January 16, 2004
To: Friend of Fair Elections
Fr: Rob Richie, Executive Director
The Center for Voting and Democracy (CVD)
www.fairvote.org, info@fairvote.org
Re: Full Representation and Ranked Choices in Prez Primaries
Putting a Right to Vote in the U.S. Constitution
Full Representation Continues As International Norm
Re-Redistricting: Opening the Floodgates?
Activism: Interns, Berkeley, Letters, Lobbying, More
CVD Voices on Radio and C-SPAN and in Lectures
* * * * * * * * * *
(For more information about issues discussed here or to
support our Center, visit www.fairvote.org or email us
at info@fairvote.org. To subscribe/unsubscribe from
these occasional newsletters, please see the end of this
edition. This edition can be read on-line starting January 16
at http://www.fairvote.org/e_news/040115.htm)
* * * * * * * * * *
Welcome to 2004! May you enjoy Martin Luther King Day
and have an opportunity to reflect on how we can have a
strong, vital, truly representative democracy.
It’s already been an eventful year for electoral reformers
nd students of elections. Here is a snapshot review, including
links to many recent additions to our website (www.fairvote.org).
FULL REPRESENTATION AND RANKED CHOICES
IN THE 2004 RACE FOR PRESIDENT
This week Democrats in Washington, D.C. voted in a non-binding
presidential primary, giving Howard Dean a win. Several candidates
and the media ignored the primary, however – missing an opportunity
both to recognize cities as critical to the health of our society and to
help show that it is unacceptable to deny voting representation in
Congress to the half million residents of our nation’s capital.
On Monday, January 19, the first delegates in the race for the
Democratic nomination will be awarded when Democrats vote
in the Iowa caucuses. Despite the hoopla, participants likely
will total no more than 10% of Iowa’s adults.
Our Center’s two signature reforms – full representation for
legislative elections and instant runoff voting for executive offices
– will be a part of the picture. All Democratic primaries and caucuses
require that convention delegates be allocated by full representation
(a.k.a. “proportional representation”). That means that if a candidate
wins 20% of the vote, that candidate will win about 20% of the state’s
delegates. The candidate who wins the most votes will win the most
delegates – but a fair share of delegates rather than all of them, unlike
what happens in “winner-take-all” elections.
The Democrats have established a relatively high threshold of support
of 15% necessary to elect delegates, however. Supporters of a candidate
who wins less than 15% of the vote in primaries therefore won’t elect
any delegates. Given the large Democratic field, it’s quite likely that the
15% threshold could seriously distort results in a number of primaries.
Lower thresholds have been used – for example, Republicans had a 10%
threshold in New Hampshire in 1980—and would be one way to address
the problem. States with primaries also could allow voters to rank
candidates and have voters’ ballots count toward their second choice if
their first choice falls below 15%.
In the Iowa caucuses, in fact, participants vote in person, publicly
declaring their preference. If their preferred candidate has less than 15%
in their local caucus, they have the option to support another candidate.
This chance to support one’s next choice is analogous to instant runoff
voting – the ranked-choice system where votes count for your second
choice if your first choice cannot win.
The sensible idea of asking people to rank candidates also has influenced
recent polling. In the Democratic presidential race, second-choices have
been sought in December 2003 and January 2004 polls by Gallup, the
Los Angeles Times, MSNBC/Zogby and Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press. Asking for a fuller set of voter preferences gives
a fuller, more nuanced view of the election – just as using instant runoff
voting in our elections would provide fuller, more nuanced and more
accurate elections.
Here are some notable links about the 2004 presidential elections:
* http://fairvote.org/pr/pr_presidential.htm -- Information about the
Democratic Party rules requiring full representation in presidential
primaries and caucuses
* http://fairvote.org/articles/ranked-choicesurvey.htm --Information
about use of ranked-choice polls
* http://www.publicintegrity.org -- Information on Charles Lewis
and the Center for Public Integrity’s new “The Buying of the
President 2004"
* http://www.e-democracy.org/us -- E-Democracy.Org's Election
2004 Link Directory
PUTTING A RIGHT TO VOTE IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
When I talk to students as a visiting speaker, I often ask
participants to consider which right is most essential for
having a free and democratic society. The discussion
typically comes down to a choice between the right to free
speech and the right to vote. That’s why it can come as a
shock when I ask, “There are strong arguments for both of
these rights, but which one do we not have in our Constitution?”
