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Wednesday Morning Rant

Language of Confusion

NOTE: This piece was written before final election results came in last night. As a result, this is not about yesterday's winners and losers, though it is election-related. Feel free to go off-topic to the news of the day

On one of the weekend threads, I saw a comment that enraged me. Not because the commenter was wrong or offensive or because he was dishonest or anything like that, but because his comment underscored a very real problem that surfaces in nearly every election: the powers that be playing language games to con the public:

We voted early last week here in Texas. 17 constitutional amendments on the ballot. I skipped one because I could not understand what they were trying to accomplish the language was so convulated.

This is so common with ballot language that you can set your watch by it. Somebody wants to put one over on the public, and so writes something so confusing that they get the outcome they want through pure inscrutability. It isn't even as simple as "vote for or against or sit it out," because depending on how it is written, any of those things can be what the con men who wrote it actually want. The "see who's for it and decide accordingly" approach is usually better, but even that is still fraught with peril.

Here's an example from the great state of California:

Eliminates Recently Enacted Road Repair and Transportation Funding by Repealing Revenues Dedicated for those Purposes.
Repeals a 2017 transportation law's taxes and fees designated for road repairs and public transportation.

What does that mean? If you concluded, "repeals a tax cut and raises taxes," go collect your winnings. You're one of the few who would read, "tax hike" instead of "tax cut" based on that language.

There are countless examples, and it is representative of one of the most opaque and corrupt part of the elections process. But what to do about it? Law is complicated (on purpose, but nonetheless it is complicated) and consequences can be hard to judge. Differences of opinion are real, and many are valid. It's a tricky problem. I have periodically thought about this problem, usually when confronted with appalling ballot language in Colorado (that state is terrible on this front).

One idea I've had is what I call the "C-Average Standard." First, create ballot language according to whatever rules apply today. Then, the finalist language is distributed to high schoolers at schools within the jurisdictions subject to the ballot measure, at least one high school per school district. The students to whom the ballot language is distributed must have a "C" average - a GPA of 2.0-2.75. Not the total dumbasses, but also not the top students. The "average" students. Have them read it and then describe its effects. No computers. No phones. Test-taking rules.

If more than 5% or 100 students - whichever is smaller - fails to accurately interpret the effect of the ballot measure, the language is rejected and the sponsors have to try again. Do it until C-average high school students can understand the issue. If the ballot writers fail to develop comprehensible language before the ballots are printed, the measure is canceled and does not go to a vote at all.

The "C-Average" standard would have resulted in a total rewrite of the example above. It looks like a tax cut, and that's what a lot of people would say about it. If you don't know in advance that the "recently enacted road repair and transportation funding" law that was to be repealed was a cut to the gas tax, there's no way you would know. The ballot language makes sure of that, because it was written by con men looking to put one over on the voting public.

What would you do about deceptive ballot language? Is it a solvable problem at all?