Content Categorized with "Fair Voting/Proportional Representation"
11 - 20 of 157 results
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The Voting Rights Act, Jerome Gray and Fair Voting in Alabama
- Posted: March 8, 2013
- Author(s): Drew Spencer
- Categories: Home, Reforms, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Voting Rights, Cumulative Voting, FairVote
Among news coverage surrounding the upcoming landmark Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which will decide the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Jerome Gray has received partiuclar attention.. Gray has had a remarkable career as a community organizer, including helping to make sure fair voting systems were effective for African American voters.
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Scholars like Nathaniel Persily Shouldn’t Count Out Fair Voting
- Posted: March 5, 2013
- Author(s): Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Home, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Congressional Elections
Many election experts ignore fair voting reform solutions because they believe them to be politically infeasible. But the only way for fair voting to become achievable is for those who know about it to start talking about the positive impact it could have on American politics.
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Italian Elections Expose Non-Proportional and Ineffective Voting System
- Posted: February 28, 2013
- Author(s): Devin McCarthy, Sara Helmi
- Categories: Europe, Home, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, International Elections, Elections Worldwide
In the aftermath of Italy's general election on February 25-26, outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti asserted that "no country has such a bad electoral law as Italy." That may be an exaggeration, but there was plenty to be dissatisfied with in the election results.
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The Role of Fair Voting Systems in the Shelby County Case
- Posted: February 21, 2013
- Author(s): Drew Spencer, Rob Richie
- Categories: Home, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Voting Rights
On February 27, the U.S. Supreme Court will hold oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, reviewing the constitutionality of Section 5 "preclearance" provisions of the Voting Rights Act. A largely overlooked part of the case is the fact that Section 5 was the reason that Calera, a growing city in Alabama's Shelby County just south of Birmingham, adopted one of the fair voting systems we recommend to uphold voting rights.
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California and the Limits of Independent Redistricting Commissions with Winner-Take-All
- Posted: February 15, 2013
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Home, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Congressional Elections, Redistricting
Independent redistricting continues to gain attention as the panacea for American congressional elections. But as the independent redistricting's performance in California shows, on its own it cannot resolve the most serious problems with our congressional elections. We need to combine independent redistricting with adoption of fair voting plans.
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Geography as a Failed Unit of Representation: Why Fifty States of Equal Population Is No Solution for Presidential Elections
- Posted: February 15, 2013
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Devin McCarthy, Andrea Levien
- Categories: Home, National Popular Vote, Presidential Elections, Congressional Elections, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation
The idea of electing the president with a creative alternative map of the United States in which every state has equal population has has drawn sympathetic support from Atlantic writer Jim Fallows. But uneven population of states has little to do with what's broken in presidential elections, just as equal population congressional districts leave us with broken U.S. House elections. We must free ourselves from geographic boundaries and go to the real meaning of one-person, one-vote with the National Popular Vote plan for president and fair voting for Congress.
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When Barack Obama Was a Leader in Seeking Fair Voting Systems
- Posted: December 20, 2012
- Author(s): Drew Spencer, Rob Richie
- Categories: Instant Runoff Voting, Home, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Congressional Elections, FairVote
President Barack Obama has a lot on his mind these days, but the state of our democracy remains critical. Fortunately, judging by Obama's record in the Illinois Senate --where he was the prime sponsor of legislation to advance cumulative voting and instant runoff voting - we haven't had a president as informed about good ideas for taking on electoral reform since James Madison and the founding generation.
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It’s Not Just Gerrymandering: Fixing House Elections Demands End of Winner-Take-All Rules
- Posted: December 16, 2012
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Devin McCarthy
- Categories: Home, Fair Voting/Proportional Representation, Congressional Elections, Redistricting
This year's elections put a spotlight on the troubled nature of how we elect the House of Representatives, the alleged "people's house." But some of our smartest election experts don't seem to understand the root of the problems with House elections.
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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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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.