Voting and Democracy Review
Number 16 November
2002
No-Choice Elections in
a Divided Nation: Lopsided Contests and
Poll-Driven Campaigns Keep Voters Away
This newsletter is going to
press before the November elections, but already it's safe to
predict winners in nearly all congressional elections and forecast
abysmally low voter turnout. We have been busy highlighting these
trends, with C-SPAN airing our release of Monopoly Politics numerous
times and with op-eds and comments featured in publications across
the nation.
While others criticize our
lack of fair choices and the way major parties often obscure
differences on many important issues facing our nation, we uniquely
focus on the inescapable impact of using winner-take-all elections
in which viable candidates must be all things to at least half of
the voters. For a powerful indictment of winner-take-all, read
Steven Hill's book Fixing Elections.
Below is a commentary from
Hill and his Center colleague Rob Richie, followed by a New York
Times letter by the Center's president John Anderson. And visit the
Center's website to get its predictions for the 2004 elections, to
be published within days of this year's vote.
On Nov. 5,
Americans will elect our national legislature. With a looming war
against Iraq, soaring budget deficit and razor thin division between
the major parties in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, this is
one of the most momentous elections in memory. Yet, to a startling
extent, the fix is in. We safely can make three troubling
predictions about Election Day. First, barely a third of adults
will participate the lowest national election turnout in the world
among longtime democracies. Most Americans simply have tuned out
elections for Congress. Turnout in primaries was just 17 percent.
Second, our elected officials once again will be like a funhouse
mirror of the electorate, poorly representing a range of racial and
political minorities. Third, well over 95 percent of incumbents
will again cruise to victory, usually by huge margins. In fact, our
Center has projected this year's winners and victory margins in 76
percent of U.S. House races without relying on a shred of
information about challengers and incumbents' voting record,
constituent service and campaign financing. Applying the same method
to House elections from 1996 to 2000, our predictions were 99.8
percent accurate. This year we project 332 winners for 435 seats,
including 195 candidates winning by landslide margins of at least 20
percent, and an additional 100 winning by margins of at least 10
percent. Most remaining races won't be competitive due to weak
challengers. We make these projections so confidently because of a
simple fact: Most districts tilt clearly toward one major party.
While such partisan imbalance can be inescapable, as lonely
Massachusetts Republicans and Utah Democrats will attest, it often
comes courtesy of legislative redistricting. In redistricting,
incumbents and party leaders have the God like power to draw their
own district lines to decide which party will win most elections.
Once district lines are set, most congressional and state
legislative races become predictably cozy snoozers. Voters are
bunkered down in one party districts where their only real choice is
to ratify the candidate of the dominant party. While we think of
ours as a two party system, most voters' frame of reference for
legislative races is that of a one party system, directly
undercutting voter enthusiasm and full debate about major issues.
The sad fact is that if you care about which party controls the
House, the odds are that it will be more effective to donate money
to a candidate in a competitive race halfway across the nation than
vote yourself. It's little wonder that so many lose interest. To
improve voter choice, we should start by following Iowa's model and
take redistricting powers out of incumbents' hands. Congress
historically has set national redistricting standards and could do
so again with a mere statute. But we won't bring equality, choice,
and power to voters unless we reform "winner take all" elections so
that like minded voters have a fair chance to win representation
even when part of a political minority in their particular area. To
achieve that goal, we need to pass laws to implement systems of full
representation in legislative districts electing more than one
person. Most modern democracies use systems in which more than 90%
of voters elect a candidate from a broad spectrum of choices. The
result typically is much higher turnout, more substantive debate on
issues, fairer representation of women and racial minorities and
more inclusive policy-making. For more than a century, Illinois
used one modest, but effective approach: a full representation
system in three-seat districts in which a candidate could win a seat
with support from a little more than a quarter of the vote. As a
result, nearly every district represented both major parties and
minority opinion within the major parties and gave third parties a
fighting chance. Among those seeking to restore full representation
are Illinois' secretary of state (a Democrat) and state treasurer (a
Republican), former Republican governor Jim Edgar and former
Democratic Congressman Abner Mikva. Congress has the authority to
implement full representation for U.S. House elections, but more
realistic steps are for it to give states back the power to use
multi-seat House districts (as suggested in bills introduced since
1995) and to create a commission to study fair representation in
elections. States and localities can more quickly adopt full
representation. For now, make your bets. It's easy money when the
fix is in. The following letter by the
Center's president John B. Anderson appeared in the New York Times
on October 29.
