February 14, 2002
To: Friend of Fair Elections
Fr: Rob Richie, Executive Director
The Center for Voting and Democracy
www.fairvote.org, info@fairvote.org
Re: - The Drive for Electoral Reform Funding
- Fair Elections Action on Instant Runoff Voting and
on Full Representation in Congress and States
- The Fair Elections Rundown: Spanning the Globe
- Debate on Iraq and winner-take-all elections
- Washington Post: "Don't forget redistricting"
- Ranked-choice ballots on campuses, web, Oscars
- Students boost fair elections on campus
- CVD staffers on the road, on the web, on NPR
- British fair elections champion Lord Jenkins dies
- Advances in Canada, New Zealand, Scotland
- Lessons from Israeli and Dutch elections
* * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * * * * * *
THE DRIVE FOR ELECTORAL REFORM FUNDING
This week budget negotiators in Congress reached agreement on
a package that would provide $1.5 billion in funds in 2003 to
help states implement last year's Help America Vote Act
(HAVA). The HAVA law authorized appropriations of more
than $2 billion in 2003 and nearly $4 billion over three years,
but lawmakers compromised with the Bush administration,
which sought only a half billion for each of the next two years.
Now that the budget has been approved by Congress, attention
is turning to the states, which must come up with plans to
comply with HAVA's provisions, improve their elections and
upgrade antiquated voting equipment. Several reform groups have
joined to seek fair and well-funded implementation. Demos
(www.demos-usa-org) has a website devoted to implementation
of HAVA and sends us updates in its "Democracy Dispatches."
Electionline.org posts posts and daily news updates.
Action certainly is warranted. Better fundamentals for our
election system could have led to as many as six million more
effective votes in the 2000 elections -- six percent of the actual
total. But we simply can't stop with better election mechanics,
as those lost votes only could be tolerated for so long in a nation
where elections don't matter as much as they should, where
declines in voter turnout receive little serious attention from
elected officials and where so few races are competitive.
We need a range of reforms to bring more people into politics,
which is why we support fair election systems like instant
runoff voting and full representation. One specific goal for
HAVA implementation is to ensure that new voting equipment
can support these and other potential reforms. To learn how
you can help, see fairvote.org/administration/modernize.htm
SPEAKING OF FUNDS FOR BETTER ELECTIONS....
The Center for Voting and Democracy is pleased to announce a
matching gift of $15,000 to celebrate next month's anniversary
of last year's big wins for instant runoff voting in San
Francisco and Vermont town meetings and to honor my father
David Richie, who died in December after a life devoted to
improving our democracy and protecting our environment. A
generous supporter has pledged to match, dollar for dollar, all
donations made by March 31, up to $15,000. For more on why
it's such a great time to give to CVD, please see my report to
members at http://fairvote.org/e_news/yrend2002.htm To donate,
see http://fairvote.org/donate.htm. And remember, many employers
will match your contributions to non-profit charitable
organizations like our Center. Thanks so much.
In other important funding news, the Working Assets telephone
company has selected our Center as one of the 50 groups it
will support in the coming year. Working Assets customers will
soon have the chance to vote for the Center and ensure we win
a fair share of some four million dollars to be divided in early
2004 among the groups based on customers' votes. For more
on Working Assets, see http://www.workingassets.com
FAIR ELECTIONS ACTION IN CONGRESS AND STATES
There's been a great new run of legislation in Congress and
states-- see http://www.fairvote.org/action/index.htm. Congress
2006 Commission Act (HR 415), sponsored by Florida
Congressman Alcee Hastings, would create a commission to
study the size of the U.S. House of Representatives and the
potential use of full representation voting methods. The bill's
2001 version picked up the support of Martin Frost, one of the
frontrunners last year to be the Democratic leader in the House.
