<x-flowed>Our program director David Moon (at dmoon@fairvote.org) crafted the following document briefly explaining how our voting system reform proposals speak to parts of the difficult electoral dynamics in Louisiana.

Note that the idea of ranked-choice ballots for absentee voters in runoffs was made law this year in Arkansas for overseas military voters. It's already the law in Louisiana for overseas voters and out-of-state military voters, and we propose extending it to all displaced absentee voters.

- Rob Richie

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http://fairvote.org/?page=1670

Brewing Election Problems:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana voters and election administrators will face numerous challenges that threaten to undermine the stateÕs democratic processes. These issues include:

* Congressional and state legislative districts of wildly disparate sizes, and
* Thousands of displaced voters without stable absentee voting addresses.


Disparate District Populations:

Issue Summary: Political experts and pundits have begun speculation that Louisiana may need to redraw legislative districts, given that the post-Katrina migration of residents has created wildly disparate district populations. The central and northern Louisiana congressional districts are now home to tens of thousands of displaced southern Louisiana voters, creating increased constituent demands, and taxing local resources. According to one estimation, the 6th Congressional District (which contains Baton Rouge) likely contains double the usual number of people in House districts. Nevertheless, conducting a short-term census of the state is almost certainly an unfeasible, and costly solution, likely to be fraught with error.

Proposal: Ask Congress to amend the federal law requiring single-member congressional districts, and temporarily allow Louisiana to elect its Congressional representatives at-large, statewide using a proportional voting method. (Should residents desire a guarantee of geographic representation, parties could nominate at least one nominee in each current congressional districts.) Such a plan would eliminate the Òone-person one voteÓ problems created by the sudden population migration, would comply with the Voting Rights Act, and it would avoid the need to engage in a costly and ineffective mid-decade redistricting. [More information on proportional voting]

Two potential proportional voting methods are already used in the United States:

Choice voting - Voters rank candidates in order of choice (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). Once a voter's first choice is elected or eliminated, excess votes are counted for subsequent choices until all seats are elected. [More information on choice voting]

Cumulative voting Ð voters would vote for up to seven people, and their votes would be evenly distributed among candidates they support. [More information on cumulative voting]


Absentee Voting for Displaced Voters:

Issue Summary: Louisiana uses the ÔCajunÕ primary system for state and federal offices: all voters select from all potential candidates of all parties in the primary election. If a candidate earns a majority of the total votes in that election, that candidate wins. If not, a runoff is held between the top two candidates. Election administrators face a daunting challenge: two elections in a short amount of time. They barely have time to declare the winners of the first election and determine what races will go to a final runoff before they must print the second round ballots with the federal primary and the state runoff. As a result, absentee voters often have too short a time to receive their ballot and mail it back in time to count. With thousands of hurricane victims living without a fixed address, this problem will likely be greatly exacerbated.

Solution: In an effort to ensure full participation from overseas absentee voters, Louisiana sent more than 10,000 ranked choice ballots to overseas voters in 2004, as they have done for many federal and state elections since the early 1990s. This allows absentee voters to rank candidates in order of preference and have their ballot counted in the runoff round for their top-ranked candidate in the runoff - meaning they have an effective vote without the state trying to send a second mailing. Given the recent displacement of hundreds of thousands of voters, this policy should be expanded to include all absentee voters, to ease absentee voting for hurricane victims. [More on Louisiana's use of IRV for absentee voters]