FairVote Feed: Choice Voting/Proportional Representation

FairVote Tracks GOP Primaries: Understanding Proportional Representation in NH

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:43:01 -0800

Mitt Romney won 39% of the vote in New Hampshire in the nation's first 2012 primary and received seven of the state's twelve delegates, or a 58% share. An in-depth look into New Hampshire's voting method allows us to see how a disproportionate delegate distribution arises from the proportional system utilized by the New Hampshire Republican Party.

The Rules of the Republican Party Rule 15(b)(2) dictates that contests prior to April 1 must be conducted according to proportional allocation but does not specify by what means. This allows states to differ wildly in their interpretation of "proportional." As written about in FairVote's blog on January 10, New Hampshire's Republican Party chose to allocate its delegates proportionally based on a 10% threshold.

In New Hampshire, presidential primaries must be conducted according to Elections Procedure Section 659:93, requiring a minimum of a 10% threshold. Of the remaining candidates who meet this threshold, the secretary of state proportionally allocates delegates according to a version of the "highest remainder" method, one of several proportional representation formulae.

Under this method, delegates are divided according to the remaining candidates' redistributed vote percentages, with each proportion rounded down to the nearest whole number. Often there are extra delegates remaining due to this rounding procedure. While the classic version of this method allows for unassigned delegates to go to the candidates with the highest remainders, New Hampshire's version awards all remaining delegates to the candidate with the highest number of votes.

Using the classic highest remainder method for this election, Romney would come out of the first distribution with the highest remainder of 0.96, so the first remaining delegate would be awarded to him. Since a second delegate remains, it would be distributed to the candidate with the next highest remainder. Jon Huntsman, whose remainder of 0.56 just tops Ron Paul's remainder of 0.47, would be the recipient of this second delegate. In contrast, New Hampshire's variation - in "winner-take-all" fashion - awards both remaining delegates to Romney.

Here's how New Hampshire's delegate allocation compares with the classic version of highest remainder:

Candidate	Actual Percent Vote	Percent of Vote of Qualifying Candidates over 10%	Delegates Totals Under Strict Proportionality	NH Highest Remainder Method Using 10% Threshold	Classic Highest Remainder Using 10% Threshold
Romney	39.25%	49.68%	5.96	7	6
Paul	22.88%	28.96%	3.47	3	3
Huntsman	16.88%	21.37%	2.56	2	3
Gingrich	9.42%	-	0	0	0
Santorum	9.40%	-	0	0	0
Totals	97.83%	100%	12	12	12

Another unique feature of New Hampshire's allocation is its employment of a 10% threshold - a threshold that both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum barely missed achieving, even though their voters consisted of nearly 20% of the total vote. Most nations that use proportional allocation systems for their legislatures use lower thresholds (commonly a 5% threshold). With many competitive candidates in the New Hampshire primary, it should be noted that a slight change in this threshold significantly impacts the distribution of delegates. A 5% threshold, for instance, brings Gingrich and Santorum into the distribution of delegates.

Here's how the primary would have played out using a 5% threshold, compared with New Hampshire's 10% threshold - using the New Hampshire method of awarding all remaining delegates to the candidate with the highest remainder.

Candidate	Actual Percent Vote	Percent of Vote of Qualifying Candidates over 10%	NH Method Allocated Delegates Using 10% Threshold	Percent of Vote of Qualifying Candidates over 5%	NH Method Allocated Delegates Using 5% Threshold
Romney	39.25%	49.68%	7	40.12%	6
Paul	22.88%	28.96%	3	23.38%	2
Huntsman	16.88%	21.37%	2	17.25%	2
Gingrich	9.42%	-	0	9.63%	1
Santorum	9.40%	-	0	9.61%	1
Totals	97.83%	100%	12	100%	12

Other notable news from New Hampshire:

President Obama on the Ballot: Barack Obama also was on the ballot in New Hampshire yesterday in the Democratic primary. He earned 48,970 votes, for a total of 82%, and all 35 of New Hampshire's delegates awarded by the Democratic primary. That vote total was comparable to GOP candidate Jon Huntsman, who placed third. Note that all Democratic primaries and caucuses allocate delegates on the basis of proportional representation, but no other candidate surpassed the Democrats' typical 15% threshold.

