Fair Elections Update
December, 12 2003
To: Friends of Fair Elections
Fr: Rob Richie, Executive Director
Center for
Voting and Democracy
(CVD) www.fairvote.org, [email protected]
Re: -
Gerrymandering, the Supreme Court and the
media
- Securing the vote in the Constitution / No more "democracy
on
the cheap"
- "Claim Democracy" conference a big success
- Howard
Dean and instant runoff
voting -
Good reading: Recent media
coverage -
Elections in Northern Ireland and Russia
(For more information
about issues discussed here or to support our
Center, visit www.fairvote.org or email us at [email protected]. To
subscribe/unsubscribe from these occasional newsletters, please see
the end of this edition. Please feel encouraged to share
this message with friends.)
GERRYMANDERING, THE SUPREME
COURT AND THE MEDIA
Three years
ago, on December 12, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in the
2000 presidential election in its Bush v. Gore ruling --stopping Florida's
recount and in effect electing George Bush.
Democracy returned to
the Court this week. On December 10, a 5-4 majority of Justices
upheld all major provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
(BCRA), the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation that
prohibits national political parties from collecting large "soft money" campaign contributions, among
other provisions designed to root out corruption in the electoral
process. Many reformers applauded the ruling, others suggested the
ruling stopped short by allowing a sharp increase in "hard money"
contributions that individuals can make and others argued the Court
went too far in limiting free speech. For more on the ruling, seewww.commoncause.org, www.aclu.org, www.bettercampaigns.org,www.nvri.org, www.cato.org and www.publicampaign.org.
On December 10 the Court
also heard arguments in Vieth v. Jubelirer, the first case it has
taken on political gerrymandering since the Davis v. Bandemer case
in 1986. In the Bandemer case, the Court opened the door to federal
courts finding partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional if
designed to systematically undercut the votes of backers of one
political party, but lower courts have since slammed the door closed
by making the standards impossible to prove -- in turn making
redistricting a vicious free-for-all that reached new
heights this year with "re-gerrymandering" in Texas and Colorado.
In the Vieth case
Democrats are challenging a Republican gerrymander in congressional
districting. Everyone accepts the fact of the gerrymander, with
several tortuous districts and Republicans holding a 12-7 edge in
U.S. House districts in a state Democrats have carried in the
presidential race since 1988. But the plaintiffs must show that such
gerrymandering violates the Constitution and that courts can easily
remedy the violation. Listening to the oral arguments this week, it
seems unlikely that a five-justice majority will step in on behalf
of Pennsylvania Democrats.
What hovers over this case is that the best
argument on behalf of like-minded groupings of voters is that they
should have an equally fair chance to elect candidates of choice to
represent their interests and political views no matter where they live -- and that without doubt the
best and fairest way to provide such opportunity is
through changes to winner-take-all elections. Unfair election
results are grounded in the fact that in winner-take-all elections,
up to 49% of voters can have their votes relegated to the trashbin.
It is this effective disfranchisement that can allow one party to
take advantage of another by designing districts to
"waste" their votes by packing some of them in a
few districts and spreading the rest around the remaining districts so they are always in the
minority.
The sensible alternative is the family of full
representation voting methods that are used in the great majority of
well-established democracies and are increasingly used in local
elections in the United States. With these systems, 51% of the vote
still wins a majority of seats -- but not more. 40% of the vote wins
40% of seats. 10% of the vote wins 10% of seats and so on (with a minimum threshold of support easily
established). Candidate-based systems like choice voting and
cumulative voting are already used in some city elections in the
United States and would be the obvious way out -- but most players
in these legal challenges back away from this remedy, leaving them stuck in the mud of trying to figure out fair
redistricting.
Redistricting can be
made fairer, of course -- just ask the people of Iowa, who have a
criteria-driven process like that used in nearly all nations that
draw single-member districts. And given the courts' cautiousness,
the people who should be doing it are our elected leaders. Any
elected official who accepts the status quo with political
gerrymandering should be looked upon with great suspicion if
professing to be a reformer. That status quo not only has produced
partisan gerrymanders in some states, but a nearly unbroken parade
of incumbent protection gerrymanders that make most legislative and
congressional elections little more competitive than elections
in the former Soviet Union. Yet there is just
one minor bill in Congress that even mentions the word
"redistricting." (That happens to be one piece of legislation more than any mentioning
the phrase "Electoral College.")
At least editorial
writers and political writers are now focused on gerrymandering.