More and more states are looking to instant runoff voting
(IRV), the ranked-choice voting method that ensures a majority
winner in one election no matter how many candidates
participate. Spurred by third party threats to major party
incumbents and by cash-hungry governments wanting to
replace expensive runoff contests, IRV has moved to the top of
major parties' reform agenda in states such as:
* Vermont -- see http://fairvote.org/irv/vt2003/ -- where
IRV has benefitted from the support of ex-governor Howard
Dean, endorsements from civic groups like the League of
Women Voters, Grange, Common Cause, PIRG and AFL-CIO
and a grassroots surge that last year swept more than 50
town meeting votes.
* Utah, where the Republican Party's use of IRV to
nominate Members of Congress at its 2002 convention has
sparked interest in expanding its use, as evidenced by a strong
letter of support for IRV from the Utah attorney general
http://fairvote.org/irv/utahag.htm ;
* Florida, where senior lawmakers are looking to IRV
as an alternative to traditional "delayed" runoffs following
editorial endorsements http://fairvote.org/irv/commentaries.htm
from influential Florida papers like the Fort Lauderdale Sun S
Sentinel, Palm Beach Post and St. Petersburg Times;
* Minnesota, where the growth of former governor
Jesse Ventura's Independence Party and the Greens have
contributed to endorsements for IRV from the state's governor
and the largest newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune
http://fairvote.org/op_eds/minnst111202.htm
* Maine, where a leading lawmaker publicly announced
a goal of implementing IRV for state elections by 2004;
Other states that have or will soon have IRV legislation include:
California, where the November 2003 mayoral elections with
IRV should dramatically increase potential use elsewhere -- for
more on San Francisco, see www.fairvote.org/sf/; Hawaii, which
held a hearing on an IRV bill on Feb. 10; New Mexico; New
York; Virginia; and Washington.
Illinois has two intriguing bills developed by the Center's
general counsel Dan Johnson-Weinberger. HB 138, which
already has unanimously passed its initial committee vote,
would grant county boards the authority to adopt cumulative
voting in multi-member districts. A second bill, HB 395, would
require officials to provide primary election ballots that permit
instant runoff voting for absentee voters in the U.S. military or
outside of U.S. -- for more on this sensible practice adopted
already by Louisiana, see http://www.fairvote.org/irv/lairv.htm.
If you live in a state with primary or local runoffs, please urge
your state legislators to initiate this legislation.
To keep updated on a full range of state legislation affecting
political parties, see the invaluable resource Ballot Access
News: $14 a year for 12 issues and on line at
www.ballot-access.org.
FAIR ELECTIONS RUNDOWN: SPANNING THE GLOBE
* The debate on Iraq and winner-take-all elections
No matter what one might think about the potential war
in Iraq, what strikes many international observers is how
limited debate is in Congress about such a critically important
issue -- not only on the case for war, but on its overall impact
on foreign policy and the United States' long-term role in the
Middle East. Two recent magazine quotes are revealing about
how winner-take-all elections -- which typically limit voters to
two credible parties and lead those parties to play off of each
other rather than the full range of voter opinion, in contrast to
full representation systems in which most voters win
representation even if part of a political minority -- have such
an impact on our political dialogue.
In Newsweek on February 3, Howard Fineman writes
"But the biggest problem [for the peace movement]: it doesn't
matter how big your megaphone is if nobody in power is
listening. The Democrats, the protestors' historical allies, have
spent the past 30 years trying to shed their image as being
weak on war.... The absence of a strong counter to Bush's
saber-rattling complicates things for the protestors."
In the Feb. 24 Nation, Eric Alterman writes "My friend
Rick Hertzberg attributes the sorry state of just about
everything in American politics to the faulty quality of our
institutions. If we had the good sense to adopt European styles
of proportional representation -- coupled with desperately
needed campaign finance reform -- we would be rewarded with
European-quality leaders who could express their values with
eloquence and courage, without fear of seeing their words
deliberately distorted beyond recognition in order to exploit the
ignorance of the average voter. He has a point."
