I wanted to send a short update with some news of note. Below is more information on the following:
* The entire Congressional Black Caucus has signed onto HR 4961, a bill sponsored by Rep. Mel Watt that would restore preclearance powers to the Department of Justice -- read an indepth Raleigh News and Observer article
* See the results of a mock election that CVD conducted at its booth at the Voter Action Center at the NAACP's national conference to choose national leaders -- and contrast the impact on results of different voting methods
* CVD prepared a booklet for the NAACP conference that described the organizations with booths in the Voter Action Center and other noteworthy organizations -- the document is available for download
* The Sierra Club officially endorsed alternatives to winner-take-all elections at its board meeting on July 22, 2000
Note that we are regularly updating our web site with new materials -- we will be particularly busy in the next few weeks month, so stay tuned for postings of major new reports on: congressional elections; redistricting (a state-by-state guide); plurality winners in federal and gubernatorial elections; and the impact on representation of political and racial minorities from "multi-seat" district, proportional plans for every state with more than two U.S. House seats.
Please don't hesitate to contact me if you ever would more information on our work and ideas.
best regards,
Rob
Watt Bill Restores Powers to Department of Justice
On July 26, 2000, Rep. Mel Watt introduced HR 4961 "to amend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to clarify the intent of Congress" -- a direct response to the Bosier ruling by the Supreme Court earlier this year. Every Member of the Congressional Black Caucus (36 Democratic House Members and 2 delegates) signed onto the bill. Here is a news article from the Raleigh News and Observer.
"Watt Targets Bias"
Raleigh News and Observer, July 27, 2000
By John Wagner
[Rep. Mel Watt is pushing legislation that would give
the Justice Department more power in voting rights cases]
WASHINGTON Legislation unveiled Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Mel Watt would restore some of the Justice Department's muscle in protecting minorities' voting rights in states and localities with histories of discrimination.
The bill, which is backed by the 38 member Congressional Black Caucus, was developed in response to a controversial Supreme Court decision earlier this year on a case involving the composition of a local school board in Louisiana.
In its ruling, the court effectively limited the Justice Department's power to object to redistricting plans and other changes in voting procedures made by jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In essence, the court ruled that the Justice Department could protest changes that make matters worse for minorities but cannot object to changes that perpetuate a situation where discrimination may already exist.
Watt's bill would restore the broader interpretation of the Justice Department's power.
"Sometimes there can be discrimination if you refuse to make matters better," Watt, a Charlotte Democrat, said at a morning news conference.
Watt said the bill could have a substantial impact as states prepared to redraw their congressional lines to reflect the 2000 census. In some states, for example, population shifts may justify the creation of an additional black majority district. But under the court's logic, the Justice Department could not object if states maintain the status quo, he said.
Under the Voting Rights Acts, governments in 16 mostly Southern states, including North Carolina, must seek approval of voting changes before implementing them. The state of North Carolina is not specifically covered by the act, but 40 of its counties are subject to the law's provisions, and the state must submit congressional redistricting plans for approval.
Besides redistricting, changes covered by the act include candidacy requirements and qualifications, voting procedures and the creation and abolishment of new offices.
Watt said that roughly 59 percent of Justice Department objections to voting changes since 1990 would not have been considered valid under the court ruling. Since 1990, the department has objected to 336 submissions, he said.
The court ruling in the Louisiana case "has struck a dagger in the heart" of the Voting Rights Act, said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, one of several caucus members who joined Watt at the news conference.
Lee said Watt's bill would restore "the hammer of the federal government. ... We're not going to allow this nation to step away from hard fought civil rights."
Rep. Eva Clayton, a Democrat from Littleton, said fighting discrimination involves more than making sure matters don't get worse.
Under the court's logic, she said, "we never would have been freed from slavery."
Next month will mark the 35th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Watt said that if his bill does not pass before Congress adjourns this year, the caucus will seek to make it an issue in the November elections.
[Washington correspondent John Wagner can be reached at
(202) 662 4380 or [email protected] ]
Mock Election Results from NAACP Conference
The Center for Voting and Democracy held a mock election at its booth at the national conference of the NAACP, held in Baltimore from July 9 to 13. The big winner -- perhaps unsurprisingly, given the venue -- was NAACP president Kweisi Mfume. But there were interesting differences in the results using different voting methods.
We asked those who stopped by our booth to fill out a ballot, introduced as follows: <<We are conducting a sample election using an alternative voting system -- in this case, the "choice voting" system used in Cambridge (Mass.) and used from 1925 to 1955 to elect the city council in Cincinnati, Ohio and from 1937 to 1945 to elect the city council in New York City. Imagine that you are electing three U.S. Senators to represent the United States "at-large." Please rank the candidates you prefer in order of choice: "1" for your first choice, "2" for your second choice, "3" for your third choice and so. Rank as many candidates as you wish -- note that ranking a candidate can in no way hurt the chances of a candidate you rank higher than that candidate. We will announce the results of this vote on our web site (www.fairvote.org) after the conference.>>
The candidates were: Bill Clinton, Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Kweisi Mfume, Colin Powell, Maxine Watts, J.C. Watts and (write-in). We were able to conduct ballot-counts using a range of systems with the 73 valid votes. Here are the results:
* Plurality winner (using single vote method): Counting first-choices votes as one vote, Kweisi Mfume won with 24 (33% of total), followed in order by Bill Clinton with 14, Maxine Waters with 10, Colin Powell with 8 and Jesse Jackson with 7.
