Editing the electoral processThe Washington Times Commentary pages on Monday had a wonderful one-two combination of innovative thinking about the electoral process. Bruce Bartlett analyzed the difficulties facing third parties in our politics ("Third party fantasies") and proposed that more states adopt New York's system, which allows a candidate to receive the nomination of more than one party. Jonah Goldberg reviewed the political mess of legislative redistricting ("Redistricting repair") and suggested that Congress return to the once-regular practice of increasing the size of the House of Representatives as our population grows — perhaps even with one dramatic leap of tripling or quadrupling the current 435 seats.
I could take issue with those suggestions or at least propose complementary reforms such as instant-runoff voting for presidential elections and non-winner-take-all, full-representation voting methods for legislative races. The key point, though, is that it's time to put creative thinking about elections on the table. One element of Howard Dean's platform that has the potential to draw cross-partisan support is the formation of a national commission to strengthen American democracy. Staffed by some of our best leaders and with enough resources to collect testimony from around the county, such a commission could spark the high-profile debate we need about ways to make elections work better for our country and its citizens.
Rob Richie
Executive director
Center for Voting & Democracy
Takoma Park
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.