We've posted a great set of resources and links on our website (see
www.fairvote.org/whatsnew.htm),
including; the friend of-the-court briefs filed in the Vieth case by
our Center and several other reform groups; a wide collection of
editorials and articles, including a new lengthy article from last
week's New Yorker magazine; and examples of fairer maps drawn by
Washington and Lee college students. Our Center's staff and board
members write regularly on this topic, including the recent
featured piece in the "Washington Spectator" and a long piece by
Steven Hill and me in www.TomPaine.com this
week.
TIME TO PUT A RIGHT TO VOTE IN THE
CONSTITUTION
The Bush
v. Gore ruling was notorious in some quarters for declaring that
Americans have no constitutional right to vote for president. In
fact, the United States is one of the few nations that lacks a clear
affirmation of the right to vote in its constitution. That lack
explains why the nation can look the other way when a half million
citizens in Washington, D.C. can be denied a voting representative
in Congress even thought the body that directly oversees it, why it
can allow states to disfranchise more than four million citizens
convicted of a felony and why so many states and counties can have
such inefficient, ineffective procedures for registering
voters and counting votes.
Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) has
introduced HJR 28 to ensure the right to vote in the U.S.
Constitution. The amendment has 13 co-sponsors, as of Dec. 3, 2003.
On Nov. 22, Rep. Jackson gave a stirring keynote speech at CVD's
"Claim Democracy" conference in which he announced a lifelong
commitment to putting the right to vote in the Constitution. We soon
will have tapes available; a summary of
his key points can be found on our website at: http://www.fairvote.org/articles/jessejr.htm
In the spirit of a
national right to vote, my colleague Steven Hill and I this week
blasted Congress and the White House for trying to do "Democracy on the Cheap." Here's an
excerpt:
"....There's a simple reason the United States
is playing catch up to Brazil -- and most other nations -- when it
comes to modernizing election administration. Under our
decentralized election administration regime, we have a shockingly
weak national commitment to fair and secure elections. In fact the
main players in running elections are the more than
3,000 county election administrators scattered across the country.
"With the 2002 Help
America Vote Act, the federal government for the first time
established some national election standards and provided some funds
to states. But standards are weak, and funds available for only
three years. There's little training for election administrators,
and too often county election chiefs are selected based more on whom
they know than training and experience. There's limited guidance to
assist counties when they
bargain with the equipment vendors.
"The vendors themselves
spark questions. Three companies dominate the field: Elections
Systems and Software, Sequoia Pacific, and Diebold. They are relatively small profit-making
corporations, often cutting corners to make a buck, stretched beyond
their capacities, strained by the myriad of state bodies certifying
equipment, and all to quick to put aside public interest concerns if
not spelled out in contracts. Their equipment isn't
nearly as good as it could or should be....
"The manufacture and selling of voting equipment
shouldn't be just another business. There indeed is something
special about our electoral infrastructure that cries out for a
federal system with national standards and regulations. After
September 11 we moved to have federal workers monitoring airport
security. But after election 2000, we did nothing comparable for our
elections.
"Imagine
an alternative reality, in which the federal government used its immense resources to invest in developing voting
technologies that were truly cutting edge and secure, with open
source software, voter verified paper trails, national standards and
the public interest incorporated without resistance. Imagine
national voter registration lists that better assured clean lists
and a big increase in the barely two-thirds of American adults now
registered to vote.
"But no, instead we are stuck with the current
shadowy vendors and decentralized hodge-podge that lately have made
U.S. democracy a laughingstock around the world. Call it democracy
on the cheap. The debate over voter-verified paper trails is a
window into a far bigger problem of decentralized elections that
inevitably will lead to future debacles until corrected. We can no
longer passively accept an election administration regime gone deeply awry. "
Our
Center has taken one concrete step toward a more open vote- counting
processes. It has supported Voting Solutions, LLC, in
releasing ChoicePlus Pro (TM) under an open source license and
development agreement. ChoicePlus Pro processes ballot data for
instant runoff voting and choice voting. For more see http://www.fairvote.org/articles/businesswire_nov03.htm
CLAIM DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE A BIG
SUCCESS
Our thanks to the more than five hundred people
--representing more than 30 states and more than 80
organizations -- who took part in the November 21-23 conference on
"Claim Democracy: Securing, Enhancing and Exercising the Vote" in
Washington, D.C. Nearly 140 presenters covered a full range of
issues. A full conference report will be provided on our conference
website (www.democracyusa.org) in
January. To build on the connections made at the conference, we have
formed a moderated "Claim Democracy" listserve, designed in
particular for state and local reformers who want to share "best
practices" and post strategic questions about
ways to advance democracy in the United States. Sign onto the
listserv athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/claim_democracy
HOWARD
DEAN AND INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING
Instant runoff voting is
one of those good ideas that has an air of inevitability about it.
