Davis Choice Voting Builds Momentum

High-profile Endorsers On Board

Activists in Davis, CA are well on their way to what could be proportional voting's first ballot-box win in half a century.

The local push for choice voting began as UC-Davis students won a fairer election system for their student government. Now it's endorsed by the Sacramento Bee, CA Common Cause, CALPIRG, former mayors and city councilpersons, and hundreds of Davis residents.

Advisory Measure L would formally register public desire for a switch to choice voting.

[Davis Choice Voting homepage]
[Sac Bee endorsement]
[Donate to the campaign]
[Support ranked choice ballot initiatives around the country]
[All about choice voting]

National Latino Congress Supports Key Reforms

Resolution Backs National Popular Vote, IRV, Proportional Voting

In what the Associated Press described as the largest gathering of Latino leaders in decades, the National Latino Congress convened in Los Angeles on September 6th. Convening organizations included MALDEF, LULAC and the Williem C. Velasquez Institute.

FairVote's Rob Richie addressed the opening plenary. That afternoon the Congreso passed a resolution supporting key FairVote reform priorities: the National Popular Vote plan to make every vote equal in presidential elections, instant runoff voting to generate majority winners in a single round of voting and proportional voting methods to represent most voters in local legislative elections. The resolution approved was 1.3 on electoral reform.

[National Latino Congress]
[FairVote's Presidential Elections Reform Program]
[National Popular Vote]
[Instant Runoff Voting]
[Proportional Voting]

Women's Equality Day Commemorates Franchise, Struggle for Equality

But American Women Still Grossly Under-represented in Congress

August 26 marks Women's Equality Day. Established by Congress in 1971, it celebrates the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the vote. The holiday also marks women's continuing struggle for political equality.

Despite accounting for over half the U.S. population, women make up only 14% of the House and 15% of the Senate. The root of under-representation is our winner-take-all system of legislative elections. Countries with proportional voting have about twice as many women in their legislatures. Winner-take-all, however, means they probably won't even win nomination.

[ How winner-take-all hurts women ]
[ How proportional voting helps & other resources ]