By Duke Ganote
Published February 1st 2004 in Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
The Jan. 23 Journal-Gazette said it is "essential to involve the county's Democrats and minorities ... any consolidation effort could be viewed as a way for the GOP to seize power."
Openness is not "nonpartisan" voting ("Will the Party End?", Jan. 25), it means permanently ending the gerrymandering and "winner-takes-all" elections that stifle representation!
How?
The Center for Voting and Democracy (http://www.fairvote.org/) has several proposals that no advocate of good government could overlook.
First, use Instant Runoff Voting so that every candidate must get a majority, not just the most votes, for a single citywide office.
Second, use Full Representation for City Council elections. With Full Representation any interest group, like Democrats, blacks, Libertarians with at least 10 percent of the overall vote, would get council representation, whether or not they're scattered across the city, or clustered in one area.
Full Representation will end the blatantly biased and unfair process blithely called redistricting.
Finally, set up local governments between the neighborhood associations and the city. Current township or school districts are fixed, and offer a fine way to assure local representation without so much chicanery.
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.