Ron Paul Wins Landslide among Young Voters: Exit polls showed that Mitt Romney did well in a broad range of categories, e.g., income, education, religious and philosophical viewpoints. Among voters under 30, however, Ron Paul won 47% of that demographic, compared to Romney's 25%. Congressman Paul also won nearly half the youth vote in the Iowa caucuses.

Romney 2008 vs. Romney 2012: Comparing Mitt Romney's performance in New Hampshire from election to election, in 2008, Romney earned 75,675votes and 32%in the New Hampshire primary, compared to 97,532 votes and 39.3% this year. In the Iowa caucuses, his share of the vote was slightly lower in 2012 than it was in 2008.

Texas Redistricting in the Hands of the Supreme Court Yet Again

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:00:29 -0800

Texas redistricting has been one of the most contentious in the nation in recent decades. Plans drawn in the 1990s and 2000s went to the Supreme Court, including a 2006 challenge that required redrawing of some districts. In 2003, a battle over district lines led Democratic lawmakers to flee the state in an attempt to avoid a mid-decennial redrawing of districts by newly empowered Republican legislators, who began constructing a map with then-House Majority Leader Tom Delay and Gov. Rick Perry. With congressional redistricting required after the 2010 Census, Texas has redrawn district lines -- and yet again is before the Supreme Court.

Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for three cases pertaining to Texas redistricting: Perry v. Perez, on the Texas House of Representatives; Perry v. Davis, on the Texas Senate; and Perry v. Perez, on the U.S. House seats.

At issue, the Supreme Court will decide whether a federal court has the power to impose redistricting maps on a state whose plans have not yet obtained preclearance required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Under Section 5 of the Act, Texas' redistricting plan must be cleared by the Department of Justice or by a three-judge district court in Washington, DC. Texas pursued the latter option, but the San Antonio District Court, apparently anticipating that the Texas plan might not be precleared, drew new maps for the 2012 elections that gave racial minorities more opportunities to elect candidates of choice.

Due to congressional reapportionment and the state's rapid population growth over the past decade, mostly driven by a booming growth in Latinos, Texas gained four U.S. House seats. Republicans, who control both the state legislature and the governorship in Texas, have been accused of aggressively drawing up a gerrymandered plan that increases representation for their party at the expense of representation for racial minority groups - indeed, the new congressional plan created just one new opportunity for Latino voters to elect candidates of choice.

As the Supreme Court prepares to weigh in, we must evaluate alternatives to this clearly inadequate process. Redistricting in winner-take-all, single-member districts inherently leads mapmakers to put partisan considerations ahead of voting rights. Fair voting plans, in contrast, utilize American forms of proportional representation in larger "super-districts" and achieve accurate representation of a state's partisan divide while empowering communities of racial minorities to elect preferred candidates.

We're drawing an alternative Texas plan right now that will underscore our point: you can balance competing goals best by simply putting voters first. For the moment, you can see an example of fair voting by viewing our recent California plan as part of our fair voting series that will present alternative plans for the entire country.

Was the Iowa Caucuses’ Real Winner Not in the Race?

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 08:36:55 -0700

Last night, as the numbers rolled in from Iowa, cable news shows pundits analyzed the numbers in almost every way humanly possible – with particular obsession with who was going to “win.” But the media just may have missed the biggest winner: a candidate who wasn’t seeking Iowa votes last night. They also missed the biggest loser: a plurality, “top of the heap” voting system that can easily misfire in clarifying who is the strongest candidate.

First, the media hyped "winning" Iowa as if it really mattered in any meaningful way involving delegates. But Iowa won’t elect its national convention delegates for months, and the ultimate breakdown of delegates likely will have little correlation to last night’s results – and won’t be winner-take-all based on the statewide vote.

Looking at the hard vote total numbers, Mitt Romney “won” the caucuses by 8 votes over Rick Santorum But it’s all relative. In 2008, Romney had won 29,949 votes, or 25.2%. That result was seen as a crushing disappointment because that year he trailed Mike Huckabee's 34.4% of the vote.