* "Don't Forget Redistricting"
That was the headline in a January 5, 2003 editorial
in the Washington Post, which rightly pointed out that:
"Redistricting, which follows the census every decade,
should be an opportunity to make districts competitive
and, thereby, to hold incumbents accountable despite the
changing demographics of a state. In most states, however,
legislatures seek to protect incumbency and to lock in the
advantage of the party in power by drawing as many safe seats
for that party as possible." The Post urged action in states to
adopt Iowa's nonpartisan redistricting system before the next
round of redistricting in 2012.
Of course we don't need to wait that long -- and we
shouldn't if it troubles you that: more than 40% of state
legislative races in 2000 and 2002 didn't even have two major
party candidates; the growth of representation of women and
racial minorities in our legislatures has nearly stalled; and our
Center already has been able to project more than 350 winners
in the November 2004 U.S. House elections based on a model
that has been right in all but one of 1,263 projections since 1994
-- see Monopoly Politics 2004 at http://www.fairvote.org/2004/.
Rather than accept this status quo, states should adopt full
representation or at least pursue a new round of fair redistricting.
* Ranked-choice ballots and campuses, the web and Oscars
Young people are often particularly excited about the
potential of instant runoff voting and full representation. Just in
the past two years, colleges such as Vassar, Whitman, William
and Mary and the Universities of Maryland and Illinois joined
Stanford, Princeton, MIT, UC-Berkeley and Harvard in using
instant runoff voting and/or full representation for student
government elections. The latest to join these colleges may
well be Duke (where the student council just voted to use IRV
this spring) and UC-Davis (where a student vote will take place
this spring). For more on student elections, see recent news
postings at http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/media.htm and
our webpage on schools at http://www.fairvote.org/schools.
To pursue an opportunity in your school (K-12 or college),
contact John Russell at johnr@fairvote.org
The alternative news website Alternet (www.alternet.org)
later today is launching a public on-line election that will use
instant runoff voting -- a model for many on-line votes. For one
example among many of how it is silly to use plurality voting
rules instead of instant runoff voting for such multiple-option
elections, note that a recent Gallup poll found that Hillary
Clinton was the most admired woman in the United States --
with all of 7% of people's preferences which were dispersed
among a large number of people.
Finally, the Academy of Motion Pictures once again
used the choice voting method of full representation for Oscar
nominations. That's why the best motion picture could go to a
big budget blockbuster like "The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers" or the low-budget "The Pianist" and why the best
director nominees include long-time heavyweights Martin
Scorcese and Roman Polanski, newcomers Rob Marshall and
Stephen Daldry and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.
* CVD staff on the road, on the web, on NPR
The Center's staff has been particularly busy this year
with speeches and events across the country. We played a lead
role in organizing a January workshop for civic leaders and
elected officials in Atlanta and similar events in February in
Boston and Augusta (ME). Touting his new book Fixing
Elections -- see www.fixingelections.com -- the Center's senior
analyst Steven Hill has made speeches at events in several
states. Last week, he spoke before audiences at Northeastern,
U.-Mass-Amherst, the Cambridge Forum, two bookstores and
events organized for civic leaders and state legislators in
Boston and Augusta (ME) and taped two television programs
to air on AT&T's New England's cable network and
Cambridge (MA) city cable.
Steven's Cambridge Forum talk will be available to
National Public Radio affiliates on March 14 -- contact your
local NPR station to urge them to pick up the program, which
also will be available at www.cambridgeforum.org. You can
read a good review of "Fixing Elections" by Paul Taylor at:
www.bettercampaigns.org/standard/display.php?StoryID=275
* British fair elections champion Lord Jenkins dies
Lord Jenkins (formerly Roy Jenkins), whom British
Prime Minister Tony Blair appropriately said was "one of the
most remarkable people ever to grace British politics," died on
January 5. Jenkins was a passionate and influential advocate of
full "proportional" representation in the United Kingdom, based
in part on the 1983 elections in which the centrist party he led
received 26% of the popular vote, but less than 5% of seats.