The fact is that unlike nearly all democracies, the U.S.
Constitution lacks an affirmative right to vote. The lack of
this right has had an obvious impact over the years, from
early disenfranchisement of most adults (including white
males who did not own property) to the post-Reconstruction
assault on African Americans’ voting rights in the South to
denial of voting rights to ex-felons in a dozen states today to
the Supreme Court majority in the Bush v. Gore ruling
declaring that Americans have no fundamental right to vote
for president.
The most universal impact of the lack of a federal
commitment to protect individuals’ right to vote,
however, is in the decentralization of how we run
elections in the United States. The hodge-podge
system of rules and practices governing voting
machines, voter registration procedures, ballot
designs, voting hours and the like is an ongoing
accident waiting to happen – and it happens again
and again, even if only rarely capturing national
attention like the debacle in Florida in 2000.
Progress has been made toward national standards
since 2000, with passage of the Help America Vote
Act, but we argue that it doesn’t go nearly far enough –
and because of our decentralized framework of elections,
it actually is having regressive impact in some states
and has no guarantee of lasting positive impact
in all states.
The federal government’s failure to take strong
leadership also has created a mess out of the
important transition to “touchscreen” voting equipment –
a move that should enhance voting rights of millions of
Americans, particularly people with disabilities and
language minorities, but which has created great concern
about security based on the failure of most touchscreen
systems to have a voter-verifiable audit trail. A ruling
this week by a federal judge that ordered Florida counties
to provice blind and physically impaired voters with
voting machines that will let them vote without assistance
is a big win for people with disabilities, but still leaves
states with the need to choose among a limited, questionable
range of voting equipment options produced by private,
for-profit companies
In November 2003 our Center held an intriguing meeting
to consider the merits of adding an affirmative right to vote
in the U.S. Constitution. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.
made a passionate speech about his efforts on behalf of that
amendment at the public “Claim Democracy” conference the next day.
Below are links relating to the right to vote in the United States:
* http://fairvote.org/articles/baltimoresun.htm -- A recent
Baltimore Sun commentary by me and my colleague Steven
Hill about the need for a federal commitment to protect
the individual’s right to vote
* http://fairvote.org/amendment.htm -- Papers delivered
at our November 2003 right-to-vote roundtable
* http://fairvote.org/action/index.html#hjr -- Information
about congressional legislation for a constitutional right to
vote and an mp3 file of Congressman Jesse Jackson’s
powerful speech at the November 2003 “Claim Democracy”
conference
* http://fairvote.org/whatsnew.htm -- This month we posted
pdf files on recent reports from the Century Foundation and
electionline.org on election reform and the 2004 elections, from
Demos and several other groups on implementation of the Help
America Vote Act and from the Congressional Research Service
on touchscreen voting equipment.
* http://www.democracyusa.org -- The homepage for our Claim
Democracy conference, with links to a range of endorsing
organizations that work on voting issues, including D.C. Vote
and Right to Vote.
* http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/intro/intro_c.htm -- A
Department of Justice chart on the impact of the 1965 Voting
Rights Act that provides a stark visual demonstration of the
oss of voting rights by African American in the late 1800s
and their revival after 1965
* http://landview.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features/001643.html --
A January 2004 U.S. Census release with data on voter
turnout based on surveys
* http://www.fec.gov/elections.html --Voter turnout statistics
from the Federal Elections Commission
FULL REPRESENTATION AROUND THE WORLD
We have posted Michigan State University professor Mark Jones'
annual chart about voting methods in full-fledged democracies,
showing that once again only a handful of major democracies do
not use a full representation for national elections. Of 45
democracies with a high human rights rating from Freedom
House and at least two million people, only eight use U.S.-style
winner-take-all, single-ember districts – and just four (Canada,
Ghana, Mongolia and the United Kingdom) join the United States
in using plurality voting in those district elections.
