Customer Reviews

Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fixing Elections hits the nail right on the head! Steven Hill is an insightful, clever, and engaging writer who reveals in page after page, the many faultlines in the way we elect our public officials.

Hill's analysis is unique and refreshing -- and accessible. He dissects the American political and election system with the acumen of a political scholar, the tenacity of a man on a mission, but most importantly, with the clarity of a popular writer. Fixing Elections is an engaging and lively book that points to deep flaws in our elections and important directions for reformers to take.

This should be required reading for U.S. political science classes, and should be offered in our high schools as well. If you care about creating an engaged citizenry, a strong democracy and an accountable government, READ THIS BOOK!

This book is the "Silent Spring" of our political system. It's full of facts and anecdotes that will make you astonished and wondering why everyone is not apalled and talking about these failures of our system and how we can change it. Everyone knows that something is very wrong with our flailing democracy and the people at the helm, but Hill has really exposed the under belly that rarely gets talked about. He is helping us to see how the U. S. electoral system's failure has permeated the very fabric of our policy decisions and lead to citizen non-participation and despair. Each chapter is well written, compelling, eye opening and revelatory. I am still thinking deeply about the implications of Fixing Elections' arguments and know that this is essential information for the future if we are to survive as a democracy.

I would give it six stars if I could. This is the most insightful book on American politics I have ever read. It transformed how I look at politics in this country. So much of what ails our democracy -- low participation, poor representation, poor quality of campaigns, policy that doesn't reflect what the majority of Americans want, partisan bickering and polarization,on and on -- the author brilliantly shows how it can all be traced back to the Winner Take All political system we use in the U.S. ONe of the most interesting riffs was how much of what we usually attribute to a lack of campaign finance reform -- lack of political competition, or choice for voters, or accountability -- is really more directly impacted by the incentives of the Winner Take All system. Fascinating.

If you read one book on politics this year, make it this one.

I am beginning a political science major at my university but I did not know a lot about the political system before reading Fixing Elections. In class professors always focus on the positive aspects of our electoral system compared to other countries without ever considering the more negative aspects. I highly recommend this book to high school and college students interested in the electoral system. After reading this book, I am well-informed and ready to become more active in political movements in this country. This book is great for anyone who wants to know more about politics and for anyone who wants to learn ways to make the electoral system better for everyone.

This book paints a very disturbing picture of democracy in America at the turn of the twenty-first century, but thankfully it paints an equally hopeful vision about how to fix it. The crux of the problem is that the electoral system the United States uses in its elections is over two hundred years old and needs to be updated to suit the times. In 1789 the American constitution was revolutionary, but now it has fallen behind nations like Ireland, the UK, New Zealand, and France in terms of ensuring representative democracy. In order to fix the problem, Mr Hill suggests the the US adopt some sort of proportional representation system to replace the winner take all system we have now. Under such a proposal, the number of seats a party wins in an election is tied to the percentage of the vote they received. So if the Green Party gets 9 percent of the vote, they will get 9 percent of the seats. Under the current system, 9 percent gets you nothing, you actually have to get more votes than anyone else in at least one district. Mr. Hill convincingly makes his case for proportional representation, however his style of writing nearly undercuts it. He feels the need to interject his opinions about all matters political, cultural, and religious into almost every sentence, rather than focus on the matter at hand. He clearly displays a left of center bias, which doesn't conflict with my politics, but I worry how a conservative might ignore his opinions on electoral reform because of Mr. Hill's gratuitous references to his support for leftist politics. Electoral reform shouldn't be a left or right issue. It is a matter of democracy and fairness. And although Mr. Hill admirably makes a logical case for electoral reform, he may have unfortunately drowned himself out with his pop-culture references and leftist din.

This book is a great eye-opener! It makes the reader aware of the many problems in our democracy. We already know that it is in trouble, but most of us don't know what to do about it. The best thing about this book is that it not only identifies the problems, but it gives us a means of finding practical solutions. I hope many more people get the chance to read this book!

