Research Reports
11 - 20 of 101 results
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California's Proposition 14: Weaknesses and Remedies
- Posted: August 5, 2010
- Author(s): Patrick Withers, Rob Richie
- Categories: Home
FairVote analyzes the policy and legal ramifications of Proposition 14 (The "Top Two Primaries Act") In California and gives recommendations of ways to roll back some of its worst effects by statute.
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Spotlighting a Best Practice
- Posted: July 22, 2010
- Author(s): Rebecca Guterman
FairVote Summer intern Rebecca Guterman interviewed Tim Hwang, Student Member of the Board of Education in Montgomery County, MD, to hightlight a practice that helps both the student representative and the rest of the student population gain experience in voting and representative government.
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Redistricting Reform in the States: June 2010
- Posted: June 24, 2010
- Author(s): Patrick Withers, Billy Organek
- Categories: Research & Analysis, Reforms, All Reports
FairVote's most recent review of redistricting reform in the states in 2009-2010 presents a mix of optimism and frustration for supporters of redistricting in the public interest rather than in the best interest of the political duopoly.
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Following the Money: Campaign Donations and Spending in the 2008 Presidential Race
- Posted: May 14, 2010
- Categories: National Popular Vote, All Reports
As we’ve shown at FairVote in study after study, the great majority of people and states are ignored during the election for our country’s highest office. But in the 2008 election, every state was invested at least in one way – they all had residents who donated to and financed the two major party candidates’ campaigns. However, when it came down to the stretch run, the candidates did not reciprocate this national effort. Instead, candidates concentrated their efforts in a small number of states and left the others as net exporters campaign contributions relative to campaign spending. This report takes a state-by-state look at the data.
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Majority and Plurality in U.S. Gubernatorial Elections
- Posted: April 9, 2010
- Author(s): Daniel Weaver, Neal Suidan
- Categories: Home, Instant Runoff Voting, Research & Analysis, National Popular Vote, All Reports
From 1948 to 2009, 90.4 percent of all gubernatorial general elections nationwide were won with greater than 50 percent of the popular vote. None were won with less than 35 percent of all votes cast. Fifteen states elected all of their governors with a majority of votes cast. Among the other states, Maine had the most plurality-elected governors, with 7 of their 19 races in this span.
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Ranked Voting and Election Integrity
- Posted: January 1, 2010
- Categories: All Reports
Ranked voting methods, in which voters are allowed to rank candidates in the order of choice, such as instant runoff voting (IRV) and choice voting, can strengthen election integrity through the use of redundant electronic and paper records of every vote that can be compared through manual audit procedures. This provides the ability to perform audits all the way down to the ballot-level, rather than only precinct-level audits. Although this approach can be applied in non-ranked voting elections, it already is being used in some elections using ranked voting, thereby showcasing an approach that we believe should be the norm for all of our elections.
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International Snapshot: Japan 2009
- Posted: November 24, 2009
- Author(s): Rob Richie, Pauline Lejeune
- Categories: Research & Analysis, Proportional Voting, FairVote, All Reports
The Japanese parliamentary elections in August 30, 2009 marked a turning point in Japan’s political history. Since 1955, Japan has been dominated by one party, with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as the governing party for all but 11 months. But in these elections the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) defeated the LDP, winning 308 seats to 109 for the LDP in the 480-seat House of Representatives.
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Get 'Em (Ready to Vote) While They're Young
- Posted: May 26, 2009
- Author(s): David Segal, Paul Fidalgo
- Categories: Research & Analysis, Universal Voter Registration, FairVote, All Reports
A movement is growing within the states to swing the doors of our democracy wide open, encouraging and facilitating the active participation of young people in the electoral process.
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Universal Voter Registration: An International Perspective
- Posted: April 21, 2009
- Author(s): Eve Robert
- Categories: Research & Analysis, Universal Voter Registration, FairVote, All Reports
The United States is one of the few democracies in the world where the government does not take any responsibility in registering its citizens. This one-of-a-kind, self-initiated voter registration process acts as a major barrier to voter turnout and leads to often inaccurate voter rolls.
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2008's Shrinking Battleground and Its Stark Impact on Campaign Activity
- Posted: December 4, 2008
- Categories: National Popular Vote, FairVote
Both major party candidates in the 2008 presidential election made an ambitious promise upon effectively securing their party’s nominations —to wage nationwide campaigns and reach out to as many voters in as many states as possible. But the candidate's good intentions were undercut by the political reality created by the current Electoral College system and states’ use of the winner-take-all rule. Under that winner-take-all rule, candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize or pay attention to the concerns of states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind.