BEYOND

 WINNER-TAKE-ALL

Choice Voting & 

Instant Runoff Voting as Models for 

American Democracy

The City of Cambridge, the Cambridge Election Commission and the Center for Voting and Democracy are holding a forum and open house about rising interest in innovative election rules, such as: 

* Choice voting, used since 1941 in Cambridge (MA) and in other nations like Ireland 

*  Instant runoff voting, recently adopted for city elections in San Francisco (CA) 

* Proportional representation, as used to elect convention delegates to the Democratic National Convention 

Highlights include:

• An Open House with opportunities to talk with elected officials and members of the Cambridge Election Commission on how Cambridge's choice voting method of full representation (also called "proportional representation") works for electing the city council and school committee.

• Forum with election administrators and local and state elected officials on their use of ranked ballots (1, 2, 3) and full representation where a tenth of the citywide vote elects one of the nine council members, resulting for decades in diverse and representative local councils and school committees.

Speakers include:

• Alice K. Wolf, Moderator; Massachusetts State Representative from the 25th Middlesex District, former Mayor of Cambridge

• George Goverman, Attorney; Cambridge Election Commissioner 1976-80, Co-author of manual on conducting a PR Count

• Dan Johnson-Weinberger, General Counsel for the Center for Voting and Democracy; a founder of the Midwest Democracy Center

• Mark Leno, California State Assembly Man from San Fransisco; former member of the Board of (Election) Supervisors

• Dr. Pippa Norris, McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; author of over thirty books, including Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior

• James Roosevelt, Jr., Attorney; Member of Democratic National Committee, Massachusetts State, and Cambridge City Committees

Articles

• Boston Globe:  "To some, eccentric voting offers much."  Article highlighting the benefits of choice voting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, featuring CVD's general counsel, Dan Johnson-Weinberger.  August 15, 2004.