This month Afghanistan adopted a new constitution at a national
assembly. In the nation’s House of the People, 250 delegates will
be elected directly through a system of full representation. (In
addition, two delegates from each province must be women, which
means that at least 64 delegates – just over one-quarter of the total --
will be female. The U.S. Congress is more than 85% male.)
Canada continues an intriguing march toward full representation.
British Columbia has created a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral
Reform to evaluate the province’s current voting system in comparison
with others around the world. The citizens on the commission –
selected by lot – will decide this year about whether to keep the
current model or to put a new one to the votes.
In South Korea, President Roh of South Korea in December
presented a plan encouraged implementing full representation
on a wider scale in national elections. In New Zealand, all voters
in 2004 will use the choice voting form of full representation for
health board elections.
Also on the international front, Papua New Guinea, a nation
of five million people near Australia, has re-instituted instant
runoff voting (IRV) because of the polarizing impact of plurality.
In the first use of IRV in a special election in December 2003,
voter error rate was lower than in American presidential elections.
Full representation also gains steadily growing interest in the
United States. The generally positive experience of Peoria (IL)
with the cumulative voting method of full representation was
affirmed by many participants at a December 2003 forum –
Peoria is one of more than sixty jurisdictions using cumulative
voting around the United States. Numerous colleges have
moved toward the choice voting form of full representation –
a system also used in city elections in Cambridge (Mass.) and
in such private elections as the current “listener board” elections
in the five radio stations that make up the Pacifica radio network.
On the advocacy side, the Sacramento Bee – the daily
newspaper of California’s state capital – came out for full
representation in a January 1, 2004 editorial on “More ideas
for California: State's situation demands new approaches
For more see:
* http://fairvote.org/library/geog/europe/systems.htm -- Professor
Mark Jones’ release of voting methods in full-fledged major
democracies in 2003
* http://www.fairvote.org/pr/global -- Articles relating to full
representation from around the world
* http://fairvote.org/pr/global/citizensassembly.htm -- A set of
links about British Columbia’s citizens assembly that is
studying full representation
RE-REDISTRICTING: OPENING THE FLOODGATES ?
This month a three-judge panel of federal judges rejected
challenges to a new congressional redistricting plan in Texas.
One of the more transparent power-grabs in American political
history, the 2003 Texas redistricting – just two years after
the last redistricting – could shift seven U.S. House seats
from Democrats to Republicans. If upheld, the ruling opens
the door to any state – or at least those where current state
law doesn’t block mid-decennial redistricting -- from having
the state legislature fine-tune districts to protect incumbents
and/or engage in partisan powergrabs every two years. The
already-broken process of redistricting is getting far worse
than ever, and it’s looking less likely that the federal courts
will step into protect voters. Elected officials must be held
accountable for the mess we’re in.
Following are links
* http://fairvote.org/redistricting/congress.htm -- A summary
of congressional legislation on redistricting since the 1970’s,
including evidence of how little effort has been made to establish
national standards in recent years.
* http://fairvote.org/redistricting/reports/remanual/txnews.htm --
News articles about the Texas redistricting controversy that are
part of the Center’s 50-state guide to redistricting
* http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/dem_vr_lit_session.html --
Discussion about the Texas redistricting challenge and a set of links
to legal filings and opinions in the case from the Brennan Center for Justice
* http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/03a581.htm -- stay
application docket in the U.S. Supreme Court on Jackson v. Perry, the
Texas congressional redistricting case
* http://fairvote.org/redistricting/amicusbrief.htm -- amicus briefs
in a political gerrymandering case before the Supreme Court and
the text of the oral argument in that case
ACTIVISM: LETTERS, BERKELEY, INTERNS, LOBBYING
Our Center not only reports on how to improve elections, but
also seeks to assist those working for reform. There are many ways
to help that are described at: http://fairvote.org/get_involved.htm
For advocates of instant runoff voting IRV) in particular, we have
established the IRV national listserv, with some 800 participants
now getting regular updates about ways to work for IRV in one’s
community. There are also several state IRV listservs. It’s easy
to sign up at: http://www.fairvote.org/irv/subscribe.htm
Following are additional links about some of the groups working
for reform and ideas about what you can do to help:
* http://www.irv4berkeley.org -- The campaign website of IRV
For Berkeley, a new citizens’ group backing Measure 1 on the
March 2, 2004 ballot that would give the Berkeley (CA) city
council the authority to implement IRV for city elections
* http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/interns.htm-- The Center
regularly hires interns for work in its national office and
sometimes in the field.
