Fair Elections Update
April 3, 2003
To: Friend of Fair
Elections Fr: Rob Richie, Executive
Director The Center for Voting and
Democracy
, [email protected]
Re: Democracy in America: Overdue for an
Upgrade
Full
Representation: Supreme Court Justices Say Yes; It Plays in Peoria;
A Win in South Dakota
Instant Runoff: 20 State Bills; On Line
Use; More Big Wins
for Fair Elections on Campus / Internships
New
Resources for Democracy Advocates
Fair
Elections Rundown: Spanning the Globe -
Fair Vote Canada's Annual Meeting - Finland's Full Representation
Election - Women and Full Representation - IRV Elections in the
United Kingdom - US House Election Data - Free Air Time Coalition
Update - Audit trails for Touchscreen Style Voting Thanks for Helping Us Meet the
Challenge
(For more information about any
issues discussed here and about how to support our Center, visit www.fairvote.org or email us at
[email protected]
. To subscribe/unsubscribe from these newsletters,
which generally are sent on a monthly basis, please see the end of
this message.) DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA: DUE FOR AN
UPGRADE If nothing else, the process
leading to war in Iraq has revealed weakness in our democracy.
Whether one supports the war or not, it's hard to defend the level
of dialogue in Congress about President Bush's dramatic shift in
foreign policy to the concept of pre emptive warfare. It's also hard
to be proud of our elections when: 1) a study by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance
indicates that the United States
ranks 139th in the world in average voter turnout in national
elections since 1945; 2) when our U.S. Senate lacks even one African
American or Latino; 3) when the number of women in Congress is
stalled at less than 15%; 4) when barely one in ten voters elected a
majority of U.S. House members in 2002; and 5) when more than 40% of
state legislators have won without major party opposition in
elections since 1996. Talk of bringing democracy to
Iraq is one question, but, as argued in a recent commentary
by colleague Steven Hill and me
,
having the kind of vital democracy we deserve at home is critically
important to our national well being and future. An energized
democracy demands meaningful choices across the political spectrum,
full participation before and after elections, robust public debate,
efficient election administration and accurate voting machines,
effective voter education, and recognition of the importance of
American pluralism. Voters must have a reasonable chance of electing
their preferred representatives instead of "lessers of two evils,"
and of electing a government that makes a positive difference in
their lives. For our Center, the most profoundly necessary reforms
are the replacement of our 18th century winner take all election
methods with "full representation" electoral systems for legislative
elections, and instant runoff voting for electing executive offices.
These fair election methods lay the bedrock for a multi choice,
voter centric democracy, and allow the marketplace of ideas to
flourish in campaigns and government. There are a range of democracy
groups working on reforms which we will highlight on our website as
the year progresses. Two websites of particular short term interest
are Electionline (with
articles posted daily about democracy developments in states and a
weekly report on implementation of the federal Help America Vote
Act) and Demos
(Demos' site with information about various
democracy issues, the Help America Vote Act and information on how
to subscribe to its newsletter "Dispatches"). The times urgently demand not only
a clarion call for better democracy, but a stronger infrastructure
for a pro democracy movement: one with a principled national voice
for reform and with a vibrant presence across the nation. We need
democracy advocates in all fifty state capitols to lobby for a
vigorous agenda of exclusively pro democracy issues, setting
priorities based on local opportunities for change. And it's high
time for serious national candidates to proclaim a real democracy
agenda, and for serious reformers to develop a concrete strategy for
building a broad and enduring movement. We hope that you will join
us in this mission.
FULL REPRESENTATION:
SUPREME COURT JUSTICES SAY YES, IT PLAYS IN PEORIA, SOUTH DAKOTA WIN
Full representation is a principle describing election systems in
which like minded groups of voters can win a fair share of seats.
Winning a 51% majority of votes wins a majority of seats, but not
all the seats. Winning 20% of votes wins one out of five seats
rather than none. A new book, "Electoral Reform and Minority
Representation" (see below), provides empirical evidence that full
representations systems in the United States have increased
competition and voter turnout along with representation of women and
people of color. PEORIA, Illinois -- the
proverbial heartland city -- this week held its fourth city council
election with full representation. In a hard fought race for five
seats elected by cumulative
voting -- voters re elected five incumbents who apparently well
reflect the city's diversity and spectrum of opinion. An African
American candidate has been elected in each cumulative voting
election since it was adopted to settle a voting rights lawsuit
before the 1991 elections. See a short
article about the election.