* Majority winner (using instant runoff count): When conducting an instant runoff vote count (with the lowest ranked candidate being eliminated after each round of counting and ballots counting for the top-ranked candidate remaining on each ballot) Kweisi Mfume again won, with the order of elimination being J.C. Watts, Louis Farrakhan, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell, Maxine Waters and Bill Clinton. Mfume cleared the 50% threshold at the end of the 6th round of counting, when Powell was eliminated; at that point he had 40 votes to Clinton's 18 and Waters' 14.
* Three winners (using at-large plurality): If the first three rankings were counted as one vote each and weighted equally -- as would be the case in an winner-take-all, at-large election -- then the three winners were: Kweisi Mfume (listed in the top three rankings on 47 ballots, or 64% of the total), Jesse Jackson (listed in the top three on 42 ballots, or 58%) and Maxine Waters (listed in the top three on 36 ballots, or 49%). The remaining candidates finished as follows: Colin Powell (29), Bill Clinton (25), John Lewis (12), write-ins (9), Louis Farrakhan (6) and J. C. Watts (4).
* Three winners (using one-vote "limited voting" proportional method): If the only vote was to count was the first-choice ranking, then the top three finishers in the single-winner plurality race would be the winners: Kweisi Mfume with 24, Bill Clinton with 14 and Maxine Waters with 10.
* Three winners (using choice voting proportional method): Note that with the one-vote, limited voting system, 25 ballots were cast for candidates who finished outside the top three -- meaning more than a third of the total ballots and a number much higher than the vote totals of winners Clinton and Waters. This left open the possibility that potential winners had lost only due to their vote "fracturing" among multiple candidates. The choice voting process -- analogous to the instant runoff count in a single-winner race, but with winners needing a lower share of the vote -- "heals" any such fractures. With choice voting, Mfume was the first winner (gaining enough votes in the first count), Clinton was the second winner and Waters was the third winner. This is same result as with the one-vote system, but the counting process showed some interesting results. By the time in the count when only five candidates remained, the order of candidates was Mfume (already having won), Clinton, Powell, Waters and Jackson -- meaning Powell was positioned to take the third seat. Once Jackson was eliminated, more of his supporters preferred Waters to Powell, which put Waters over Powell for the third seat.
Summary: The most instructive difference was in comparing winner-take-all at-large to a proportional method. In winner-take-all, Jesse Jackson easily finished in the top three, and the three winners were African-American with similar political views: Jackson, Mfume and Waters. In a proportional system, however, the majority wins a majority of seats, but not all. With a proportional system, Jackson was replaced by the more moderate Bill Clinton. Jackson had wider support than Clinton (finishing high on many ballots cast first for Mfume and Waters, as he was in the top three on 58% of ballots and Clinton in the top three on only 34% of ballots), but Clinton had stronger core support -- as he finished first on twice as many ballots as Jackson. A proportional system can reward such a political minority if it commands a share of the vote high enough to win a comparable share of seats. In white-majority counties and cities in Alabama and Texas, for example, proportional systems have boosted the electoral opportunities of black voters and candidates.
Organization Descriptions on Web
CVD prepared a booklet for the NAACP conference that described all the organizations with booths in the Voter Action Center and a number of other noteworthy organizations -- the document is available for download at: http://www.fairvote.org/library/brochure
Sierra Club Endorses Proportional Voting Systems
On July 22, the Sierra Club -- the nation's largest membership environmentalist organization, with 600,000 members -- adopted a resolution that endorses alternatives to winner take all voting methods. It was part of a resolution on "cleaning up politics" that read in its entirety: "Working on the current election is not enough. The single round, winner take all political process has problems. We support alternative electoral methods that better reflect the diversity of public opinion. We need to get big money out of politics by closing loopholes in current campaign finance laws, establishing effective spending limits, and adopting public financing for Senate and congressional candidates. We support the free television time proposal developed by the Alliance for Better Campaigns. It is unrealistic to believe that such changes can be accomplished in this election, which will be over in a few months. It's too large a job,and the time is too short. Important issues relating to globalization, trade agreements,
democracy and the environment have been raised in a substantive way by Ralph Nader. Sierra Club supports many of Mr. Nader's environmental and campaign finance reform proposals. While the Sierra Club does not endorse Ralph Nader in this election, we believe that serious third party candidates, including Mr. Nader, should be included in presidential debates."
The reference to "alternative electoral methods that better reflect the diversity of public opinion" was designed to cover both proportional systems and instant runoff voting.