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Fair Elections Update
October 2, 2003
Dear Friend of Fair
Elections,
Today's Highlights: See www.democracyusa.org
for details on our major "Claim Democracy" conference in Washington,
DC on November 21-23, 2003. Catch NPR's "Marketplace"program
on October
7. This
is Rob Richie, executive director of the Center for Voting and
Democracy: www.fairvote.org, [email protected].
We shortly will send out our periodic e-newsletter, as it's been
quite a season for democracy issues -- what with the madcap
California recall election, the Texas standoff over a brazen
redistricting plan and the ever-growing controversy over how we
still haven't found (nor made a clear national commitment to fund) a fair and secure
way to count votes.
We indeed hope you will visit www.fairvote.org and read about our
take on the California recall (in particular why the multi-candidate
race for governor once again shows the value of instant runoff
voting -- as one of our new reports shows, more than half of our
current governors have won a gubernatorial race with less than half
the votes), our amicus brief in a potentially historic Supreme
Court case this term about political gerrymandering, a new
cumulative voting law in Illinois, ongoing international
movement away from winner-take-all elections and much
more.
But today I wanted to highlight two
developments:
1) On Tuesday, October 7, National Public
Radio's "Marketplace" program will likely feature discussion of
instant runoff voting, the hot new reform (www.fairvote.org/irv) that
has drawn the support of political leaders like Sen.
John McCain, Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. Dennis Kucinich and
consideration in nearly two dozen state legislatures this
year. We hope you can catch the program. Stay tuned for more
NPR coverage of fair election systems in November.
2) On
November 22-23, 2003, the Center for Voting and Democracy and most
of the nation's leading civil rights, voter turnout and electoral
reform organizations will come to Washington, D.C. for a major
conference on "Claim Democracy: Securing, Enhancing and
Exercising the Power of the Right to Vote."
If there is an
electoral democracy issue you care about, it's almost certain to be
the subject of discussion in high-profile panels and in workshops
and training sessions -- be it campaign finance, instant runoff
voting, full representation, initiative and referendum, election day
registration, get-out-the-vote efforts, full franchise for ex-felons
and the people of the District of Columbia, fair representation for
women and people of color,amending the Constitution to secure the
right to vote, term limits, ballot access, open debates, term
limits, nonpartisan redistricting, open airwaves, voting
requipment or Electoral College
reform. Earlybird registration for the conference ends
on October 31, 2003, and the room block at the nearby hotel could
fill up even sooner than that. We also have limited space for a
"Celebrate Democracy" dinner, hosted by Common Cause and our Center
for Voting and Democracy, on the evening of November 22. We urge you
to visit the conference website --
www.democracyusa.org -- and to join
us in November!
For more on the conference, please read
below, which includes the conference call-to-action and the
impressive list of groups that have signed onto that call-to-action.
And note: even if you can't join us in person, we urge you to
indicate your support for the individual call-to-action that mirrors
the statement below -- see www.democracyusa.org today for
details.
CLAIM
DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE: NOVEMBER 22-23
Tired of attempts to
change electoral rules in the middle of the game? Wasted votes?
Money-drenched politics? Bad voting equipment? Political failures to
represent and inspire America's magnificently complex and diverse
population?
If so, please join a broad coalition of
pro-democracy organizations that have organized a major conference
on: "Claim Democracy: Securing, Enhancing and Exercising the Power
of the Right to Vote." Promising to be the largest gathering
of its kind in years, the conference will take place at the
Washington, D.C. Convention Center on the weekend of November 22-23,
2003.
The conference features an exciting mix of high-profile
plenaries, hands-on workshops, book signings and break-out sessions
specifically geared to youth, grassroots activists and democracy
advocaes. Presidential candidates and Members of Congress are among
those expected to address the conference.
The
conference will include:
* A Friday evening pre-conference
welcome at the Washington College of Law at American University,
with music and showing of pro-democracy documentaries, and a
Saturday evening program with spoken word poetry.
* On
Saturday, two plenaries and break-outs organized in particular for
youth, state reformers and democracy advocates. democracy. There
will be three sessions for each break-out group, all addressing: 1)
securing the vote (including steps being taken to protect and secure
voting rights, such as the Help America Vote Act, voting rights
residents of the District of Columbia, election day registration and
felony disfranchisement laws; 2) enhancing the vote (including
reforms that address voter motivation such as campaign finance
reform, full representation, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act
andinstant runoff voting); 3) exercising the vote (focused on
efforts to encourage voter participation in 2004).
* On
Sunday, there will be a series of four sets of 10-12 breakout
sessions that will include a mix of workshops and trainings on
different aspects of pro-democracy work, with some sessions
organized around specific issues and some on
tactics.
Participants can register on-line (www.democracyusa.org) or through
the mail. There are significant savings for early-bird registrations
(before Novemer 1) and for those registering with 10 people. There
is a block of rooms at a reduced rate at nearby hotel. For
information, contact the Center for Voting and Democracy at (301)
270-4616 or visit www.fairvote.org
Reflecting
the pressing demand to claim our democracy, the following conference
call-to-action has been endorsed by a large number of leading civil
rights and electoral reform organizations that are listed
below.
