By far, our nation’s strangest large system, containing the most diverse thinking, is a government of the people, by the people. Above all, people are a mixed bag. The catalyst that makes this system grow stranger and stranger is the defining role that elections have in governing. To win elections, our system has evolved so that the widely diverse opinions among the people have to be crammed into two competing “species” known as “parties”, namely “R” and “D”.

Strictly speaking, squeezing the U.S. into two breeds is impossible. R and D are notably smaller blocs than registered Independents. So, electioneers focus on which party is more dangerous. For election purposes, Rs and Ds turn from wrestling with varied priorities to wrestling over whose blind side is worse.

Yet not so long ago, both parties would pursue major issues facing the nation, such as immigration policy. Issues were explored by bringing out their key concerns.

In his 1995 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton spoke about immigration, saying:

Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. …We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.

These words drew a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle, which made perfect sense. True and clear, we hear all three key concerns of any useful immigration policy: (1) economics, (2) a nation of immigrants, (3) a nation of laws.

Year by year, each party, and its respective cohorts, then heaped greater emphasis on its own priorities and said less and less about the mixed concerns that conceive remedies to problems. Today, candidates from either party who would dare hint at the three broad concerns that steer immigration policy would be censured by their own party, in hopes that that party zeal might line up votes for their party on election day.

This trend has metastasized until lots of national campaign issues now reduce to one theme. Campaign rhetoric tells us which party supports democratic elections and which party opposes democracy. In a paragraph further on, system designers translate this election phrasing into everyday words. Then brood upon how far election jargon deviates from plain talk. Meanwhile, in politics, the national voting problem follows the pattern of other big national problems. To wit, each party prioritizes one of the two key aspects of voting systems and each party dodges the other vital aspect. Thereby, remedies to problems remain badly hobbled.

The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project began in December 2000 in response to voting problems that threatened that year’s U.S. presidential election. The Caltech/MIT VTP describes their work in assessing and improving the two prime concerns regarding voting systems. In workplace terms, the VTP is active in “ways to make the process of voter registration more secure and more accessible.” As with immigration policy, a few clear words set forth a national vision of democracy. That is, designing voting systems to be both (1) more secure and (2) more accessible.

The combined concerns that spark remedies are unheard in election ballyhoo.