As the pamphlet Common Sense was to the American revolution, so Fixing Elections could be to the movement for alternative voting systems in our day. Fixing Elections is...a scathing indictment of the system now in place in the U.S. The book manages to introduce sophisticated new ideas about voting systems in a very readable, even compelling, style...It deserves the widest readership possible.

Richard Winger, Editor, Ballot Access News

I am happy to see that most reviewers gave this book excellent marks, and even those who were less generous, were still very enthusiastic - though with some qualifications. The book definitely does a thorough and convincing job of documenting what and how much is wrong with our political system. It is amazing how much that we have come to hate about daily politics (negative campaigning, sound-bite coverage, issue-less analysis of the "horse race", money, gerrymandering, focus-groups, pandering, etc. etc.) can be concisely and convincingly explained in terms of the author's thesis.

While I do agree partially with some of the criticism of the book's style (repetitive, etc.), I find one thing lacking in those reviews: an alternative. If anyone knows of one, please post it here. Until then: get this book and read it!!! It may be long, but it is a must-read. In the meantime, perhaps Steven Hill and his colleagues at the Center for Voting and Democracy could come up with a way to present all of this information in a way that has a better chance of getting to the broader public. Not everyone enjoys reading long academic tombs. Most people don't even have the time.

But don't get me wrong. This book is the best thing I've read in a while. Everyone should be exposed to the ideas it presents and the information they are backed up with. Without a broad awareness of this material, we have no hope of ever achieving a democratic society. Before reading the book, I would have said, "...hope of ever recovering our democracy." Now I know we never really had one and that now even the illusion is slipping away.

This is one of those books that it's a shame to give 3 stars to. The premise - that a winner-take-all political system not only provides egregiously faulty representation but directly leads to all sorts of strange biproducts - is on target. With the premise set, the author leads us to all sorts of eye-opening statistics relating to the faults of this strange (and in world politics, very rare) election system.

Yes, it is a shame to have to give this work 3 stars, but here's why I did. After the premise and statistics, the rest of the book sees the author lose much of his focus. First, he does not offer any solutions. Once the problem is pointed out, he keeps pointing the problem out. I, a proud member of a third party (Libertarian), was hoping to hear more about our impossible FEC regulations, how failed and successful third party bids might teach us, and about such ideas as proportional representation and other alternatives to "first past the post." Unfortunately, we don't get any of it!

Another big complaint is that the second section of the book, where the author writes of candidates over-reliance on polling, sound-bites, attack methods and vague linguistics, is bordering on irrelevant to a discussion of winner-take-all. It, of course, is relevant in the sense that a two-party system, by forcing an "either/or" decision, becomes more about driving voters away from your competition than about bringing the unconvinced over to your camp. In this sense, the two-party system that political scientists and economists agrree is the result of winner-take-all, exacerbates "slam-paigns", reliance on polls, media pandering and the like. Still, under any other democratic syetem, the author tacitly assumes that these tactics would be absent but never explains that unlikely belief.

Third, he contradicts himself on a huge point. The first half of the book he writes (in my view, correctly) that the two-party winner-take-all system leads to vague, centrist candidates. The second half of the book, though, takes the opposite view - that it leads to polarization and from it, undemocratic or extremist representation. I fail to see how both apply and the author never tried to convince me that the second view was correct. Consequently, I still don't buy it.

To conclude, this book is great for two types of readers: a) readers who are new to the problem or who need convincing that the winner-take-all - or for that matter, the two party system - doesn't work. Especially provocative is the authors astute observation that many of the problems assumed to be created by "big money" are in fact creeated by winner-take-all. b) this book is great for those who know that something is rotten in the state of our democratic republic and winner-take-all system but have yet to connect the dots. ...

I started reading "Fixing Elections" already favoring proportional representation, I finished "Fixing Elections" with even more reasons to support this basic democratic improvement.

Hill demonstrates that PR can reduce negative campaigning and get more women and minorities elected. Hill demonstrates that PR can encourage more issue-oriented campaigns as well.

My one cavil with "Fixing Elections" is that Hill conflates the benefits of PR with the benefits of a parliamentary system. How is there any way to handle a presidential election in any way other than winner-take-all?

Overall, a good book.