The following are excerpts from Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court vs. The American People, a 2003 book (Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.) by Washington College of Law professor and Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, who is a former FairVote board member. He presents a broad pro-democracy agenda, including instant runoff voting and full representation (here called "proportional representation.") Below are two excerpts: the first about the case for proportional representation and the second about using instant runoff voting when electing the president.
Representing Everyone: Proportional
Representation (229-234)
17 Speeches given during presidential campaign, 1991-1992.
18 J.S. Mill, Representative Government (1861).
19 "Congressional Redistricting: How to Rig an Election," The Economist, April 27, 2002.
24 See Steven Hill, Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics 35 (2002).
25 See op-ed by Clint Bolick, Wall Street Journal, April 30, 1993.
27 Davidson and Grofman at 338.
The Popular Election of the President Amendment (64-66)
Consider the following amendment to adopt direct popular election of the president which includes a built-in "instant run-off" provision to guarantee that the winner actually has majority support of the voters:
The President and the Vice President shall be elected by direct popular vote of all U.S. Citizens eighteen years of age and older, but no person shall be elected President who has not attained at least 50 percent support among the votes cast. Whenever there are three or more candidates listed on the ballot, the ballot shall ask voters to rank their choices in order of preference. If no candidate receives at least 50 percent of the first-place votes cast, the last place candidate's ballots shall be redistributed to the second-choice candidates of these voters. This instant runoff method shall continue until a candidate has achieved a majority of all votes cast.
Of the several important changes embodied in this Popular Election of the President Amendment, the enactment of majority rule is only the most obvious. The Popular Election of the President Amendment replaces the bizarre Rube Goldberg-type contraptions of the electoral college -- the two-vote add-on, the lengthy delays between popular voting and the casting of the electoral-college votes, the contingent House election based on state-by-state voting, the recurring possibilities of popular-vote losers winning the election -- with clean and simple majority rule. A majority is guaranteed by virtue of the "instant runoff" mechanism, which assures that the winner will achieve a popular mandate without requiring that an expensive second (or third) runoff election be held. This method of voting not only guarantees that candidates will take office with majority support but also dampens partisan invective and rancor during the campaign. Candidates have no interest in polarizing things because they want to become a group of voters' second favored choice even if they cannot be their first. This instant runoff mechanism is gaining increasing support around the country. On March 5, 2002, the people of San Francisco voted by 56 percent to 44 percent to adopt instant runoff voting for election of local officials. Rob Richie and Steven Hill of the Center for Voting and Democracy in Takoma Park, Maryland, who organized the drive, have made a signal contribution to public discourse by putting the instant runoff on America's democracy agenda.