American Territories

[Reprinted from The Debate Link with David’s kind permission.]

Can anyone explain to me why America is still in the business of possessing territories that do not have full voting rights? These would include (of places with permanent populations) Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Marinas Islands, Guam, and the District of Columbia. Politically speaking, of course, there are loads of reasons why these territories exist in a state of effective colonization — they’re too small, they’re too likely to vote Democratic, they may desire independence (in Puerto Rico’s case, there may be a virtual standoff between independence and statehood forces).

But it seems to me that there is no normative justification whatsoever for this state of affairs. Places should either be independent nations, or should have full voting rights in the country that maintains sovereignty over them — it’s that simple. Even size isn’t really a barrier: D.C. is already bigger than Wyoming in terms of population. A unified “Pacifica” state of American Samoa, Northern Marinas Islands, and Guam would be the smallest U.S. state, but not by an unreasonable margin (it’d have roughly 322,000 people, against Wyoming’s 563,000). Puerto Rico on its own would already have multiple Representatives in Congress (and would likely be combined with the U.S. Virgin Islands for statehood purposes).

And while I agree that these territories (absent D.C.) should be given an option of independence if they desire (akin to the Marshall Islands, for example), I also think their long-standing governance by the United States has given them a valid claim to statehood, if they want it, that we have an obligation to respect. In fact, I think democratic representation is so important that I don’t think it should really be optional — statehood or independence should be a mandatory choice.

It is frankly embarrassing that this country, which serves as a model for democracy the world over, has large swaths of people under its banner who don’t have representation in Congress. It’s wrong, and what’s more, I can’t think of any remotely plausible valid reason for allowing it other than bare inertia.

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20 Responses to American Territories

  1. 1
    Dianne says:

    There may be some justification in the case of Puerto Rico-as far as I know, they do seem to keep voting for the status quo, though I can’t vouch for the fairness of said elections. The others, I have no idea. Ironically, DC seems to be the worst of the group: a population that clearly wants representation not being allowed to have it because…er, actually, I’ve never understood what the argument against was.

  2. 2
    David Schraub says:

    I don’t even think Puerto Rico is justifiable, b/c I don’t think that voting rights should be alienable or barterable. That is to say, I don’t think people should have the option of even voluntarily ceding their right to vote, even in exchange for valuable consideration (such as, for Puerto Rico, exemption from taxes).

  3. 3
    Myca says:

    Ironically, DC seems to be the worst of the group: a population that clearly wants representation not being allowed to have it because…er, actually, I’ve never understood what the argument against was.

    The argument is pretty clear. It’s that they would vote Democratic, and republicans are opposed to democracy.

    —Myca

  4. 4
    Dianne says:

    @2: I don’t know all that much about Puerto Rico, but the idea of forcing people to vote or at least forcing the right to vote on them makes my head hurt. If people truly freely agree that democracy, at least as manifested by voting rights, is not something they want, is it right to say, “Too bad, you have to take it.” OTOH, I’m profoundly uneasy with Puerto Rico’s status and am extremely unconvinced that they’re making a free and informed decision that everyone’s happy with. If everyone’s so thrilled what’s with the net migration into the continental US?

  5. 5
    David Schraub says:

    I’m quite comfortable with mandatory voting laws (like they have in Australia), and even more comfortable with rendering the right to vote inalienable. To me, it’s just a wide-scale version of whether or not one should be allowed to sell one’s vote (or one’s right to vote).

    Obviously, one problem with vote selling is that now the buyer gets two votes instead of one. But let’s nix that and say we’re only talking about the “seller” giving up their right to vote; the buyer doesn’t get a new vote (the buyer still has an interest in the transaction assuming she figures that, absent the transaction, the seller would vote for policies or candidates the buyer disagrees with). What’s the problem with that? I see at least two.

    (1) The potential for exploitation is massive — presumably, persons who most need money will be those most likely to give up their voting rights.

    (2) Part of democracy’s legitimacy is that all members of the polity have a voice in public decision-making, and that legitimacy is dampened to the extent certain members are systematically not participating. Even if the non-participants don’t turn out to be particularly marginalized, the mere fact that certain groups aren’t partaking in the democratic project damages one of the core functions of the democratic order.

    To me, Puerto Rico presents this question on a large scale. The bargain is presented: Give up your right to vote, and we’ll give you extra money (exemption from taxes). That sort of bargain should be null as against public policy when applied to individuals, and I don’t see why the analysis should be any different applied to larger political units. If anything, it is worse there, because 52% of the polity (or however many) are not just trading away their own right, but also the rights of the minority which does want to vote and does want public representation.

  6. 6
    nm says:

    There is an upside, though. I mean, DC has a great license plate.

  7. 7
    Bear says:

    @Myca at 3

    That’s almost exactly it, except that there’s also the added dimension that Congress makes a lot of the decisions for DC, often overriding what the actual local government decides to pursue or what the voters themselves want. If DC were a state, the Republicans in Congress could not force a conservative agenda on DC., such as the abolition of a gun ban.