CALL-TO-ACTION
FOR MAJOR PRO-DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE
We, the undersigned organizations, endorse the
following call to action. A vibrant and healthy representative
democracy demands, at the very least, diverse representation,
meaningful choices across the political spectrum, full participation
before and after elections, robust public debate, efficient and
effective election administration, and policy that corresponds
with the will of the majority while respecting the rights and
interests of those in the minority. Voters must hear from a range of candidates, have a reasonable
chance of electing their preferred representatives and believe that they are
electing a responsive and accountable government that makes a
positive difference in their lives. Many Americans are proud of our
democracy and political reformers can be justifiably proud of
victories advancing democracy, yet we can
-- and must -- do better. Consider that:
* The
majority of Supreme Court Justices in Bush v. Gore declared that
voters have no fundamental right to vote in presidential elections.
* The United States ranks 139th in the world in voter
turnout in national elections since 1945, and turnout has been
dropping, particularly among young people and particularly in local
and state elections. Nearly a third of adult Americans are
not even registered to vote.
* The United States is 59th in
world rankings of representation by women. Only 14% of Members of
Congress are women, and the number of female state legislators has
declined since 1998.
* The U.S. Senate lacks a single African
American or Latino member, and the number of African Americans and
Asian Pacific Americans in the U.S. House has declined since 1994.
People of color are under-represented in nearly every state
legislature.
* More than 4.5 million Americans are denied
the right to vote because of felony disfranchisement laws that
disproportionately impact low-income communities of color, including
one out of every eight adult African American men.
* More than half a
million Americans in our nation's capital are denied voting
representation in the U.S Congress despite the fact that they
fulfill all of the same responsibilities of citizenship shared by
Americans living in states and despite Congress having the final say
over all local matters.
* Only four U.S. House incumbents lost to
non-incumbent challengers in 2002 -- the fewest ever. State
legislative elections are often even less competitive, with fully 40
percent of state legislative races since 1996 not even being contested by both major parties.
* Although the 2000 election debacle led to
federal and state action to improve the infrastructure of our
elections, many states are making it harder to vote, not easier. * Despite the passage of federal campaign
finance reform legislation in 2002, money spent in campaigns and on
lobbying at federal, state and local levels continues to have an
excessively powerful impact on electoral politics and policy-making.
Given this "democracy deficit," it should not
surprise us that our political leadership often fails to address the
hopes and needs of average Americans. To attain a
democracy that addresses the needs and aspirations of the American people, we must embrace and strive to adopt a range of
critical reforms. Just as reformers fought for and won the expansion
of suffrage over the decades, we must be ready to take advantage of
opportunities as they emerge at the federal level and in the
states. Claiming democracy will require a sustained focused and
coordinated effort, both within states and nationally.
We strongly believe
that the pro-democracy movement would increase its effectiveness
through greater coordination among national, state and local
reformers, and that the articulation of a shared vision and concrete
goals would facilitate stronger working relationships and more
effective coalitions.
In the current climate of struggle for
democracy in other nations, and given the aforementioned
shortcomings of our own democracy, the time is ripe to launch an effort at home to celebrate,
secure, expand and exercise the power of the right to vote. We
believe that this vision has the potential to be the string that
binds together the many diverse efforts to make our democracy more
vibrant, more representative and more genuine.
We
therefore join together in a call for a "Claim Democracy" conference
on November 21-23 in Washington, D.C. We plan to participate in this
conference and to encourage staff members and supporters to
participate. We support the goal of bringing together a diverse
range of scholars, elected officials and national, state and local
reformers and activists to focus attention on the need to strengthen
the power of our right to vote and to build a broad pro-democracy
movement.
Advancement
Project Alliance for Better Campaigns Alliance for
Democracy American Association of People with Disabilities
Appleseed Electoral Reform Project Association of Community
Organizations for Reform
Now (ACORN)
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center BostonVOTE Brennan
Center for Justice Californians for Electoral Reform
Campaign for America's Future Center for Constitutional
Rights Center for Voting and Democracy Citizen Works
Common Cause Commonwealth Coalition (Mass.) DC Vote
Democracy Action Project Democracy Matters Democracy
South Democracy Works Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action
Fannie Lou Hamer Project Fund for Constitutional
Government Georgia Rural Urban Summit Greenlining Institute
Illinois Campaign for Political Reform Independent
Progressive Politics Network Institute for Agriculture and
Trade Policy Action Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights (LCCR) League of Women Voters of the
United States MassVOTE Mexican American Legal Defense
and Education Fund (MALDEF) Midwest Democracy Center NAACP
National Voter Fund National Asian Pacific American Legal
Consortium (NAPALC) National Campaign to Restore Voting Rights
National Civic League National Coalition on Black Civic
Participation National Council of La Raza National
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition National Urban League National Voting
Rights Institute National Women's Alliance New Democracy
Project Northeast Action Ohio Citizen Action Open
Debates People for the American Way Progressive Challenge,
Institute for Policy Studies Progressive Populist Progressive
Review Project Vote Public Campaign Public
Citizen Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF)
ReclaimDemocacy.Org Rock the Vote Southwest Voter
Research and Education Project White House Project Willie C.
Velazquez Institute WomenVote Working Assets USAction
U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) United
States Student Association (USSA) Yes I Will
A
REQUEST: HELP FUND CVD WITH YOUR VOTE!
We are honored to be
one of the fifty organizations selected by Working Assets for
support in 2003. If you are a customer of any Working Assets
service, you can vote to allocate funds to the Center. If you are
not a customer, you can sign up for long distance, cell phone or
credit card services or by making even a single purchase on the
ShopForChange website. You can then choose to allocate your vote
equally among all 50 groups, or you can assign your vote to
specific groups. These votes result in a wide ranging of giving,
from a low of about $35,000 in 2002 to a high of some $150,000. For
information, please see: http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/workingassets.htm
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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
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