With arguably a weaker field, somewhat higher turnout and more sweeping GOP establishment backing this year, Romney’s vote total only grew to 30,015 votes -- e.g., just 66 more votes. But because of the slight uptick in overall turnout, his percentage of the vote actually declined from 2008, down to 24.6%. The opposition vote was more fractured than in 2008, however, giving Romney his “win” – a “win” that means nothing for delegates in a non-winner-take-all contest.

That misunderstood outcomes makes plurality voting a loser yet again. It wouldn’t be hard for Iowa Republicans to determine a more definitive winner. By adopting instant runoff voting (easy to do and count on paper ballot in what essentially is a straw poll contest), we would know how Romney would have fared if matched one-on-one against Santorum, Based on second choice polling and favorability ratings, Santorum would have been favored – but we’ll never know for sure.

Turning to the night’s real winner, it wasn’t Ron Paul, whose longshot bid for the nomination grew longer despite his remarkably good night. Paul and Romney were the only candidates who contested the caucuses in both 2008 and 2012, but, unlike Romney, Paul more than doubled his vote from 11,817 to 26,219. According to New York Times entrance polls, Paul won 48% of the vote among attendees under 30, with Santorum taking 23% and Romney just 13%. Paul also beat Romney by more than two-to-one among independents, first time caucus attendees and voters with an income under $50,000.

Despite those gains, Paul’s third-place finish and downturn in support in the final week underscores his difficulties in a party where his libertarian stances on some issues like foreign policy are out of step with the party’s majority. But it’s those very stances that draw the passionate backing of younger, more independent backers – thus making it questionable that these voters will ultimate shift to back the eventual Republican nominee.

Enter Gary Johnson, who just may end up being the night’s big winner after the rise and likely fall of Rick Santorum. The former two-term governor of New Mexico sought the Republican nomination in the past year, but was kept out of most debates – and had trouble gaining traction because of similarities in his views to those of Paul. Now Johnson has announced that he’s seeking the Libertarian Party nomination, and he may well being on the November ballot in every state.

With states relying on the ever-inefficient plurality voting rule to allocate electors and given other potential third party and independent candidates – from the Americans Elect nominee to the Greens and the new Justice Party formed by former Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson – Johnson could have a far bigger impact in the race than many are predicting right now if he ends up attracting disgruntled Ron Paul backers.

Stay tuned. 2012 promises a wild ride, one made more unpredictable by our antiquated voting rules and practices that are ill-equipped to handle voter choice.

(A note on turnout in Iowa: Although some pundits are touting the slight rise in GOP turnout from 2008, it in fact should give Republicans reason to be concerned. A PPP poll last weekend found that about one in six Iowans planning to vote in the GOP caucuses had voted in the Democratic caucuses in 2008. Without a competitive caucus on the Democratic side, their choice was easier for them to make than it was in 2008, when the Democratic caucuses were nearly double the Republican turnout last night. In other words, the overall turnout in Iowa caucuses last night plunged to less than half of overall caucus participation in 2008.)

No More Gerrymanders: Congressional Representation in the Seven At-Large States

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:26:05 -0800

All across the nation, lawmakers are engaged in a grand political game - decennial congressional redistricting - designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Already, a number of states have passed controversial, opportunistic maps in which elected officials have chosen their voters before voters have chosen them. Redistricting, when combined with a winner-take-all rule in which 50% + 1 of the district vote guarantees 100% of representation, not only leaves substantial voting blocs unrepresented, but it reduces the vast majority of U.S. House elections to ceremonial, uncompetitive contests, in which voters are asked not to elect but to ratify the decisions party elites have already taken.

To address these problems, FairVote, as part of an ongoing series, has proposed state-specific "super-district" plans designed for elections with a proportional representation system, which we call "fair voting." Rather than use a winner-take-all rule, which accentuates the unfair effects of redistricting and encourages partisan games, FairVote has combined winner-take-all, gerrymandered districts to form multi-member super-districts. When using a fair voting system in these larger districts, every voter in every election will have a meaningful choice in a competitive contest and will be more likely to earn fair representation - a representative balance likely to include a winner from both major parties and occasionally a third party or independent candidate.