Under Blair's leadership, Jenkins chaired a commission that in
1998 recommended adoption of a new system for electing the
House of Commons which would have combined full
representation with instant runoff voting.
Although the Labour government has not adopted full
representation for electing the House of Commons, Jenkins'
advocacy contributed to its adoption for electing regional
assemblies in Scotland and Wales (which will have new
elections this May), in London and Northern Ireland and for
Britain's delegation to the European parliament. It is likely just
a matter of the right political moment arriving before Britain
joins the great majority of established democracies in adopting
full representation for all major elections.
Jenkins headed the fair elections group Make Votes Count --
see http://www.makevotescount.org.uk -- and was chancellor of
Oxford University. His successor at Oxford will be elected this
spring by instant runoff voting. One potential candidate is
former U.S. president Bill Clinton.
* Advances in Canada, New Zealand, Scotland
Hardly any well-established democracies around the
world use the "first past the post" plurality system that awards
100% of representation to the candidate who finishes first, but
the Anglo-American democracies traditionally have lagged
behind. That is changing. Ireland and Australia decades ago
converted to adopted the choice voting method of full
representation and instant runoff voting for their elections. In
1996 New Zealand started using the "mixed member" method
of full representation after a remarkable national referendum in
1993. Newly created regional assemblies in Scotland, Wales,
London and Northern Ireland use full representation systems.
There are vigorous movements to keep driving for fair
elections in these nations. Fair Vote Canada -- see
www.fairvotecanada.org -- is gaining more and more advocates,
including the leader of the New Democratic Party and a host of
leading scholars and civic leaders. The British Electoral Reform
Society -- see www.electoral-reform.org.uk -- for decades has led
the charge in the United Kingdom, while in Scotland, Fairshare --
see www.fairsharevoting.org -- has launched a drive to win
choice voting (also called "single transferable vote") for local
government in the wake of commission recommendations and
government pledges to support the change. In New Zealand,
the capital city of Wellington voted last year to convert to
choice voting, and there is a national campaign to support
a series of city ballot measures this spring led by the
Electoral Reform Coalition -- see http://www.stvnz.org/.
* Lessons from Israeli and Dutch elections
Israel has one of the most inclusive voting systems in
the world, as its political parties can win seats with 1.5% of the
national vote. But the system's combination of "closed" party
lists (where voters can choose only among parties, not
candidates) and a national vote are different from what is used
in most governments elected by full representation, while the
country's ethnic and cultural diversity and perilous position in
the Middle East have led to complicated governance that would
be problematic no matter how elections were run.
In Israel's January 2003 elections, voter turnout dropped
to an all-time low -- but still brought more than two of three
eligible voters to the polls, far higher than the 40% of
American adults who voted in our national elections in
November. More than 95% of voters elected representatives
among a wide array of choices. Reversing trends, more voters
supported the major parties, which was due to converting back
to a system where the prime minister is not directly elected.
For more, see www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0n130
Meanwhile, the Netherlands, widely accepted as one of
the world's most stable and effective democracies, has nearly
the exact same full representation system as Israel. In its
January 22 elections, voters turned back to the two major
parties after a much-publicized surge last year for an anti-
immigrant party led by Pym Fortuyn. That party saw its share
of seats fall from 26 seats to just eight -- mirroring a trend seen
in other European nations such as Austria.
For more on full representation, see our webpages --
www.fairvote.org/pr -- that include a new listing at
http://fairvote.org/library/geog/europe/systems.htm that
shows how only three (Canada, Mongolia and the United
States) of the world's 42 major, full-fledged democracies use
only winner-take-all elections to elect their national legislatures
-- and those of Douglas Amy, author of the recently updated
classic book "Real Choices, New Voices" -- see
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm
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Thank you, and Happy Valentine's Day!
Rob Richie, Executive Director
The Center for Voting & Democracy
rr@fairvote.org, www.fairvote.org
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
(301) 270-4616
"Make Your Vote Count!"