Claim Democracy
Claim Democracy encourages networking and collaboration among national, state and local democracy groups in order to build support for and strengthen a national infrastructure for a pro-democracy movement within the United States.  Its most significant accomplishment thus far has been our November 2003 and 2007 Claim Democracy conferences, which brought together representatives of more than 100 organizations and more than 500 people for intensive private meetings and public dialogue inWashington, D.C. In light of recent election administration problems and high-profile obstacles to fair elections in the public interest, its major goal for 2008 is the Democracy SoS (Secretary of State) project, designed to develop a comprehensive agenda for action by Secretaries of State and other elected officials who influence election policy.

The vision for Claim Democracy is to help create and support a network of state-based organizations that work to secure, enhance and exercise the right vote through a range of reforms and activities. Rather than exclusively focus on one particular reform or another, these organizations would be able to coordinate and pool resources to advocate one of a number of reforms that meet clear pro-democracy goals. Examples include: expanding the electorate, increasing citizen participation, providing fair representation, promoting better political debate, freeing voters to support their candidate of choice and supporting equality in the political process. Potential activities include plans to:
  • Establish a new website with a range of information about pro-democracy issues, blogs from several leading pro-democracy advocates and easy means to find pro-democracy advocates in one’s state or locality. An internal invitation-only set of pages would facilitate communication among leaders of pro-democracy groups.

  • Promote creation of and support for a network of state and local groups working to promote participation and reform in their state – ideally seeking to integrate efforts to boost citizen participation with reform efforts and seeking to establish lasting relationships with elected officials able to enact change.

  • Coordinate regular meetings of a pro-democracy roundtable of national and local groups, designed to promote strategic thinking, greater communication and coordination in the pro-democracy movement and support for state/local efforts.

  • Develop a “war-room” communications ability able to spotlight deficits in our democracy and work being done to address those efforts.

  • Develop and work with caucuses of pro-democracy elected officials, at local, state and federal levels – coordinating strategic initiatives that can be carried out at different levels.

  • Develop curriculum about the history of expansion of democracy in the United States as a whole and individual states to be used in K-12 schools.


 

Get your election results here: 99.8% accurate
Steven Hill and Rob Richie

Published November 3rd 2002 in Houston Chronicle
If we said we could predict the winners in three-quarters of the horse races at Sam Houston Raceway, you'd say the fix is in. But when it comes to the 435 races for the U.S. House on Nov. 5, the fix really is in. Even before the polls open on Election Day, we can tell you the winners in 76 percent of the races. For all intents and purposes, most House races have been over for months. No wonder that barely a third of adults will bother voting this year -- the lowest national election turnout in the world among long-time democracies. Most Americans simply have given up on stale, noncompetitive congressional elections. Turnout in primaries this year was a mere 17 percent of adults. So here are our predictions for this year's House races, taken from our new report called "Monopoly Politics": Democrats will win 159 seats in the House, 104 by lopsided landslides and 41 by a comfortable spread of 10 points or more. The Republicans will win 173 seats, 91 by landslides and 59 by a comfortable 10-point spread. A total of 332 seats are locked up for one party or the other, and most of the remaining districts won't be competitive either due to weak challengers. More than 95 percent of incumbents will again cruise to victory, usually by huge margins. We have made predictions for previous House elections, and those predictions were 99.8 percent accurate. What is perhaps most interesting is that we make our predictions so confidently without knowing anything about inequities in campaign financing between the candidates, or even knowing much about who the candidates are. We can do this because of a simple fact: Most districts tilt strongly toward one major party or the other, courtesy of the redistricting process. That's when legislative district lines are redrawn by the dominant political party and manipulated to favor those already in power. Think of it as "insider trading," just like Enron or Martha Stewart -- except this is political insider trading. What's the end result? Most voters have become bunkered down in safe, one-party districts where their only viable choice is to ratify the candidate -- usually the incumbent -- of the party that dominates their district. If you are a Democrat in a solidly Republican district, a Republican in a solidly Democratic district, or a supporter of a minor party, you don't have a chance of electing your candidate, no matter how much money your candidate spends. While we think of ours as a two-party system, in fact, most voters' frame of reference for legislative races is that of a one-party system. This fact directly undercuts voter enthusiasm and public debate about issues. It also undercuts campaign-finance reform. Compared to the lopsided nature of most House districts, campaign-finance inequities are of secondary importance in determining who wins and loses most legislative elections in November (big money has its greatest impact in primary races). The sad fact is that for most voters who care about which party controls the House, it will be more effective for them to donate money to a candidate in a competitive race halfway across the nation than vote in their own districts. It's little wonder that so many voters are losing interest. Our votes count for too little, and this contributes to an alarming level of apathy and resignation. To improve voter choice, we should start by following Iowa and Arizona's example, and take the redistricting process out of incumbents' hands and give it to independent nonpartisan commissions with a mandate to make our legislative races more competitive. But we won't return choice and empowerment to voters unless we join most other modern democracies in transforming our "winner-take-all" elections. We should break up the single-seat districts and try multi-seat districts elected by a system of proportional representation. That will produce more competitive elections, and more voters will have a fair chance to win representation. In the meantime, place your bets, everyone. It's easy money when the fix is in. And you don't need to wait until Election Day, you can find out who your representative will be by visiting our predictions at www.fairvote.org. Richie is the executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, a national nonprofit organization in Takoma Park, Md. Hill is senior analyst for the center and author of a new book "Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics," which examines these issues in depth.