Also this week,
on March 31, the SUPREME COURT of the United States issued an
important ruling in "Branch v. Roberts" that clarified that at large
elections for the U.S. House of Representatives are constitutional,
and indeed required under certain circumstances. Two dissenting
Justices argued that the state of Mississippi should have elected
its four U.S. House seats statewide in 2002 and could have complied
with the Voting Rights Act by using a full representation system.
Many political observers are unaware that at large congressional
elections are quite common in American history. The majority of
states did not use single member districts for House elections in
the nation's early years, and at least one state with more than one
seat elected at least one Member statewide in every election until
1970. The Justices spent much time on their differing
interpretation of a 1967 federal law that requires single member
districts for U.S. House elections and a 1941 law that requires at
large House elections under certain circumstances. A four Justice
plurality held that although the 1967 law takes precedent over the
1941 law and that the federal courts were correct to draw their own
single member district plan for Mississippi in 2002, at large
elections would have been required if no district plan had been
available in time. Two Justices (Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence
Thomas) contended that the law indicated Mississippi should have
used at large elections in 2002. Referring directly to alternatives
to winner take all elections, Justice O'Connor wrote: "Finally, the
fact that a court must enter an order under [the 1941 law] mandating
at large elections does not necessarily mean that the plan would
violate [the Voting Rights Act], or that traditional winner take all
elections are required on a statewide basis. Rather... a court could
design an at large election plan that awards seats on a cumulative
basis, or by some other method that would result in a plan that
satisfies the Voting Rights Act." Last month, in fact, WAGNER,
SOUTH DAKOTA settled a voting rights case brought by the ACLU on
behalf of Native American voters by adopting cumulative voting for
school board
elections
.
Kenneth Cotton, an attorney for the school district, said, "It'll be
good for the community, and I think the board obviously felt
comfortable with it." Our Center' field director Rashad Robinson
will assist with community education this spring. Cumulative voting has its longest
history in ILLINOIS, having been used to elect its state house of
representatives from 1870 to 1980. There is broad, cross partisan
support to revive cumulative voting, with advocates including the
state's top Republican, state treasurer Judy Barr Topinka and the
Democratic Secretary of State Jesse White. The state house in
February adopted legislation to make cumulative voting an option for
county
commission elections. CVD General Counsel Dan Johnson Weinberger
has composed a report
on this legislation. A bill to allow any municipality to grant
cumulative voting rights also is moving in the legislature. We also
have drafted a report on
Illinois voting system reform legislation, along with bills in 21
other states.
INSTANT
RUNOFF: LEGISLATION, ON LINE USE, MORE Recommended by Roberts Rules
of Order, instant runoff voting -- http//www.fairvote.org/irv --
simulates a majority runoff election, but in a single election. The
system ensures a majority of voters support the winning candidate,
without the cost, negative campaigning and drop in turnout often
associated with delayed runoff elections. IRV is making sense to more
Americans. Letters about IRV by CVD staff ran this week in the New York
Times and Chicago
Tribune, while recent articles about it include: a supportive
editorial in Washington state's Vancouver
Columbian; a powerful commentary
by Vermont's Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz; and a profile of
FairVote
Minnesota
.
At least 20 states have
considered LEGISLATION on instant runoff voting this year. Several
bills have advanced, including one in Washington
to allow cities to use IRV and one in New Hampshire to study the
issue that have already passed one house. I was invited to address
the Florida state senate about IRV amd runoffs see my Powerpoint
presentation and a St.
Petersburg Times
commentary. New state groups formed recently
to back IRV include one in New
York and two in Massachusetts, Fairvote
Massachusetts and Massacusetts
for Instant Runoff Voting
. For a full rundown of legislation around the nation, see http://www.fairvote.org/action
Note that some states are
debating legislation to require new voting equipment to support
ranked choice voting methods and cumulative voting. This is a
classic case of a small stitch in time saving many times nine. It
would cost little to nothing to require equipment to support fair
election methods as part of new equipment, but potentially a great
deal after the equipment is purchased. Read my recent testimony to a
Ohio
task force and testimony prepared by CVD senior analyst
Terry Bouricius about Connecticut
legislation that has widespread backing from state civic
groups. SAN FRANCISCO is moving ahead
with its instant runoff voting elections this year for the open seat
for mayor. Read an article about a political
rally on behalf of IRV and our appeal to
supporters to help secure that
victory I hope that many of you had an
opportunity to vote in a recent ON LINE IRV election. As announced
in our last update, the news website Alternet held an IRV election
to choose winners in several categories about 2002 movies. The
results are now posted
. Some movies won initial majorities, but several winners were
determined by instant runoffs. Please contact us if you ever would
like would assistance in holding an on line IRV election. Models for
how it might look can be viewed from at http://www.demochoice.org
and http://www.purpletech.com/irv/
.
