Entries from 2012
- 30 of 108 results
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Ms. Executive: Women Governors in Decline
- Posted: November 29, 2012
- Author(s): Patricia Hart
Women set records in the 2012 elections. More women than ever before will be serving in the Senate next year, as they will occupy 20 seats. Slight increases were made on other fronts as well; the U.S. House and state legislatures will have more women serving in their chambers next year. Nevertheless, progress for women was not ubiquitous in 2012. The number of women governors is in decline.
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A Representative Congress: Enhancing African American Voting Rights in the South with Choice Voting
- Posted: November 27, 2012
- Author(s): Drew Spencer, Rob Richie
- Categories: Home, Reforms, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Congressional Elections, Redistricting, Voting Rights, FairVote
In southern states, racially polarized elections remain an active part of political life. Since 1965, the Voting Rights Act has guaranteed that African Americans in the South cannot be shut out of elections either through direct barriers to voting or through discriminatory districts that prevent the achievement of representation. However, relying on winner-take-all elections has inherent limitations. In the belt of southern states including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas, the use of districting to achieve a fairer level of representation for African Americans has hit a ceiling. To push through that ceiling and achieve truly fair representation, FairVote recommends abandoning the single-member district in favor of super districts elected by choice voting.
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Ukrainian Elections Are Another Example of Partisan Bias Caused by Winner-Take-All
- Posted: November 26, 2012
- Author(s): Devin McCarthy, Sara Helmi
- Categories: Home, Europe, International Elections, Elections Worldwide
Think the U.S. House elections had a structural bias in favor of one party? The partisan bias in Ukraine's parliamentary elections, held just a week before the American elections, was even worse.
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Electoral College Favored One Party Over the Other in the 2012 Election
- Posted: November 21, 2012
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Andrea Levien
- Categories: National Popular Vote, Presidential Elections
FairVote's analyses of congressional elections show a definitive tilt towards the Republican party, grounded in winner-take-all voting rules and the geographic distribution of Republican and Democratic voters. However, on the presidential level there is currently a distinct Democratic advantage, also resulting from winner-take-all rules. By reforming unfair electoral structures, we can eliminate this bias on both the legislative and executive levels.
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Clashing Mandates and the Role of Voting Structures
- Posted: November 20, 2012
- Author(s): Rob Richie
- Categories: Congressional Elections, FairVote
President Barack Obama won the presidential election by more than four million votes and 129 electoral votes, but Mitt Romney has carried a large majority of U.S. House districts and a majority of House seats are held by Republicans representing a district where Obama was defeated. Those facts point to tensions in the months ahead--and to the value of rethinking our voting rules to ensure a level playing field for all.
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The 2012 Elections and the Vanishing Congressional Moderate
- Posted: November 15, 2012
- Author(s): Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Home, Congressional Elections, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation
Many observers of the American political process have bemoaned our increasingly partisan Congress, with representatives from both parties clinging to the party line and refusing to compromise with the other side. If you were hoping that the 2012 elections would help this problem, here's some bad news: things are only getting worse. The congressional moderate is on the verge of extinction.
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Magic Numbers: Small Vote Shifts in Key States Could Have Altered Electoral College Outcomes
- Posted: November 16, 2012
- Author(s): Andrea Levien
- Categories: Home, National Popular Vote, Presidential Elections
One commonly cited benefit of the Electoral College is that, even when the national popular vote for president is close, it creates a decisive victory for one candidate or the other, giving the winner more legitimacy. However, these "decisive" victories are often more tenuous than they seem. There are plenty of elections in which slight vote shifts in key states would have changed the winner of the Electoral College vote, despite the original winners' significantly larger leads in the nationwide vote.
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Tracking Presidential Campaign Field Operations
- Posted: November 14, 2012
- Author(s): Andrea Levien
- Categories: Presidential Tracker, Presidential Elections, National Popular Vote
The most visible ways that Democratic and Republican presidential candidates show favoritism for swing states are through public campaign events and ad spending. However, tracking where candidates opened field offices is another useful method of measuring candidate attention. Unsurprisingly, field office placement in the 2012 presidential election showed a strong bias towards swing states.
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FairVote's Unique Methodology Shows That 52% of Voters Wanted a Democratic House
- Posted: November 13, 2012
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Home, Congressional Elections, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation
Using its unique methods for analyzing the underlying preferences of voters, FairVote has determined that the Republican Party has a significant structural advantage in U.S. House elections. That advantage was the most important reason why the GOP kept a comfortable majority of 54% of seats in the House despite Democratic candidates having an overall 4% advantage in voter preference over their Republican opponents.
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FairVote's First Take on RCV Elections in Four Bay Area Cities
- Posted: November 12, 2012
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Mollie Hailey
- Categories: Instant Runoff Voting, Ranked Choice Voting in Bay Area Elections, Home
Ballots for Tuesday’s ranked choice voting (RCV) elections in four cities in the Bay Area are still being counted, but it is clear that RCV has again worked well. FairVote found that voters used the system effectively, election officials were smart to make it a true "instant runoff" and candidates of color again were elected in high numbers.