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What Georgia teaches us about the problems with winner-take-all elections

Opinion

Kelly Loeffler

Kelly Loeffler is one of two senators seeking reelection in a double runoff in Georgia on Tuesday. The winner-take-all approach in a second round of voting highlights the system's absurdity, writes Fain.

Alex Wong/Getty Images
Howard Fain
By Howard FainJan 05, 2021
Howard Fain
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Fain is a consultant for election reform groups including More Equitable Democracy, which focuses on improving political power for people of color. He was a founder of FairVote, which promotes ranked-choice voting.

It's double Senate election day in Georgia. And all eyes are on the outcome of a monstrously high-stakes, titanic struggle for the heart and soul of the nation — and the unfathomable resources, both emotional and financial, spent to influence the results.

Contrary to the deep divisions and diversity of interests burbling at the surface, the winning side (if one party takes both seats) will declare that "the people of Georgia" believe what their candidates believe, regardless of how razor-thin their victories. This party will crow about having the superior get-out-the-vote ground game — as if that were equivalent to having better policy proposals or values, or an agenda more meaningfully representative of voters' real interests. Should there be a split decision, the losers' personal flaws will be dissected to explain the anomaly.

At its core, though each election is a runoff where two people survived for a second round, Georgia highlights the absurdity of winner-take-all elections — especially when so many Americans are already frustrated by limited choices. Anticipating some delicious democracy in the Peach State, we got a democracy demolition derby instead.

Republicans' vaunted voter suppression of Black votes has been linked to the closeness of elections in the demographically evolving state. Every crime has three elements, and voter suppression is no exception. Racism is the motive. Control of the levers of government has provided the means. But the opportunity has derived from winner-take-all elections themselves. Close races in a changing state are exactly where voter suppression can be expected to pay the greatest dividends.

Around the world, the antidote for American winner-take-all insanity — seen so vividly in Georgia's Senate races as well as its super-close presidential outcome — is the measured rationality and true majority rule offered by proportional representation.

Yes, elections for president and the Senate must have single winners, because when there's only one person getting the job then the races must be winner-take-all.

But the House, state legislatures, and county or city councils could all be redesigned for proportional elections, and it's clear they should be.

The outsized importance, scorched earth tactics and exclusionary results endemic to such electoral battlegrounds as Georgia shouldn't be the way we determine the "soul of our nation." Duels between individual gladiators in the electoral arena are not the way to conclusively determine what America really stands for.

That's because what America stands for — or should stand for — is pluralism. The traditional national motto, after all, is "E pluribus unum," Latin for "Out of many, one." And that's one nation, not one winner.

What we need are proportional "participation trophies" for all voters and their preferred representatives. Fairly representing the interests of all voters tends towards coalition governance and true majority rule. Winner-take-all leads to polarization, even the arrival in the House this week of a Georgian who supports QAnon conspiracies — flying under cover of winning a "majority" election.

A shift of a mere 43,000 presidential votes — the cumulative margins of victory in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin — would have created a tectonic shift in national policy by giving Donald Trump a second term. Several Senate races had outcomes almost as close, and had the Democrats won two of them then the stakes in Georgia would not be very high right now. Is it possible the future of our nation was determined by a North Carolina candidate's amorous text messages? For want of that nail, our nation might have lost its soul?

Close elections may be more thrilling (just ask the spectators in ancient arenas, we suppose) but they are not inherently more democratic. For voters unable to elect a representative of their choice, losing with 49 percent is no more democratic than getting a mere 30 percent.

Tossup winner-take-all races down ballot in Georgia were no prettier this year. The horror of the half-billion-dollar twin Senate contests was nearly matched by the relative cost of the contest in state House District 132, a politically purple area southeast of Atlanta. It's home to just one in every 180 Georgians, but the national Republican state legislative campaign organization, alone, invested $1 million to help defeat the House's Democratic minority leader by 666 votes with ads linking him (unfairly) to rioters and anarchists.

To be sure, the Democrats spent heavily on targeted races, too, and succeeded in defeating the GOP chairman of the state House Ways and Means Committee in an evolving area of suburban Gwinnett County.

Both races beg the question: Why not just have a system that flexibly adapts to such demographic and political changes, and is able to represent all voters?

The key to breaking the winner-take-all stranglehold is adopting a fair proportional method to elect representatives from districts with multiple members. (There are several possible systems in use across the globe.) With more seats to be filled, more voters can successfully elect a representative of choice — so long as a proportional system is deployed.

Averting your gaze from the Senate election for a moment, consider October's elections in "the other Georgia," the country half a world away. In their parallel system — split between winner-take-all, with majority-required runoffs, and proportional party seats — the ruling party won 75 percent of the seats in Parliament with just 48 percent voter support.

But that's not the main story. After even more unbalanced results in 2016, the government violently suppressed protests demanding greater proportionality. The United States condemned the crackdown and supported the demands, and American diplomats then played a critical role in brokering an agreement that will bring full proportionality to Georgia in three years.

Now it's time to watch the final battle of the four senatorial gladiators in the state of Georgia. Only two will be left standing. It would be nice to say the same about our democracy, but that's not certain. Perhaps the U.S. embassy in the other Georgia can help promote proportional democracy back home.


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What Is No Longer Legal After the Supreme Court Ruling

  • Presidents may not impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Court held that IEEPA’s authority to “regulate … importation” does not include the power to levy tariffs. Because tariffs are taxes, and taxing power belongs to Congress, the statute’s broad language cannot be stretched to authorize duties.
  • Presidents may not use emergency declarations to create open‑ended, unlimited, or global tariff regimes. The administration’s claim that IEEPA permitted tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope was rejected outright. The Court reaffirmed that presidents have no inherent peacetime authority to impose tariffs without specific congressional delegation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
  • The president may not use vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language—such as IEEPA’s general power to “regulate”—cannot be stretched to authorize taxation.
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What Remains Legal Under the Constitution and Acts of Congress

  • Congress retains exclusive constitutional authority over tariffs. Tariffs are taxes, and the Constitution vests taxing power in Congress. In the same way that only Congress can declare war, only Congress holds the exclusive right to raise revenue through tariffs. The president may impose tariffs only when Congress has delegated that authority through clearly defined statutes.
  • Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Balance‑of‑Payments Tariffs). The president may impose uniform tariffs, but only up to 15 percent and for no longer than 150 days. Congress must take action to extend tariffs beyond the 150-day period. These caps are strictly defined. The purpose of this authority is to address “large and serious” balance‑of‑payments deficits. No investigation is mandatory. This is the authority invoked immediately after the ruling.
  • Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (National Security Tariffs). Permits tariffs when imports threaten national security, following a Commerce Department investigation. Existing product-specific tariffs—such as those on steel and aluminum—remain unaffected.
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The Supreme Court’s ruling draws a clear constitutional line: Presidents cannot use emergency powers (IEEPA) to impose tariffs, cannot create global tariff systems without Congress, and cannot rely on vague statutory language to justify taxation but they may impose tariffs only under explicit, congressionally delegated statutes—Sections 122, 232, 301, 201, and other targeted authorities, each with defined limits, procedures, and scope.

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