Adam is Right to Vote Director at FairVote.

He can’t buy a beer or rent a car, but 19-year-old John Tyler Hammons can run for Mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma (and WIN!). With all the talk of record youth turnout this primary season, Hammons’ victory for mayor shows that young people are paying attention to politics and participating in the political process more than ever before. Hammons didn’t just squeak by–he won every single district of the city, something unprecedented in a Muskogee mayoral race. His platform of having a more transparent government and keeping citizens better informed of city operations resonated with voters, who gave him 70-percent of the vote against former Mayor Hershel Ray McBride. On CNN this morning, Hammons said he wanted to build a network of young elected officials who could use each other as a support system. His story should inspire more young people to run for office and make a real difference in their communities.

David Moon is Program Director at FairVote.

With all eyes now shifting to this November’s presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain continued their song and dance about civil campaigning with hints of a coming series of joint campaign events. Bloomberg News reported:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he’d be willing to campaign jointly with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, and debate him in town-hall style formats.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Obama, 46, told reporters in Bend, Oregon, today as he campaigned ahead of the state’s May 20 primary. “Obviously we would have to think through the logistics on that, but to the extent that should I, should I be the nominee, if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that’s something that I am going to welcome.”

Obama, an Illinois senator, was responding to a question citing reports that McCain’s advisers have suggested the two should campaign together this summer, debating at town hall meetings without a moderator.

Some (including me) are pretty excited by the prospect of a civil and substantive campaign, but what I’m even more excited about is the possibility that they might *gasp* hold their debates outside of the swing states. I thought we in the mid-Atlantic region got a treat when the Democratic presidential primaries actually mattered in our area, but I knew that once the general election came around, the candidates would not be stumping in Maryland or the District of Columbia.

As we’ve written about quite extensively, thanks to our winner-take-all Electoral College system, presidential candidates spend virtually all of their time and money in the handful of swing states like Florida and Ohio, while ignoring the rest of us. When your opponent is camped out in the swing states, it makes sense to do so also.

But, if there is a mutual disarmament via these joint campaign events, I would strongly urge the campaigns to include non-swing states in their town hall tour. This would be a rare opportunity to foster a national dialogue.

Granted, the candidates would likely continue spending the bulk of their dollars in the swing states, but at least we might see them stopping at Ben’s Chili Bowl (a D.C. landmark) and engaging voters on much-ignored urban issues like gentrification, crime and subway extensions.

If the candidates take up my call, they’ll prove themselves to be trying to be transformational and independent not only on policy and rhetoric, but on process, too.

Tara is a Fellow at FairVote.

West Virginia is one of several states holding elections for Secretary of State this year. As in so many states, the Secretary of State in West Virgina plays a critical role in the conduct of a state’s elections. On Tuesday, the state held Republican and Democratic primaries.

Democrats nominated Natalie Tennet, a former television anchor who won her election with 52 percent of the vote against two challengers, house majority leader Joe Delong and long-time state senator Billy Wayne Bailey. DeLong spent more than three times what his opponents spent combined, but trailed with 36 percent.

This November, Ms. Tennet will run against Charles Minimah, a businessman who won an uncontested primary for the Republican nomination. If elected, Mr. Minimah would be the first African American to serve as West Virginia Secretary of State.

Dave Rao is contesting the election for the Mountain Party.

This Secretary of State (SoS) race is an open seat. The Republican incumbent Betty Ireland is stepping down after one term; a Democrat had held the SoS position for 20 years prior to Ms. Ireland’s 2004 victory.

FairVote’s Democracy SoS Coalition will soon be sending both of these candidates a survey to find out where they stand on election reform, voter outreach and their platform.

Stay tuned…

Rob Richie is director of FairVote. See his page at fairvote.org for more information.

Yesterday Mississippi had its fourth election this spring for the first congressional district — with two to fill a vacancy created by Roger Wicker’s elevation to the U.S. Senate when appointed to fill Trent Lott’s seat. Similarly, Louisiana’s sixth congressional district was won last month after three rounds of voting. The residents of those districts went months without a representative.

Long gaps to fill legislative vacancies are a regular feature of our politics. For instance, right here in Montgomery County, Don Praisner yesterday easily won a special election to serve out the term of his late wife Marilyn Praisner in District 4 on the county council — three months after his wife died and a month after his narrow win in the all-important Democratic primary. He will take office just after a series of critically important votes on the annual budget — one in which his district had no representative.

There’s a better way to fill such vacancies quickly and efficiently: instant runoff voting. As spelled out in my recent Fort Worth Star Telegram commentary on using “IRV” to replace runoffs in Texas, instant runoff voting elects a majority winner in one round of voting. IRV accommodates voter choice, saves taxpayer money and reduces the amount of money it takes to win office. In the case of filling vacancies, it has the particular advantage of securing a new representative to represent the interests of a district more quickly.

For more on instant runoff voting, see InstantRunoff.com and FairVote’s IRV America site.