Unforgettable robbery! Corruption! Undeserved!

Are these comments from the recent US Presidential Election? No, they are reactions to the announcement of the most important individual award in the world’s most popular sport: soccer’s Balon D’or. Spanish defensive midfielder Rodri received the award over Brazilian forward Vinicius Junior, who was almost universally regarded at the favorite leading up the the ceremony. When the news leaked to Vinicius Junior’s camp that he would not be receiving the prestigious award, he and everyone else at his club Real Madrid canceled their travel plans, boycotting the ceremony. While certainly unconventional, this surprise result may be able to provide surprising insight into the mechanics of democratic erosion. Specifically, I will examine how changes in the voting systems demonstrate how democratic institutions can be eroded, intentionally or unintentionally, through election reform. To accomplish this, I will compare targeted reductions in the electorate in American politics and soccer’s Balon D’or voting process. By using the Balon D’or as a foil for democratic politics, we can abstract away from political biases and demonstrate statistically the effects of manipulating voter eligibility.

First, it is important to understand the voting mechanism behind the Balon D’or award. The award is organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and Groupe Amaury, the parent organization of prestigious soccer-focused media outlets France Football and L’equipe. A team composed of editorial staff from both media outlets, a UEFA ambassador (this year was former professional player Luis Figo), and the journalist whose votes most closely aligned with the overall results the previous year (this year was a journalist from Costa Rica) selects a 30 player shortlist based on standardized criteria. This shortlist is then passed along to a soccer journalist from each country ranked within the top 100 of FIFA’s most recent rankings. These journalists select 10 players, who are awarded 15, 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points respectively. The player who receives the highest point tally receives the Balon D’or.

After the controversial results of the 2021 Balon D’or, France Football reduced the total number of journalists voting on the award from 211 to 100. Previously, one representative from every FIFA member nation was able to vote on the award. When announcing the change, France Football described it as “a tightening which reinforces the level of expertise and limits the (rare) fanciful votes. What will be lost in picturesqueness will be gained in legitimacy and reliability.”[1] Since voting records for the Balon D’or are publicly available, many soccer fans have noticed some bizarre votes cast by journalists. Famously, a Sri Lankan journalist voted for extreme long shot candidates Leonardo Bonucci and Trent Alexander-Arnold in 2017 and 2019 respectively. By transitioning voting from a universal right, to a privilege afforded to the most successful soccer playing nations, France Football hoped to achieve more accurate results. One can easily see how this very same logic could be applied to less trivial democratic institutions.               

A ’real world’ example of intentionally shrinking the electorate to attain more ‘desirable’ election results were the Jim Crow policies in the United States. This era of United States history, roughly from the 1880s through the 1960s, was characterized by racial segregation and intense discrimination towards Black Americans. One tool commonly used by White election officials to disenfranchise Black voters was a ‘literacy test’. The exact circumstances under which this test would be administered changed on a state-to-state basis, but the fundamental idea remained the same: use the guise of election integrity to control who gets to vote. While this may seem like an outdated example, less extreme versions of this practice continue through the modern day in developed democracies around the world. Another example from the United States are the varying bans or restrictions on voting rights for felons and formerly incarcerated individuals. These individuals are seen as having forfeited their voting rights or are simply deemed undesirable for the voting population. In both cases, those in charge of legislating on election systems deliberately sought to weaken specific segments of the voting population based on their personal goals, beliefs, and prejudices.

Returning to the world of soccer, the changes made to the voting system may have directly altered the outcome of this year’s award. The reduced total number of votes disproportionately increased the voting power of European journalists. Of the 211 total FIFA member nations, 55 are classified as European. By contrast, of the 100 countries afforded a vote in this year’s Balon D’or election, 38 were classified as European. Therefore, France Football’s attempts to restore “legitimacy and reliability” by changing the voting system increased European voting power in the Balon D’or by over 145% relative to other regions. This power shift is especially relevant when one factor in the voting tendencies of various regions of the world. A brilliant piece of analysis by the instagram account @gasipo_opinions found that European journalists voted for Rodri 25% more than Vinicius Junior, while Arabic and African journalists voted for Vinicius 29% and 11% respectively more than Rodri. If we assume regional trends stay relatively consistent across countries without a vote in this year’s award, Vinicius Junior would probably have emerged victorious.

Manipulating the relative power of voting blocs is a textbook example of democratic erosion.[2] While governments tend not to simply declare that over half of the voting population can no longer vote, subtler methods can yield similar results. America’s Electoral College is an excellent historical example of relative power’s importance in democracies. Voters in less populous states, like Wyoming and Vermont, hold disproportionate influence over US presidential elections due to their ratio of population to electoral votes. Wyoming has one electoral college vote per 143,800 people and Vermont has one vote per 166,600 people. When compared to their counterparts in California, Florida, or Texas, voters in Wyoming and Vermont have over three times the electoral votes per capita.

For a clearer instance of democratic erosion, we can turn to a 2019 lawsuit brought by the ACLU against Texas Secretary of State David Whitley and Director of Elections Keith Ingram over attempted discriminatory voter roll purges. The ACLU alleged, and the courts agreed, that Texas “officials created and sent a flawed advisory to counties that flagged tens of thousands of registered voters for citizen reviews, despite knowing that the list included naturalized citizens eligible to vote.” The group of voters the Texas state leadership sought to purge from voter rolls tend to vote for the opposition party, thus disenfranchising them could secure victory in the next election.

Despite these concerns, purging voter rolls is not an inherently evil practice. There are several uncontroversial reasons why a voter’s name should be removed from the polls, such as the voter passing away or moving out of the jurisdiction. Because this issue is rarely as clearly malicious and bigoted as was the case with Jim Crow policies, politicians can use this nebulous nature to disguise their attempts at democratic erosion. The fine line between upholding election integrity and anti-democratic efforts is open for individual interpretation. The politicians restricting felons’ voting rights or France Football’s reducing the number of voting journalists may genuinely believe they are protecting election integrity. Regardless of one’s personal opinions on individual cases, decisions to reduce the total number of eligible voters in any context should be evaluated closely and assessed based on the potential eroding effects on democracy.

1. Translated from the original French using Google Translate
2. Huq, Aziz and Tom Ginsburg. 2017. “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy.” UCLA Law Review 65(78): page 136