Winner-Take-All Plagues Seven At-Large States: However, in a handful of states, the partisan jockeying that is congressional redistricting does not occur. In each of these seven states - Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Delaware, and Vermont - just one member of Congress runs at-large across the entire state, meaning that controversies over redistricting occur only on the state legislative level. Rather than redrawing districts every ten years as the 43 other states must in order to maintain equal populations in each district, an at-large district's borders are fixed.

Though spared the controversies of congressional redistricting, winner-take-all rules still plague at-large states. By design, winner-take-all elections reduce millions of voters to irrelevancy, either because they live in a district that widely favors one party or because they vote for a candidate in a competitive constituency who falls short. Nowhere are the shortcomings of our voting system more acute than in at-large, winner-take-all races, where one individual is - rather astonishingly - responsible for representing the political and demographic diversity of an entire state. That this occurs in the U.S. House, the chamber of the national legislature that is by definition intended to reflect the complexities and vicissitudes of public opinion, is even more alarming. Americans forms of proportional representation, by contrast, would alleviate these problems.

When taken as a whole, FairVote's state-specific fair voting plans will achieve a U.S. House much more reflective of the nation's partisan and racial composition than what is possible under gerrymandered, winner-take-all contests - and, even more importantly, make every voter's participation meaningful in every election. Since these at-large states are locked in at one seat apiece, however, our construction of multi-seat super-districts is impossible under the U.S. House's current structure. For fair voting plans to be feasible in at-large states, one of two changes would need to occur: either a statutory change to federal law in order to expand the U.S. House beyond 435 seats (as was done regularly until 1910), which would give each of the at-large states at least two representatives, or a constitutional amendment allowing states to join with others to form interstate congressional districts.

Recent Winner-Take-All Elections in At-Large States: That said, it is informative to look at these states' recent congressional election results, in order to understand the degree to which winner-take-all has polluted the political waters. Racially, the at-large states are predominantly white (81.0%), with blacks (4.6%), Latinos (4.5%), and Native Americans (5.4%) all comprising roughly the same share of the combined population. Delaware is the only state with a significant black population (20.8%), while Alaska (14.4%) and South Dakota (8.5%) both contain an appreciable number of Native Americans.

With just one seat in each at-large state, racial minorities have had no chance to elect a preferred candidate who can't also draw significant support from white voters; unsurprisingly, none of the seven states have ever sent a racial minority candidate to Congress. The problem, of course, is not simply that these states lack multiple congressional districts in each of these states; rather, winner-take-all systems naturally struggle to reflect accurately the demographic composition of districts. Conversely, proportional systems lower the threshold of support necessary for like-minded voters in a minority group to help elect candidates of choice.

In terms of partisanship, all of the at-large states have partisanship index ratings that give a clear tilt toward one major party over the other. In other words, seven of seven seats are uphill battles for the other political party in House races – to the point that at least in presidential races, the contests essentially are over before they start.

Vermont and Delaware, with respective Democratic Party partisanship indexes of 64.9% and 58.9%, have backed the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992. Of the other five states - Wyoming (30.3% Democratic partisanship), Alaska (35.6%), North Dakota (42.1%), South Dakota (42.2%), and Montana (45.2%) - all except Montana have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968, and even then, the Big Sky Country gave only 37.6% to Bill Clinton in 1992, with independent Ross Perot earning 26.1% of the vote. Although the minority party has had some successes in these states' House races, all of them today are in line with their partisan leanings.

Partisanship Breakdown in the At-Large States

At-Large State	Population	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
AK	710,231	35.60%	0	0	0	0	1
MT	989,415	45.23%	0	0	0	1	0
WY	563,626	30.25%	0	0	0	0	1
SD	814,180	42.16%	0	0	0	1	0
ND	672,591	42.05%	0	0	0	1	0
DE	897,934	58.86%	1	0	0	0	0
VT	625,741	64.87%	1	0	0	0	0
Totals	5,273,718	-	2	0	0	3	2

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of vote totals in the 2008 presidential election. The seats are defined according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship rating between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. Our projections do not take into account incumbent advantages but reflect the underlying partisanship leanings of each district.

