Our Mission: FairVote advances systemic electoral reform to achieve a fully participatory and truly representative democracy that respects every vote and every voice in every election. We work toward these goals by providing advocates with innovative research and reform strategy. We promote ranked choice voting (“instant runoff”), a constitutionally protected right to vote, a national popular vote for president, and, most fundamentally, fair representation voting forms of proportional representation.
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Blog and News
New from the Blog
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Ranked Choice Voting in the Bay Area
October 16, 2014Ranked choice voting (RCV) ballots are already being cast by some early and absentee voters in the four Bay Area cities holding RCV elections this November. Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro, and San Francisco will all be holding RCV elections on November 4th. In light of the upcoming elections, we wanted to share a few facts about ranked choice voting.
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What if We Used the Electoral College to Elect State Governors?
October 15, 2014
Ever imagine it would be a good idea to elect governors with a state-level Electoral College? We tested the idea in Oregon and Pennsylvania and found some remarkable results: only 10 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and only seven of Oregon’s 37 counties would be in play, and one party could win the governor’s race while losing big in the popular vote. Electing governors by a popular vote respects every vote - and so would enactment of the National Popular Vote plan for president. -
Strangeness of a One-Party Majority in New Zealand
September 26, 2014
At the end of an unusual election campaign, New Zealand's Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP) electoral system has delivered Kiwis a strong mandate for the current government, with the first time a single party has won a majority of seats since the nation replaced U.S.-style plurality voting elections with MMP in 1993. The election also demonstrated many of the advantages that such fair representation voting systems have over the single-member plurality systems so often used in American elections.
FairVote and the 2014 Elections
// October 10, 2014It's midterm election season! FairVote's Reform 2020 Vision speaks directly to a variety of developments and calls for reform. Here are just a few key examples:
- Elections with third party and independent candidates are requiring voters to make difficult choices and may end with weaker winners. Learn more about how ranked choice voting gives voters more choice and more power.
- U.S. House elections: Interested in gerrymandering, campaign finance, and projected outcomes in your district? Monopoly Politics 2014 is an indispensable resource.
- Would you like to see legislatures that truly reflect us as voters? See our fair representation resources and the website for Representation 2020.
- The right to vote: concerned about voter turnout and how the right to vote is faring in the courts? See our voter turnout homepage and our work on the Right to Vote Amendment and Promote Our Vote!
Catch the FairVote Reformer for the latest updates on systemic election reform.
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Research
The Role of Cities in National Popular Vote Elections
In debating options for reforming presidential elections in the United States, the most promising alternative to the status quo is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV). But even though we use popular vote elections to select every member of Congress and all 50 governors, some NPV skeptics warn that its adoption would have a partisan impact on presidential elections. They fear that Democrats could increase their national vote totals by focusing resources on major metropolitan areas, while Republicans could achieve similar gains only by spreading their resources across more geographically dispersed, non-urban areas. This report challenges this argument in three ways.
Redistricting Reform in the South
Devin McCarthy , Christopher Zieja // February 21, 2014
Nowhere in the United States are the pernicious effects of gerrymandering and winner-take-all, single-member districts more clearly visible than in the South. In the line of states running from Louisiana to Virginia, congressional races are nearly universally uncompetitive, Democrats are systematically disadvantaged, and African Americans are underrepresented in spite of the Voting Rights Act.
Through the use of sample maps, this report examines the impact that different redistricting criteria would have on partisan and racial representation in the South.
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Media
FairVote Voices
On the latest episode of FairVote Voices:
An interview with Mayor Mike Brennan of Portland, Maine on how ranked choice voting influenced how he campaigned and how he governs.
Legal fellow Drew Spencer interviews Jerome Gray about his career fighting for voting rights and fair voting in Alabama.
A history of FairVote and what it does: In this special two-part episode, Drew Spencer interviews FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie about FairVote's history, reforms, and projects.Click here for archives of prior episodes, or click here to access our page on the iTunes store.
FairVote Videos
For more FairVote videos, visit our YouTube channel.
Watch our Reform 2020 video about FairVote's vision for a democracy that truly represents American diversity. 
See Elizabeth Glidden discuss her Minneapolis' experience with ranked choice voting.