes would fix this.

But it won’t happen. Why? Because the people we'll need to call on to fix it are the same people who benefit from it being broken. The most egregious viewpoint may come from Republican Delegate Mark Cole of Spotsylvania who hasn’t faced a viable opponent in 14 years of incumbency. He says non-partisan redistricting would “take politics out of an inherently political process.” So much for the desire for the type of governance the Founding Fathers envisioned!

Call our system a democracy if it sounds good, but the truth is that our democracy is nothing more than a fleeting memory.

I’ve been asked if I plan to run again. Only if the system is fixed and I have a chance, however small, of winning.