Why Not Dial-In Democracy, Too?

The people have spoken: Taylor Hicks is our newest democratically elected American Idol. Americans cast 63.4 million votes in last week's election -- nearly as many as were cast in the 2002 congressional elections, and more votes than George W. Bush got in 2004. Judging from the level of participation it inspires, "American Idol" isn't just a wildly successful television program -- it's also a successful democracy.

It's not a perfect democracy, of course. When Chris Daughtry was eliminated despite his talent and popularity -- and the heroic pleas on his behalf from the grass-roots "Chrisaders" at http://www.DaughtryGang.com -- many learned the hard way that participatory democracy can produce results that seem terribly unfair, or that give rise to suspicions of rigging.

But the show still inspires more water-cooler conversation than this year's hotly contested House races in Colorado or Connecticut. Moreover, 35 percent of the show's voters believe that casting a vote for a contestant on this juggernaut of a television program counts "more than or as much as" voting in a presidential election, according to a recent survey.

So if we look at how "American Idol" works, we might pick up a few cues for a better way to run our real elections and inspire some passion for politics. Consider these four lessons of American Idol democracy:

T echnology makes voting easy. Nothing could be more convenient than American Idol voting. You don't have to get in your car and burn $3-per-gallon gas to get to a polling place; you don't need to wait in line; you don't need to interact with any clumsy bureaucracy or fill out provisional ballots that may or may not get counted. American Idol democrats simply pick up the phone or send a text message to vote. No hanging chads here. American Idol democracy is so easy that it repeatedly racks up high levels of participation -- as the vote totals in the tens of millions from week to week attest.

Our political contests, meanwhile, routinely fail to drum up comparable excitement. We embarrass ourselves with extremely low turnout in election after election. Why not take a page out of the "American Idol" book and make it easier for citizens to vote by telephone or text message? Introducing new technologies is always tricky -- our first experiments with electronic voting machines have hardly been problem-free -- but we need to think outside the ballot box.

If we all voted by phone or over the Internet, we could have avoided the fiasco in Florida after the 2000 election. We wouldn't have to bus any voters to the voting booth. We could stop harassment and electioneering at polling places. And we could end the brouhaha that always surrounds absentee ballots.

Technology can also thwart democracy. As successful as it is at ramping up participation, American Idol democracy is not without its technological pitfalls -- which means that sometimes the outcome isn't perfectly democratic. During the voting, the overburdened toll-free phone lines often go down. "Power-dialers" -- those who can redial automatically or can program their phones to call them when the busy signal disappears -- can pack the vote. And those who are able to text-message (Cingular subscribers only) can avoid the busy signals and have an advantage over other voters. So the technologies have not produced equal opportunity for all voters -- and that would be troublesome in our political democracy.

If we made it easier to vote using technologies that we now have at our fingertips, we'd have to be sure not to let the technology control the process or the outcome. And we'd have to remember that not everyone has access to the latest technological advances and provide for those left behind.

Vote early and often. "American Idol" participants can vote as often as they like and for as many candidates as they wish. This method may actually be an improvement on "one person, one vote," because multiple voting is a more sophisticated way of grasping the popular will.

Here's why: If I like Chris but also want to throw support to Taylor, multiple voting allows me to express my preference without forsaking Taylor altogether. And it allows me to express the intensity of my preference. If I like Chris four times more than I like Taylor, I can feverishly dial four times for Chris while still texting my support to Taylor's number as well. This way, the system has more information on how I feel about the candidates.

For multiple voting to work well in a political democracy, each voter would need to have a set number of points -- say 50 -- to allocate among candidates, rather than the potentially infinite number "American Idol" voters have. In a hotly contested presidential race, most voters might give all their points to one candidate. But primary elections, at least, needn't be run on the principle of one person, one vote.

Would George W. Bush still have beaten Al Gore in 2000 under such a system? It's possible he might have done better than he did, because Ralph Nader might have attracted more intense support and many Democrats seemed lukewarm on Gore. In 2004, John F. Kerry might have done better if intensity of voter preference could have been measured. Perhaps most importantly, third-party candidates might do better under multiple voting, which might force the two big-party candidates to compete more substantively than they do today.

Listen to the experts. In American Idol democracy, impartial "judges" comment on the quality of the contestants' performances before the voting starts. Week after week, Randy, Paula and Simon offer praise or derision of the contestants to help voters evaluate who should become the next American Idol.

This is sorely absent from the political arena. Of course, the media and the blogs analyze and dissect political candidates ad nauseam before and after significant appearances. But what if a panel of bona fide experts critiqued the candidates at presidential and vice presidential debates, perhaps even interjecting between questions, giving the public instant assessment of the candidates' performance and positions?

Yes, picking the experts could be tricky. Who could we all agree to listen to? A panel of ex-presidents or vice presidents -- Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Walter Mondale -- or ex-candidates -- Ralph Nader, Bob Dole, Ross Perot -- would certainly know where the candidates were coming from and could judge their performances. But they could easily be viewed as too partisan. Maybe the heads of various organizations -- say, the AARP or the ACLU or the Council on Foreign Relations -- could assess the candidates' responses on the issues each group deals with. Or perhaps America is more likely to tune in to more entertaining commentators: Jon Stewart, you've done the Oscars. Are you ready for a political debate?

However we assign the task, this feature of American Idol democracy could clearly enhance our political debates -- and perhaps add some viewers.

Sure, American Idol democracy doesn't have all the answers. There's even a movement afoot to amend its "constitution." Many fans are fed up with phone and text-message voting and with uncontrolled multiple voting, and many think it's high time to bid Randy, Paula and Simon farewell. More than 38,000 people have signed a petition contesting the vote in Chris's elimination and demanding a recount.

But many more Americans have clearly shown themselves to be more jazzed about "American Idol" than about some very important congressional races in the upcoming midterm elections. So maybe we should listen when the people speak. They just may be trying to tell us something.

leibe@uchastings.edu

Ethan J. Leib is a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and author of "Deliberative Democracy in America: A Proposal for a Popular Branch of Government" (Pennsylvania State University Press).