In
assessing this year's Congressional elections ("A Senator's Death
and the Fight for Congress,'' Oct. 27), you conclude that we should
again expect low voter turnout because the major political parties
increasingly mimic each other during campaigns, ``giving voters a
choice between beige and brown.'' Events since my independent
presidential campaign in 1980 have only reinforced my belief in the
need to reform politics to expand viable choices across the
spectrum. As long as we have two choice, winner take all elections
where the winner must be all things to at least half the people,
today's marketing technology and expertise will make most campaigns
a distasteful concoction of poll driven sound bites, negative
attacks and avoidance of important issues. It's time to adopt
instant runoff voting to give independents and alternative parties a
chance to compete without being ``spoilers,'' and time to begin a
national dialogue about the many forms of proportional
representation, in which political minorities can win a fair share
of legislative seats. Glossary of Key
Terms • Full / Proportional
representation: A family of voting system used in most modern
democracies in which like-minded groupings of voters win
representation in proportion to their voting strength in a
multi-seat district: 20% of votes earns two (20%) of 10 seats, 50%
of votes earns five (50%) of 10 seats and so on. A multi-seat
district is one with more than one representative. With a five-seat
district, full representation allows a fifth of voters to earn one
seat. That victory threshold rises in a district with fewer than
five seats and drops with more than five seats. Full representation
contrasts with winner-take-all elections which usually are contested
in one-seat districts.
• Instant runoff voting (IRV):
A majority system that simulates a traditional runoff election, but doesn't
require two rounds of voting. People vote for their favorite candidate
and indicate their runoff choices by ranking candidates first, second and
third. If no candidate is the first choice of a majority
of voters, voters' rankings are used to simulate
a runoff election.
Federal Electoral Reform
Puts Focus on the States Despite
unnecessary provisions which could make it harder for some people to
vote, there is much to celebrate in the new federal election reform
law. With nearly $4 billion authorized for states and counties to
modernize their voting equipment and their procedures and movement
toward establishing uniform standards for our patchwork election
system, voting will be more inclusive and millions of more Americans
will cast valid votes. The battle for fairness now moves
to states, which must develop plans to earn federal support.
Reformers should ensure that one standard is an explicit requirement
that new equipment be ready to conduct elections using instant
runoff voting and full representation systems. We need these systems
to have a fair and vibrant democracy, and voting equipment should
not be a barrier. To help support this standard in your state,
contact us at 301-270 4616 or [email protected]
.
Note from the
Director For the
past 10 years the Center for Voting and Democracy has worked hard to
fuel the movement for alternative voting systems. We are making
great strides, with a second successful election in Amarillo, Texas
in May showing the power of full representation systems to provide
fair representation, the big win in March for instant runoff voting
in San Francisco and a growing chorus of interest in alternative
voting among leading elected officials, journalists and public
interest leaders. Resulting from a new strategic
plan, the Center has divided its program work into two areas: Public
Education and Field. The Public Education program will expose
problems with traditional winner-take-all elections and communicate
the benefits and mechanics of full representation and instant runoff
voting. Reaching out in particular to influential opinion leaders,
civic leaders and lawmakers, the program will focus on the impact of
our winner-take-all system on participation, campaign discourse,
policy and national unity, as spelled out in our senior policy
analyst Steven Hill’s new book Fixing Elections
. The Field program will lay
the groundwork in targeted jurisdictions for legislative, legal and
ballot efforts to adopt forms of full representation and instant
runoff voting. In general, we see the best opportunities for full
representation in resolving minority voting rights challenges and
for instant runoff voting when replacing traditional "delayed"
runoffs. Seeking to work as often as possible with local partners,
we are organizing regional workshops in the Southeast and Northeast
and plan additional ones later in the year. The best short-term
opportunity for a major political victory likely is in Vermont,
where momentum grows for adoption of instant runoff voting for
statewide offices (see page 3). We had hopes this summer for the
first measure seeking to implement instant runoff voting for
statewide elections in Alaska. Despite a vigorous campaign in the
month before the election, however, advocates fell short. Backers
gathered more than 40,000 signatures to put Measure 1 on the ballot
and gained the support of the Republican Party, all small parties
across the political spectrum and the Juneau Empire in the capital
city. But the campaign had limited resources, making it hard to
persuade enough voters that plurality voting rules should be
replaced. Opponents also spent heavily to portray Measure 1 as
costly and confusing, despite all evidence to the contrary. In the
end, undecided voters broke no. Kudos to the campaign's supporters,
including Arizona Senator John McCain (whose message about Alaska
can be heard on our website), Ken Jacobus (the Alaska Republican
Party's general counsel), Jim Sykes (Alaska Green Party) and Chip
Wagoner (Republican National Committee member). Their efforts may
pay off in Alaska cities, as more are interested in replacing
runoffs. Indeed the case for instant runoff voting is most easy to
make when replacing runoffs, as indicated by this spring's victory
in San Francisco despite opponents spending more than $100,000. We
are working with local officials to ensure smooth operations in the
city's first elections with instant runoff voting in the November
2003 mayoral race. We have not been immune from the belt-tightening
that is common among non-profits right now, and have a leaner, but
still extremely effective staff. I want to thank in particular two
departing staffers, Texas community organizer Joleen Garcia and
deputy director Eric Olson, who plans to write a book on political
reform. They will certainly be missed, as we do the many interns --
including seven this summer -- who have enlivened our office and
supported our program in many ways.