    Interestingly enough, these are the same conservatives that like to carp about how important states’ rights are to Freedom–while making sure that DC itself doesn’t have access to such Freedom themselves.

  8. 8
    Dianne says:

    Let’s see…Pacifica, Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands, DC…53 states…it won’t do. The flag would be atrocious. Best to split NYC off from upstate NY as well to make a 54 star flag. Much easier to work with.

  9. 9
    Phil says:

    I think I agree with David that the ability to trade your vote away for consideration is a bad thing, even if you want to trade. In a sense, it’s like the selling of organs: the existence of a market itself could be seen as a violation of human rights, even if the people selling their organs do so of their own accord.

    I don’t think citizens should be forced to vote, though. I’m not sure how Australia’s laws work, but I’m in favor of encouraging citizens to vote. If you don’t know enough about a particular election, you should abstain. (In fact, when it comes to ballot initiatives, I would have no problem with voters needing to pass a simple, factual quiz about the text and nature of the law they are voting for in order for their vote to be valid.)

    Dianne, if we’re going to split a state to even out the numbers, we should split California into North California and South California. As long as we’ve got San Francisco in the North and LA in the south, the country would be better off.

    The real reason that Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, etc., haven’t had to choose between statehood and independence is because most American’s don’t know too much about their statuses, or care.

  10. 10
    Hugh says:

    Australia’s laws don’t work. That is, they are rarely enforced, and Australia doesn’t have a notably higher voting rate than most other western democracies despite their not having voter compulsion laws. (It does have a higher rate than the US, but that’s a case of the US, not Australia, being the outlier).

    But that aside, voting is a choice. How can you force somebody to make a choice and claim that choice was meaningful? Most people who don’t vote do so out of apathy, either a lack of interest in politics or a lack of faith in the ability of their vote to make a difference. Legal compulsion might be able to force them to tick a box on a piece of paper but their doing so does not create the form of popular participation in decision making that David is using to justify the idea that everybody should vote, always.

  11. 11
    Ampersand says:

    I’m not in favor of forcing people to check off a box. It’s fine with me if they show up and hand in a blank ballot, indicating either that they don’t know enough to have a preference, or they simply have no preference, or they’re apathetic. (Frankly, I think that all elections should include a “none of the above” option.)

    But I think citizens should have to at least turn in a blank ballot. Participate, even if the participation amounts to no more than a statement of apathy. It’s a reasonable duty to expect of citizens.

    Incidentally, this table on Wikipedia suggests that Australia’s voter turnout is in fact very high compared to most countries, not just compared to the US.

  12. 12
    Dianne says:

    The real reason that Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, etc., haven’t had to choose between statehood and independence is because most American’s don’t know too much about their statuses, or care.

    This statement sounds to me a bit, well, imperialist. It implies that the territories in question should be forced to decide for one of two options, both of which have been rejected, at least by PR and would be if only the “real” US-Americans weren’t so apathetic. The people who live in the various territories know and presumably care what their status is. If they are calling for statehood or independence and the apathy of people in the states is keeping them from obtaining it then that’s one problem but if they’re pleased with their status then I don’t see it as necessarily justified for outsiders to come in and demand that they take something they don’t want.

  13. 13
    Hugh says:

    Hmm, OK, seems I was wrong about Oz. It’s a while since I had those figures quoted to me. Maybe they included the Senate, maybe I just misremembered, I dunno.

    But I stand by my point that you can’t force people to make a choice, and I don’t really see how making people hand in a blank ballot is any different from making them hand in a ballot with a box that they ticked purely out of a desire to not be harassed for breaking the law. I’m all for participation, but participation carried out to avoid a penalty is not participation.

  14. 14
    Phil says:

    It implies that the territories in question should be forced to decide […] if only the “real” US-Americans weren’t so apathetic.

    I didn’t say “real” Americans, I said most Americans.

    […]I don’t see it as necessarily justified for outsiders to come in and demand that they take something they don’t want.

    On the one hand, the idea that people in American territories are a distinct group is so offensive that the word “real” deserves scare-quotes in your post. On the other hand, citizens who vote and pay taxes in the United States are “outsiders” when it comes to the voting rights of people who live in American territories.

    But both of those characterizations are too simplistic. Human rights are a legitimate concern of all people, and if voting is a fundamental right being bartered away by 52% of the people in a territory for monetary gain that comes from citizens in the States, it is reasonable for citizens in the states to question whether it is ethical to contribute to said bartering system.

    […]I don’t really see how making people hand in a blank ballot is any different from making them hand in a ballot with a box that they ticked purely out of a desire to not be harassed for breaking the law.

    I think there’s a big difference. When you hand in a blank ballout, you’re not letting your ignorance of the issues or the candidates potentially fuck up the election results being decided by people who bothered to find out what’s going on.

