reinventing elections
Against the backdrop of the “permanent campaign” that now characterizes American politics, thousands of Americans from every part of the country just participated in a nation-wide electoral process that has no campaigning and that takes less than an hour to complete. Anyone looking for alternatives to increasingly dysfunctional systems of partisan democracy might be interested in examining this unique electoral process.
Every year, during the first two weeks in October, the American Bahá’í community holds elections in 158 electoral districts across the country. The purpose of these “unit conventions” is to elect delegates who will subsequently elect the national governing body of the Bahá’í community. A similar process occurs in over 180 other countries around the world. As Bahá’ís participate in this process, they are not merely electing their own governing bodies. They are constructing a new model of democratic governance from the ground up.
So how do Bahá’í elections work?
The election process has no nominations and no campaigns. In fact, it has no competition of any form because, in the Bahá’í system, governance is not structured as a contest of power. Rather, it is a call to service. In this regard, every adult has an opportunity to vote, is eligible to be voted for, and has a responsibility to serve if elected.
Voting is conducted in a reverent atmosphere in which each person casts a secret ballot that reflects their personal assessment of who, in their electoral unit, has the integrity and capacity to serve in an elected capacity. There are no discussions before or during the process, so no vote is influenced by anyone else’s opinions. And if anyone seeks to solicit votes in the period leading up to the election, this is considered a display of ego indicating the person is not fit for selfless service to the community.
In this way, voters exercise true freedom of choice in voting. Partisan filtering processes are completely absent, as are the biasing influences of campaign rhetoric and punditry.
Individuals who cannot attend the convention are free to mail their ballot in advance. For those in attendance, the balloting process takes only a matter of minutes. When the ballots are counted, those individuals who are named the most frequently on ballots are elected to a form of service they had not sought, but are well qualified for.
Since there was no campaigning (and hence no campaign financing), and since the elected members did not seek election (or re-election), and since they were elected based on the community’s collective but unspoken assessment of their integrity and capacity for selfless service, the corrupting influences of ego and money are eliminated from the electoral processes.
This same basic process is also used to elect governing bodies at the local, national, and international levels of the Bahá’í community. And it has proven itself effective in every culture on earth.
Given the crisis of legitimacy facing so many democracies around the world today, it is worth reflecting on several insights that might be drawn from the Bahá’í experience.
First, when it comes to democratic governance, processes of social innovation need not, and indeed have not, come to an end. Prevailing systems of partisan democracy were remarkable historical accomplishments when they first emerged. But they emerged over 200 years ago. It’s time to take stock of all of the lessons learned in those 200 years and begin the difficult but necessary process of constructing viable systems of democratic governance for the twenty-first century and beyond.
Second, tinkering with minor aspects of the partisan political system, such as campaign finance reforms and term limits, will never be sufficient. Rather, some of the deepest underlying assumptions need to be revisited. This includes the assumption that democratic governance is best structured as a contest for power. Contests of power inherently privilege those with the most power. Structuring governance this way merely serves the narrow interests of those segments of society with the most power.
Third, while open-minded observers might be attracted to the structure of the Bahá’í electoral system, it is important to recognize that such a system could never be imposed from above, nor could it be adopted overnight. Rather, the system is only possible when participation is supremely voluntary, and it only works to the degree that a culture of mature participation is cultivated over time. The Bahá’í community has been constructing this system, learning what it takes to make it work, and fostering a culture that supports it, for almost one hundred years. The community’s success, in this regard, has been built on the simultaneous development of systems for the spiritual education and empowerment of growing numbers of participants, beginning in their formative years. Thus the Bahá’í community recognizes the mutually interdependent process by which individuals and the institutional structures they participate in must develop and mature together.
With that said, skeptics might argue that it is naïve or unrealistic to try to extrapolate, from the experience of the Bahá’í community, lessons that might be applied to democratic electoral processes in large, complex, pluralistic nation-states. Yet one could argue that it is even more naïve and unrealistic to assume that any nation can continue to cling to partisan systems that have been deeply corrupted by money and special interests, have lost the respect of the populations they purport to serve, and are proving increasingly incapable of addressing the challenges now facing humanity. Thus it seems fair to suggest that, at a minimum, it is time to begin a searching conversation about the reinvention of democracy.
As Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, wrote over a century ago: “The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appeareth to be lamentably defective… Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.”
