<x-flowed>Just to add a couple twists to this analysis, there are different
ways of measuring the impact of going to a majority vote requirement.
Not all would suggest it's regressive.
The one that Brian and Mark are measuring is whether a candidate
backed by a racial minority might be able to win in a white-majority
electorate with a plurality of the vote, but not a majority. This
indeed can happen, and there are a lot more white-majority
electorates out there than majority-minority ones.
But in a majority-minority electorate, a majority requirement in fact
can protect the voting rights of the racial minority that is a
majority in that district. Indeed, the existence of runoffs were key
three African Americans winning newly-created African-American
majority districts in 1992 (Eva Clayton in North Carolina, Sanford
Bishop in Georgia and Alcee Hastings in NC -- all trailed white
candidates by at least 7% after the first round).
Of course the fact that African Americans don't win a heckuva lot of
white-majority electorates, either by majority or plurality. We've
had one African American governor in well over a century, and we've
had three African-American U.S. Senators. But looking at it from the
perspective of racial minorities as voters, one thing that a majority
requirement can promote is the winning candidate needing to reach out
to more voters. Indeed supporters of inclusive government overseas
will often suggest majority methods for this reason -- a recent
example is the adoption of instant runoff voting in Papua New Guinea
for its parliamentary elections, replacing plurality voting.
There is a significant difference between traditional two-round
delayed runoffs and one-round instant runoffs. The latter is all the
more likely to promote reaching out to different groupings of voters,
as they avoid the polarization that can come with one-on-one
campaigns. They also make it easier for candidates who have less
access to campaign funds and less ability to mobilize voters twice
for two different elections - both two of the most important
objections to traditional runoffs in voting rights cases.
For more on these issues, see a report by FairVote (then the Center
for Voting and Democracy). It has yet to be moved over from our old website at:
http://www.fairvote.org/irv/bullock.htm
- Rob Richie
At 07:05 PM 4/25/2006, Brian Landsberg wrote:
This would be a majority vote requirement. A switch from plurality to
majority vote requirement is a paradigmatic method of submerging the
voting rights of minorities. It would be subject to Section 5 review
under the VRA.
>>> richardwinger@yahoo.com 4/25/2006 3:37:25 PM >>>
I am not very well informed about the voting rights
act. Can anyone who is, help me with this question?
Is there any precedent that suggests that if a state
which does not now have a run-off primary were to
institute one, and this state is a covered
jurisdiction, would this state have a problem with the
Voting Rights Act if it tried to implement a run-off
partisan primary?
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