* http://fairvote.org/action/index.html -- The Center’s
“pending legislation” page reporting on fair elections legislation
around the country and in Congress
* http://www.fairvote.org/irv/utahindex.html - Information
about the use of instant runoff voting at the state conventions
of the Republican Party of Utah – a sensible time-saver
that is one of several reasons that can make IRV and choice
voting attractive for non-governmental elections.
* http://www.firv.org -- Ferndale IRV, which has been the
impetus for a growing movement for IRV in Michigan, for
building strong support on city council and for working with
the Mirror Newspapers this month on plans to distribute to
72,000 homes a mock IRV demonstration ballot
* http://fairvote.org/media/index.htm -- Links to recent media
coverage, including several strong letters to the editor in
December 2003 and January 2004 by activists that advocate
for instant runoff voting or full representation
CVD VOICES: RADIO, C-SPAN, LECTURES
The Center’s core staff and board chairman John B. Anderson
are frequent speakers at events and media sources. Thanks I
part to the efforts of the Mainstream Media Project, this has
been a busy month for talk shows. John Anderson, Steven Hill,
Rashad Robinson and I have appeared on guests on more
than a dozen programs in the past week, literally in every
region of the country, and have several upcoming appearances,
including on WOON in Woonsocket (RI) on February 6, on
WRVC in Huntington (WV) on January 28 and on Voice of
the World and on KGNU in Boulder (CO) on February 3.
In addition, John Anderson spoke at a January 11 news
conference by Open Debates on the creation of a Citizens’
Debate Commission for structuring presidential debates –
one that would be broadly representative of the public
rather than tied only to the two major parties, as is true
of the current Commission for Presidential Debates. The
event was covered by C-SPAN. C-SPAN also had 2000
presidential candidate Ralph Nader on as a guest on
“Washington Journal” on January 5, during which he praised
by the Center by name for our work on electoral reform.
These appearances are still available to be viewed on the
C-SPAN webpage – to find and watch them, use the
search engine www.c-span.org
John also addressed an event on the Electoral College
organized this week by the League of Women Voters of
Washington, D.C., while in coming weeks I will speak
to classes at Harvard Law School, Washington and Lee
niversity and George Washington University. The Center’s
other staffers also frequently address events and classes;
please contact us if interested in finding a speaker about
fair elections and a vital democracy at your college or in
your community.
SUBSCRIBING/UNSUBSCRIBING
We send out newsletters about once a month. If you do
not want to receive them, let us know by replying to this
message with the word "remove" in the subject or your
message. If you would like to subscribe, please send an
email to address@fairvote.org.
The Center for Voting and Democracy is a non-profit
organization based in Washington D.C. We are devoted
to increasing public understanding of American politics
and how to reform its rules to provide better choices and
fairer representation. Our website (www.fairvote.org)
has information on voting methods, redistricting and voter
turnout. As we rely heavily on individual donations,
please consider a contribution by mail (6930 Carroll
Avenue, Suite 610, Takoma Park MD 20910) or on-line
at www.fairvote.org/donate.htm
Thank you!
Rob Richie, Executive Director
The Center for Voting & Democracy
info@fairvote.org, www.fairvote.org
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
(301) 270-4616
"Make Your Vote Count!"