A triumph for democracy

So the US Presidential Elections of 2012 are finally over. For most of you, it is a tired sigh of relief after the wall to wall, screen to screen, frequency to frequency coverage of the election over the last year. And this is from someone who lives in uncontested California. Cant imagine the horror of living in battleground states like Ohio, Florida or Virginia. Now its all done. One candidate won his reelection. The challenger lost. The pundits were wrong. Most of the pollsters and many of the math geeks were right (shout out to Sam Wang and Nate Silver here). More on that later. But this post is not about President Obama. This post is about some good stuff that came out of this election that thrilled me to bits.Money does not matter any more than the voice of the peopleSince Citizens United was passed in 2010, the rise of the SuperPACs has been a worrying sign for the individual voter. With hundreds of millions being donated from unknown sources with their own self interests, the races- Senate, House and Presidential, were being threatened to be one of who bags the most money. This election cycle reportedly cost $6 billion of which over $2 billion was expected to be from SuperPACs. With this background, the fact that the Democractic party and President Obama were able to win with a great ground game speaks volumes for the power of the people.People want to voteOne of the biggest challenges to the electoral process all over the world is the lack of enthusiasm among the youth. In 2008,  President Obama rode a remarkable wave of youth optimism to the White House. But 4 years and a slowly recovering economy later, there were questions about the youth vote being a one time affair.Voter ID laws across the country were also in the focus and voter supression was feared in many battleground states. Amidst all this, people turned out to vote and how. In a remarkable show of strength of the democratic process people stood in line, sometimes for 8 hours to vote. While 8 hour waits reveal a bigger problem in the voting process, the patience of the people in line speaks volumes for their desire to vote and be heard. While overall turnout fell a tad short of historic 2008 numbers, in places where every vote mattered, people turned up. In all critical battleground towns and cities, people just wanted to vote. The youth vote was up too which is a heartening sign of a new generation willing to exercise its franchise.Latinos matterThis election was decided by the burgeoning Latinos community and a strong African American turnout for the President especially in Colorado, Florida and Nevada. These states, once Republican bastions are now having a greater share of Hispanics who favored the President 3:1. At this rate, Arizona will be competitive in 2016 and Texas may be in play by 2020 or 2024. America is reportedly adding 50,000 new Hispanic voters every month. And no party can ignore their voices anymore. And with their resurgence comes the hope for comprehensive immigration reform that the President promised in his first term but will hopefully get to in the second.Women are taking center stageDuring this election cycle, women's issues came to the fore like never before. Anti-abortion laws being enacted across the country, new provisions of the Health Care law that help women get the care they need, a possible defunding of Planned Parenthood, the Akin affair and most recently the Mourdock affair played a big role in how women voted this election cycle. But beyond all those news headlines, this is what makes it special. Massachussetts elected its first female Senator. New Hampshire's representation in Washington D.C is all women. In all, there are more women Senators this time than ever before (20). And it will only get better from here. That day is not far off when we have a female President of United States of America.Its all about the dataOne of the most controversial elements of this election was the formal emergence of data driven analysis of the election. Pollsters have long tried to gauge which way the electorate leans. But aggregating all this copious amounts of data with historic leanings to produce voting models took off big time this year. As an engineer, this election was paradise for me as I religiously followed Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog and Sam Wang's meta-margin analysis everyday. I followed every single poll from IPSOS/Reuters, Rasmussen, PPP, Gallup, CNN, CBS/NYT, NBC/WSJ and what not. I spent on an average 90 minutes a day consuming this information on my smartphone, tablet and laptop. When every single prediction of Nate Silver, I was thrilled to bits. It was as if all of math and science was vindicated yesterday. Big data in electoral analysis is here to stay. And Nate is leading the charge. America is progressiveImagine this. Wisconsin sent the first openly gay person to the Senate in Tammy Baldwin. Three states approved same-sex marriage referendums. Two states legalised pot. This tells you that people are willing to expand their minds and hearts. The repeal of Don't Ask Dont Tell and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals passed earlier this summer helped the President. Future Presidents will have to continue to be progressive to make voter inroads in an increasingly diverse electorate.A voter base that is increasingly young, socially progressive (not necessarily liberal) and diverse is a positive sign for any country. For all the talk of America no longer being the beacon for the world, the democractic process that allows such a voter base to demonstrate their preference in a peaceful manner is still the benchmark for the rest of the world to follow. Yes, there are problems to be solved in the electoral process- long lines, voting machine issues, voter ID problems, outside money and what not. But compare this to how much of the world elects its leaders and you will see what I mean.A final note. I come from the world's most populous democracy. I am proud of my country. But the electoral process in my country is broken. It is rife with fraud and corruption at every level. Suitcases of money are exchanged for votes and support in coalition. The mandate of the people rarely matters. And India's election process is significantly better than much of the countries in Asia and Africa and parts of East Europe and Latin America. So given that background, when I see how the 2012 Presidential Elections unfolded, all I can say is "Wow!".