Free to Feel AlienatedBy Robert Richie
Published June 8th 2000 in Washington Post
Courtland Milloy is right to bemoan the low voter turnout in the June 27 referendum on restructuring the school board, but he is dead wrong to suggest that it has any bearing on whether the District should have representation in Congress [Metro, June 30]. Shrinking turnout is a national phenomenon that demands more thoughtful solutions than scolding citizens about their complacency.
Take Texas, for example. In 1998, only 11 percent of registered voters--a lower turnout than in the school board referendum--participated in its primaries for governor, Congress and the state legislature. In 1999 fewer than 8 percent of registered voters came out to elect mayors in Dallas, San Antonio and El Paso. This year, only 3 percent of registered voters voted in a runoff election for the Senate.
No one is suggesting that Texans lose their right to representation. Similarly, the alienation many D.C. residents show toward their government must be addressed, but it is no reason to deny them a vote in Congress.
--Robert Richie
The writer is executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy.
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.