ELECTION REFORM WAVE
HITS CAMPUSES / INTERNS In a vote that reflects a growing national
trend toward better voting methods, UC San Diego last week adopted
instant runoff voting for student government elections after a
voting systems task force unanimously selected IRV over nine other
systems. Many colleges such as Caltech, MIT, Rice, Harvard and
Princeton have used IRV for years, and now the number is growing
rapidly. Schools recently adopting IRV include Duke, Stanford,
Vassar, UC Davis, Univ. of Maryland, Univ. of Illinois, Whitman and
William and Mary. Many of these colleges use full
representation -- usually choice
voting -- to elect their student governments. After a
vigorous campaign, UC Davis
students voted overwhelmingly to adopt choice voting in February.
As UC
Davis reformer Sonny Mohammadzadeh said "What system truly
represents the people better: A system that allows minorities to
elect all or a majority of senators, or that truly, proportionally
represents students accurately?" We have a special page devoted to
fair
elections on campus. Please contact John Russell
for information about advancing fair
elections at your school. We also urge students and
graduates to consider an internship
at the Center -- particularly during the
school year.
NEW RESOURCES FOR DEMOCRACY ADVOCATES There
are a range of good new resources for democracy advocates,
including: CVD's senior analyst Steven
Hill's book Fixing
Elections continues to receive praise. In February he
discussed the book at the Cambridge Forum. His presentation is now
available for download by all public radio stations ask your station
to air the program. You can listen and watch a webcast
and audiocast
of the presentation
online.
New CVD website resources:
Thanks to our great crew of associates (Dan O'Connor, John Russell
and Becky Sternburg), our website has a range of good new resources,
included updating pages on voter turnout, representation of women,
fair election systems on campus, redistricting and much more. Please
peruse links from our homepage
and from our what's
new
page. If you
have a suggestion for us, please send a note to [email protected]
Notable new books include: - Real
Choices, New Voices: How Proportional Representation Elections Could
Revitalize American Democracy (Columbia Univ., 2002) is a must read
update of Douglas Amy's 1992 classic. New Yorker senior writer
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote of it: "Douglas J. Amy puts the issue of
proportional representation where it belongs: on the agenda of
American political reform. His book manages to be at once a lucid
argument, a valuable reference work, and, some of us hope, a
prophecy." See Professor
Amy's website for more information. Electoral Reform and
Minority Representation: Local Experiments with Alternative
Elections, by Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan and David Brockington, Ohio
State University Press. Charles Barrilleaux of Florida State
University said "The authors argue that cumulative voting elections
not only result in greater minority representation, but also provide
normative benefits in the guise of more competitive campaigns and
higher voter turnout than seen in majoritarian elections. [It] will
prove essential reading for students of voting systems." -The
Initiative and Referendum Almanac: A Comprehensive Guide to the
Initiative and Referendum Process in the U.S", By Dane Waters
(Carolina Academic Press, 2003). Almost a 1,000 pages in length, the
Almanac is the most complete and comprehensive history of the
I&R process in the United States. Richard Parker of
Harvard Law School said "As penetrating and stimulating as it is
thorough and even handed, the Almanac will spark and inform debate
about our most democratic process of lawmaking. It is a gift to
activists and scholars alike." We have a description of a range of
other important books on electoral
system reform from recent years.
FAIR ELECTIONS RUNDOWN Fair Vote Canada Holds
Annual Meeting April 25 26:
Canada's vibrant new pro full representation
organization will hold its second Annual Meeting in Ottawa to
strategy about the growing opportunities to achieve reform
in Canada.
Finland's Full
Representation Election: Finland held a national
election on March 16, using an "open list" method of full
representation that some American argue could work well in the
United States. Parties nominate slates of candidates in multi-seat
districts, and voters vote for one candidate. Their vote counts both
for the candidate and the candidate's party. Seats are allocated in
proportion to the party vote, and a party's most popular candidates
fill its share of seats. This year the Centre Party
displaced the Social Democrats as the largest party. Women in Finland won
38% of seats (nearly three times the percentage of seats women hold
in the United States Congress), and Anneli Jaatteenmaki, the woman
head of the Centre Party, is expected to be prime minister. Voter
turnout increased slightly to nearly 70%.
