E-News Update
October 16,
2002
To: Friend of Fair Elections
Fr: Rob Richie, Executive Director The Center for
Voting and Democracy www.fairvote.org, [email protected]
Re: - Federal election reform amidst "no-choice
elections" - Highlighted additions to our website - Sample
"CVD Digest"
A Federal Election
Reform Bill.... Finally
The United States may be the world's remaining
superpower and high-tech leader, but we still can't count the votes
right. Analysts estimate that as many as six million more Americans
would have cast valid votes in the 2000 presidential race with
modern and efficient procedures for voting and voter registration.
Just recently, Florida received well-deserved ridicule after yet
another "gang that couldn't shoot straight" fiasco in several
counties in its primary election. Indeed, state after state has had
problems with polls not opening on time, machines breaking down,
voter registration cards getting lost and underpaid pollworkers not
carrying out their duties. In Michigan's hotly-contested
gubernatorial primary, to cite one generally overlooked example,
more than 10% of ballots were invalidated due to voter error in the
wake of yet another faulty ballot design.
It may have taken longer than expected, but Congress
today finally passed legislation to modernize elections. President
Bush is expected to sign the bill into law. The legislation provides
nearly $4 billion to states and counties for better voting machines
and election administration and establishes a new national electoral
commission designed to be a partner with county and state officials
on ensuring the quality and integrity of elections. While the
commission has a far weaker mandate than similar commissions in most
nations and will focus primarily on changes designed to help that
half of the American electorate which already votes rather than the
growing number who rarely participate, its creation is a positive
step. It will consider at least some areas designed to boost voter
turnout such as making Election Day a holiday.
Now the battle for modern and fair
election administration turns to the states, which must develop
plans in order to receive federal money. For more on the bill and
concerns of civil rights groups about provisions that could provide
obstacles to voting, please see the websites of electionline.org and the
Constitution
Project.
Showing good timing, PBS will air a program on
Thursday night (10 pm in most parts of the nation), October 17 on
election reform. Saturday Night Live cast member Darrell Hammond is
featured in "Who Counts? Election Reform in America." The program
suggests that we should explore changes to allow a multi-party
system in order to boost participation.
Monopoly Politics 2002
-- Reign of the No-Choice Election
Make no mistake -- improving election administration
is only a part of what we must do to make our elections worthy of
such a proud democracy. Indeed, our election mechanics could have
become so rusty and inefficient only in a climate where elections
don't mean what they should: where few races are close and where
most people don't care very deeply about who wins. We believe we
must reform our winner-take-all election system because it
fundamentally undermines voter choice and fair representation. We
promote full representation voting methods to elect our legislatures
and instant runoff voting to elect "single winner" offices such as
president. (See our home pages on these issues linked from www.fairvote.org)
Last month, we were pleased that
C-SPAN provided live coverage of the release of our report "Monopoly Politics 2002
: How
No-Choice Elections Rule in a Competitive House." Every
congressional season, we engage in the rather provocative exercise
of projecting the results and likely victory margins in three in
four U.S. House races.
Not only that, but we confidently make these
predictions without using a single fact relating to campaign
spending inequities, the identity of challengers or any
characteristic of the incumbent that might suggest the quality of
their representation such as voting records and constituent service
record. All we need to know are the results from the two most recent
federal elections in the district and the incumbent's party and
seniority. Applied to U.S. House elections in 1996-2000 elections,
our model projected 930 winners. Only one projected winner actually
lost, and we were right in 97% of our victory margin projections.
For 2002, our model projects 332 winners out of 435
races, including 195 candidates winning by landslide margins of at
least 20 percent, and an additional 100 candidates winning by
comfortable margins of at least 10 percent. Of the remaining 103
districts, most in fact will not be competitive either.
This year's lack of real choice for most voters has
troubling ramifications for the rest of the decade. Even though
often very anti-democratic in how it manipulates voters and protects
certain incumbents, redistricting at least historically results in
more competitive elections. But just like the static elections in
1998 and 2000, fewer than one in ten races are expected to be won by
less than 10% this year, and once again more than 98% of incumbents
are likely to defeat non-incumbent challengers. This means that
without significant shifts in Americans' preferences between the two
major parties, we likely will see even less competitive races as the
decade progresses. The lack of competitiveness is often even more
pronounced in state legislative elections.
Without the hope of competitive choices, voters have
little chance to hold representatives accountable and seek new
representation. While we think of ours as a two-party system, the
frame of reference of most voters is actually that of a one-party
system in any given legislative election.
You can read our full report, download the
spreadsheets we used to make our predictions and watch the C-SPAN
telecast of our news conference at www.fairvote.org/2002. And
stay tuned -- we'll be able to make our predictions with the same
degree of reliability for November 2004 within just a few days of
next month's election. We also soon will make projections in most
states in the U.S. Presidential race in 2004.
Website
Highlights
It's been a busy period since our last update. Below
are a few highlights among the many items newly posted at
fairvote.org in "what's new" and "national and state media."
- Instant Runoff
Voting: Hear Sen. John McCain's
message in favor of instant runoff voting taped for Alaska
voters. Read: Robert's Rules of
Order on why IRV is better than plurality elections; a
resolution in favor of IRV adopted by the Vermont AFL-CIO; an article
about Vermont Governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean's support for IRV; and
commentaries in favor of IRV from a former publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the
head of Vermont's League of
Women Voters, Rocky Mountain
News editors and the Center for
Public Justice
.
- Full
Representation: Read about: advances for full
representation (also called proportional representation) in Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom; the story of how Vassar became the latest college to
adopt full representation for student elections; Tom Brazaitis' Cleveland Plain Dealer column
about full representation and Steven Hill's "Fixing Elections"; and
several new commentaries from CVD
staff and supporters. Find out how to get Doug Amy's new edition of
"Real Choices, New Voices" and
learn about how Ireland's
choice voting system
of full representation works.
- Elections: See
our new webpages on the Electoral
College and our Monopoly Politics
2002 report
.
For the first edition of our new on-line digest, click
here
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