  15. 15
    machina says:

    FWIW it’s legal to cast blank ballots in Australia. These constitute around 1% of ballots cast at federal elections.

  16. 16
    RonF says:

    Phil:

    Human rights are a legitimate concern of all people, and if voting is a fundamental right being bartered away by 52% of the people in a territory for monetary gain that comes from citizens in the States, it is reasonable for citizens in the states to question whether it is ethical to contribute to said bartering system.

    I agree with this. What other human rights do we allow people to sell? We don’t allow people to sell themselves into slavery.

    It seems to me that the most reasonable endpoint for Puerto Rico is to surrender sovereignty over it to it’s own people; e.g., grant it independence. IIRC it was a Spanish colony that we took over as a result of the Spanish-American war. I think that if it was a colony of some other country we’d hold that it should be independent.

    As far as the other, much smaller islands go, they’d be microstates, unless they federated together or into some other state.

    I consider voting as something that is tied to the individual; I don’t think it’s something that should be considered as an entity in and of itself that can be separated from the individual and sold.

    The blank ballot concept is interesting. In the Boy Scouts the boys annually hold an election to place one or more of their fellow Scouts into an honor society. The winners must win a majority of the ballots cast. Thus, if you don’t cast a ballot you don’t affect the election at all – but if you cast a blank ballot you have essentially cast a vote against all the candidates. I wonder how this might be applied in the case of U.S. elections. What if a candidate had to win 50% + 1 of the vote of all ballots cast? In a close election a few hundred or thousand blank ballots would mean that there would be no winner. Have a runoff election between the top two. If neither of them gets 50%+1 then a new election is held with new candidates (in a very short cycle) with the incumbent staying in office until someone gets 50%+1.

  17. 17
    Ampersand says:

    Ron, I’d favor that, except that instead of holding a new runoff election, I’d make the initial election an Instant Runoff Vote. Much quicker and less expensive than holding separate runoff elections.

    It seems to me that the most reasonable endpoint for Puerto Rico is to surrender sovereignty over it to it’s own people; e.g., grant it independence.

    Puerto Ricans are US citizens. I don’t think it’s “reasonable” to take their citizenship away without their consent; how would you take it if the rest of us decided to revoke your citizenship? (If they vote to become an independent country, that would be different.)

    What’s unreasonable about making Puerto Rico a state? (If that’s what most Puerto Ricans vote for, I mean.)

  18. 18
    RonF says:

    That looks like a valid system, Amp. At one point in the last Mayoral election in Chicago we thought we’d have to go to a runoff, but Rahm surprised everyone. It would save time and money, that’s for sure.

    I do kind of like the concept of “none of the above, send us a new set of names”, though. If more people would just vote in primaries, which for some reason people don’t seem to think of as “real elections”, I don’t think we’d have as much apathy when the general elections rolled around. And I still don’t understand why we vote on Tuesdays instead of weekends when the greatest number of people have more free time and less pressure to shoehorn voting in around school, work, etc. I understand the historical reasons but not why it hasn’t been changed long ago.

    Of course it’s true that Puerto Ricans are currently U.S. citizens. I had neglected to consider that. I agree that it wouldn’t be right to deprive a natural-born citizen of that citizenship. Let me think that one over.

    There’s nothing unreasonable with making Puerto Rico a State if they have chosen to become one. But in multiple elections they haven’t. They’ve voted for the status quo. Everyone seems to think that’s unsatisfactory except the Puerto Ricans themselves.

  19. 19
    Phil says:

    Ron, I’d favor that, except that instead of holding a new runoff election, I’d make the initial election an Instant Runoff Vote. Much quicker and less expensive than holding separate runoff elections.

    I favor the idea of instant runoff voting, and I like ranked ballots, generally, because they allow people to vote for third-party candidates without fear that they are “throwing their vote away.”

    I don’t think the idea that voting is mandatory can be combined with the idea that a blank ballot is a vote for “none of the above.” The reason I like the idea of a blank ballot is because that means that if a citizen doesn’t know enough about a particular election, then their vote doesn’t fuck up the results for the people who bothered to pay attention to that particular race.

    Giving any kind of weight to a blank ballot, even if you’re only counting it as a vote to be weighed against all other ballots equally, opens up the door for people who don’t really care to impact the election with their ignorance.

    I don’t think you can have both: if you’re going to make voting mandatory, it’s important to allow people to have a vote that doesn’t count (if they so choose). If you’re going to institute a system where not voting for any of a field of candidates can affect the outcome of an election, then you shouldn’t make voting mandatory.

    My opinion is that there is a system for determining the field of candidates for local, state, and national offices in the U.S.. If you don’t like the slate of candidates for a particular office, the appropriate time to make your voice heard was prior to the election.

  20. 20
    Ampersand says:

    Phil, why not have a box to check off (or rank, in an IRV system) that says “none of the above”? That way, people can actively choose to vote for none of the above, or they can choose to leave the ballot blank.