Opponents' arguments are so weak that once the idea's novelty in the
United States wears off, we expect to see rapid spread of its
use.
The concept is
simple. When two candidates run, the winner will have a majority of
the vote -- let's say 55% - 45%. But if a third candidate runs, the
top vote-getter might have fewer votes. Let's say the result now is
40%-45%-15% -- the same set of voters get a different result due to
a splitting of the vote. With instant runoff voting, voters can heal
this split of they so choose. Voter are given the chance to express a
choice for more than just their top choice
-- they can indicate their second choice (and third, if they want
to). If no candidate has a majority of first choices, the weak
candidates are eliminated, and ballots recounted without those
candidates. If some voters' top choice was the candidate with 15%,
their ballots would then count for their second choice -- in the
case above, the 55%-45% result would be restored, as is only
fair.
Former Vermont
governor Howard Dean has backed IRV for several years. Vermont has
one of the nation's strongest movements for IRV, with backing for
adopting IRV for statewide office from the Democratic-leaning AFL
CIO, the
Republican-leaning Grange and good government groups like the League of Women Voters. On CNN
on November 12, Dr. Dean expressed support for IRV, as he has
frequently on the campaign trail. The transcript and audio are posted at: http://www.fairvote.org/articles/deancnn.htm
Dennis Kucinich, the
Ohio Congressman also running for the Democratic presidential
nomination, has an even stronger pro-IRV position
posted on his campaign website. See: http://www.fairvote.org/articles/kucinichirv.htm
Instant runoff voting
will get some high-level use in the United States in 2004. San
Francisco will use IRV to elect members of its Board of Supervisors
(its city council) in November, while Utah Republicans will use it
at their convention to elect party officers and to nominate
candidates for high office. The City of Berkeley will vote in March
about whether to allow the city council to be able to adopt IRV.
You can track IRV by
joined a moderated listserv; its homepage is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/instantrunoff
ELECTIONS
IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND RUSSIA
Nearly all
well-established, major democracies use some kind of full
representation, non-winner-take-all system for at least one of their
national elections Recent elections in Northern Ireland (which is
part of the United Kingdom) and Russia provide examples. In Northern
Ireland, voters use the choice voting method. a candidate-based
system that shares some of the principles of instant runoff voting,
but also reduces the share of votes necessary to win a seat, which
allows full representation of the spectrum of opinion in proportion
to like-minded voters' share of the vote. Russia uses a "mixed
member" system, where half of its parliament is elected from
U.S.-style single-member districts and half from a national "party
list", where political parties win a proportional share of seats if
they win at least 5% of the national vote. For articles about these
elections and many other nations around the world, seehttp://www.fairvote.org/pr/global
GOOD
READING: RECENT MEDIA COVERAGE
The
"media coverage" page of our website keeps up-to-date with articles
about voting system reform and the Center. To see recent articles, visit: http://www.fairvote.org/media/index.htm
Highlights
include our last update include:
* Christian Science Monitor: "Rigging election
boundaries: When does it go too far?" CVD's Rob Richie among those
quoted in article on the Pennsylvania
case on political gerrymandering.
*
Tompaine.com: "The Gerrymander Moment." CVD's Rob Richie and Steven
Hill explain the importance of redistricting and the Vieth v. Juelirer
Supreme Court case.
* Progressive Populist: "Democracy on the
Cheap." CVD leaders suggest that the key lesson from voting
equipment controversies is the need to have a strong national
commitment to fair and secure elections.
* Asian Week: "Washington Journal: Claiming
Democracy." Phil Nash covers the
recent Claim Democracy Conference.
* SF Weekly: "Making
Nice: City and state elections officials finally strike a
harmonious note in their erratic efforts to roll out IRV."
Fox News: "Officials Vow
to Fix Voter Problems Before 2004." CVD's field director Rashad Robinson is a featured analyst.
.
California Aggie: "Choice Voting increases
meaning of votes." UC-Davis student touts the university's new choice
voting system.
The New Yorker: "Uncrazy California." Commentary
by Hendrik Hertzberg advocates IRV in the wake
of the California recall.
"To the Best of Our Knowledge", National Public
Radio. National radio program interviews CVD's
Rob Richie about instant runoff voting.
Washington Post: "Virginia Ranks Low for
Election Rivalry:" CVD's analysis is featured in coverage of
Virginia state legislative elections.
SUBSCRIBING/UNSUBSCRIBING/DONATING
We send out newsletters
about once a month. If you do not want to receive them, let us know
by replying to this message with the word "remove" in the subject or
your message. If you would like to subscribe, please send an email to [email protected]
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. If
you are are a customer of Working Assets, you still have time to
vote for us - see our donation page for more information.
Thank
you! |