Women and Full
Representation
: New studies indicate that women in
countries from around the world generally enjoy more representation
in national legislatures than do women elected in winner take all
elections in the United States. In March the Center's Rob
Richie and Steven Hill spoke at events on women and representation
organized by the White
House Project
. IRV Elections in the
United Kingdom:
The University of Oxford recently elected Chris Patten Lord
Chancellor using instant runoff voting the first IRV election
after five centuries of
chancellor elections. In
March IRV also was used for the first time to fill a vacancy in the
British House of Lords. 423 members of the House of Lords chose
among a remarkable 81 candidates. More Disturbing US House
Election Data
. In each of the last three congressional elections,
fewer than one in ten U.S. House were won by less than 10% and fewer
than 2% of U.S. House incumbents were defeated, including a historic
low of only four losing to non incumbent challengers in 2002. All of
California's 51 incumbents won by at least 19% after a particularly
blatant incumbent protection plan. Given historical patterns, House
elections almost certainly will get even less competitive as the
decade progresses unless states redraw their lines or adopt full
representation voting methods. The lopsided nature of most of
these races was extremely predictable. Our Center has developed a
cautious model of projecting U.S. House races that accurately
projected 1,262 of 1,263 winners in 1996 2002 and nearly all minimum
victory margins. We already have published our more than 350
projected winners in the November 2004 House elections
. As we prepare for a new release on
federal elections, here are a few teaser statistics: - 218 U.S.
House candidates were elected by only 28% of all voters in 2002.
With 40% turnout in House elections, that means barely one in ten
adult Americans elected U.S. House candidates who can pass
legislation. And of course the majority of these winners were for
effectively elected after winning their primary elections, in whch
far fewer people vote and winners in open seats often win with less
than a majority. - If you doubt whether redistricting has an impact
on incumbent protection, consider that of House incumbents who had
won relatively close races in 2000, more than three in four ran in
district in 2002 that were more favorable for their party. Among all
incumbents, 20 districts were moved from being swing districts to
ones generally safe for their party. In California and Texas, there
were 14 "swing" districts according to underlying district
partisanship in 2000; that number was reduced to two before the 2002
elections. - There were 70 statewide races -- ones that of course
cannot be gerrymandered -- for governor and Senate in 2002. The
winner had 55% or more of the vote in fewer than half (47%) of these
races, and only 24% of these races were won with 60% or more. At the
same time, there were 435 U.S. House races. The winner had 55% or
more of the vote in fully 91% of these races, with 81% won with at
least 60% Free Air Time Coalition
Update: As
of early March, more than 40 organizations have endorsed S 3124, the
"Political Campaign Broadcast Activity Improvements Act" introduced
last fall by Senators McCain, Feingold and Durbin. The complete list
of endorsing organizations is available at the campaign website www.freeairtime.org
. Audit trails for
Touchscreen Style Voting:
Growing attention has been focused on requiring
touchscreen style voting equipment to have a voter verifiable paper
trail. We believe that even if concerns about this issue can
overstated, voter perception of fairness in elections demands it be
addressed. We favor paper trails and the
use of open source code.
THANKS FOR HELPING US MEET THE CHALLENGE In January a CVD
supporter challenged supporters to make $15,000 in donations in
honor of the March 2003 anniversary of our big wins for instant
runoff voting in San Francisco and Vermont in 2002. In February
another supporter stepped forward to add $5,000 to that match. I am
pleased to report that members contributed more than $20,000,
allowing us to take full advantage of these two matches. Thanks to
all who helped! If you haven't had a chance to
give to the Center yet this year, I urge you to consider doing so.
Information is available at www.fairvote.org/donate.htm
. Note also that Working Assets has selected us as one of its
donor groups in 2003. Its customers will be able to vote for us
later in the year.
SUBSCRIBING/UNSUBSCRIBING We send out updates about once a
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. The Center for Voting and
Democracy is a non profit organization based in Washington D.C. It
is headed by former Congressman and presidential candidate John B.
Anderson. We are devoted to increasing public understanding of
American politics and how to reform its rules to provide better
choices and fairer representation. Our website (www.fairvote.org)
has information on voting methods, redistricting and voter turnout.
As we rely heavily on individual donations, please consider a
contribution by mail (6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610, Takoma Park MD
20910) or on line at www.fairvote.org/donate.htm
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