Certainly our commitment to
instant runoff voting and full representation is unwavering. American elections keep demonstrating the
imperative of our reforms -- thanks for your support as we
look for more breakthroughs in 2003! Rob Richie
Voting System Reform
Update Fixing Elections gathers
attention / A New Edition of Real Choices, New Voices:
Steven Hill's Fixing Elections: The Failure of American's Winner
Take All Elections (Routledge, 2002) recently garnered rave reviews
from long-time political observers Tom Brazaitis in the Cleveland
Plain Dealer and Neal Pierce in the Seattle Times. Douglas Amy has
substantially revised his classic Real Choices, New Voices: How
Proportional Representation Elections Could Revitalize American
Democracy (Columbia Univ.). For information on these must-read
books, visit our on-line library at FairVote.org.
German elections
highlight mixed- member system
: In September's German elections, the
Social Democrat-Green coalition won a narrow victory, and
neo-fascists fell far short of the 5% of the national vote necessary
to earn representation. Three out of four German adults elected a
candidate due to a combination of high voter turnout and most voters
electing their preferred candidate among a range of choices. In contrast only one in four
Americans will elect a U.S. House member this year
despite our more limited choices. Germans elect half
of their seats in one-seat districts, as we do in U.S. House
elections, while half are awarded to parties based on their percentage
of the vote. Mixed member systems have become popular, with recent adoptions
in Scotland, Wales, Mexico, Japan, Russia, Italy and more. Fair elections in the
United Kingdom and former colonies : Some
former British colonies -- and the United Kingdom itself -- keep
moving away from plurality, winner-take-all elections. In the wake
of three national elections with a mixed member system of full
representation, New Zealand has voted to allow localities to use the
choice voting full representation method. Eight local councils in
New Zealand have adopted choice voting, while others are letting
citizens vote on it, including the capital city of Wellington.
Scotland also has adopted mixed member for electing its regional
assembly and now may adopt choice voting for local elections after
an agreement between two major parties to ditch traditional
winner-take-all voting. Finally, Fair Vote Canada continues to make
strides. At its June convention, for example, the Canadian Labour
Congress backed a resolution to support Fair Vote Canada's efforts
to seek full representation for national elections -- for more,
visit www.fairvotecanada.com. Amarillo's Cumulative
Voting Elections
: In May, Amarillo (TX) used the cumulative voting system
of full representation for the second time to elect its school
board. A Latina challenger dislodged a white incumbent, and the
board now has four white members, two Latino member and one black
member. Before cumulative voting, no racial minority had been
elected for two decades even though more than 40% of the student age
population and more than 20% of the voting-age population is non
white. All racial and ethnic groups in Amarillo seem to have
accepted the new system. Vermont governor, public
interest Groups and AFL CIO endorse IRV for statewide
elections
: Building on the
momentum of a near-sweep of town meeting votes in March on whether
to adopt instant runoff voting for statewide elections, Vermont
reformers keep finding new allies. Backers now include Vermont
Governor (and presidential candidate) Howard Dean and Vermont
branches of the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, PIRG and the
Grange. In September, the Vermont AFL-CIO endorsed the change.
This year's elections may throw at least one statewide election into
the Vermont legislature, as the constitution requires a majority to
win outright. The resulting controversy is likely to make chances of
adoption all the stronger. See www.FairVoteVermont.org Minnesota voters prefer a
multi-party system
: With a close four way
gubernatorial race in which Tim Penny of the Independence Party has
a good chance to follow in Jesse Ventura's footsteps, Minnesota
shows signs of a true multi-party political culture. Voters like it,
according to a recent Minneapolis Star-Tribune poll showing 73%
prefer a multi-party system to a two-party one. Recognizing the
incompatibility of plurality elections with increased choices, the
Star-Tribune is among a growing number of backers of instant runoff
voting, and FairVote Minnesota is building support for full
representation. See www.FairVoteMN.org for more. Potential runoff
controversy in Louisiana highlights value of IRV
: The battle for
control of the U.S. Senate could be decided in December. In
Louisiana congressional elections, a runoff is held if no candidate
earns a majority of the November vote. If Sen. Mary Landrieu (D)
earns less than 50% of the vote against three Republican
challengers, a runoff will be held. To find the majority winner in
one day instead of two, Louisiana should extend its use of instant
runoff voting for overseas absentee ballots to all voters. More universities adopt
better voting systems
: Many of our leading
universities elect their student government by instant runoff voting
and/or full representation systems, including Stanford, Princeton,
Harvard and MIT. The Universities of Illinois and Maryland and
Whitman College moved to these fairer systems last spring, and this
fall the Center's student coordinator Mike Fabius helped persuade
Vassar College to change. For more on college reform efforts, see
FairVote.org. Irish voting system
website : Ireland has one of the
world's best voting systems: choice voting for the parliament and
instant runoff voting for president. To explain this system, the
Center has launched www.IrishVoting.org . |