At the congressional level, some at-large states have shown more competitiveness than their partisanship rating would suggest - likely a holdover of the more fluid political realities of the last century. For instance, Republican Mike Castle represented Delaware for nine terms until leaving the House in 2010 to run - unsuccessfully - for Vice President Joseph Biden's former U.S. Senate seat. Similarly, North Dakota and South Dakota sent Democrats to Congress before both were defeated in 2010 by Republican challengers; in the former, nine-term Democratic incumbent Earl Pomeroy fell to Rick Berg, while in the latter, four-term Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin lost to Kristi Arnold Noem.

While these results show that both Democratic and Republican voters in these states have experienced electoral success, winner-take-all rules in one-seat states still mean that, in any given congressional district, only one major party's voters receive representation - and we likely will see fewer such surprises in the years ahead unless the partisan differences between the parties again become less clear. Such unfair results are to be expected in a voting system that makes nuanced representation virtually impossible.

Most at-large states have been dominated by one political party. Wyoming, for example, has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. House since Teno Roncalio resigned in 1978, while Alaska's last Democratic U.S. House representative, Nick Begich (father of current U.S. Senator Mark Begich), died while in office in 1972. In other words, it has been over 30 years since Democrats in either of these states have sent a candidate who shares their views to the U.S. House. Meanwhile, Vermont Republicans have not elected a U.S. House Member since 1990.

The U.S. House elections of 2008 and 2010 are illustrative of the lack of representation inherent in winner-take-all. In 2008, a combined 787,916 voters (counting Democrats in AK, MT, WY, and DE and Republicans in SD and ND) were left unrepresented - a number that would have been even larger had Vermont's Peter Welch received a Republican challenger. The same story occurred two years later in 2010, when - despite partisan turnover in three of the seven seats - a combined 700,304 voters (counting Democrats in AK, MT, WY, SD, and ND and Republicans in DE and VT) were unable to send a favored candidate to the U.S. House. In spite of our basic American principles grounded in representative democracy, winner-take-all ensures that the voices of many thousands of voters are left unheard and unrecognized in the halls of Congress.

Neglected Major Party Voters in the 2008 and 2010 U.S. House Elections

At-Large State	2008 Winning Party	Number of Losing Party 2008 Voters	Losing Party % 2008 Vote	2010 Winning Party	Number of Losing Party 2010 Voters	Losing Party % 2010 Vote
AK	R	141,754	45.1%	R	77,606	30.7%
MT	R	154,713	32.4%	R	121,954	33.8%
WY	R	103,677	42.8%	R	45,768	24.5%
SD	D	122,943	32.4%	R	146,589	45.9%
ND	D	118,430	37.9%	R	106,542	45.1%
DE	R	146,399	38.0%	D	125,442	41.0%
VT	D	Unopposed	N/A	D	76,403	32.1%
Totals	-	787,916	-	-	700,304	-

*Source for 2008 data and 2010 data is the New York Times.

Conclusion

Although at-large states avoid the partisan jockeying that goes along with congressional redistricting, they still struggle under the weight of oppressive winner-take-all rules. If the winner-take-all games continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. In all of the at-large states, scores of voters are left unrepresented, sometimes for decades. They are forced to participate in congressional elections that lack competition and give them a representative in the "people's house" with views they strongly oppose. It is clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of everyone in a district, as winner-take-all assumes. Therefore, we need a new approach that will more accurately reflect the residents of each state. This will be harder to achieve for states with one House member, but by adopting fair voting plans with multi-seat super-districts, we can begin the march toward a more representative democracy.

No More Gerrymanders: Missouri's Partisan Plan versus the Fair Voting Alternative

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:31:25 -0800

Snapshot

Lawmakers in Missouri have recently passed a congressional redistricting plan as required by the U.S. Constitution.
The root of the worst problems associated with redistricting lies with winner-take-all elections, in which 50% + 1 of the vote guarantees 100% of the representation.
As part of an ongoing series, FairVote has produced a "super-district" plan designed for elections with a fair voting system. Fair voting systems are a constitutionally permissible form of proportional representation and, by allowing all voters to participate in a meaningful election, are a far better way to achieve public interest objectives than winner-take-all elections.
FairVote's fair voting plan for Missouri would result in more balanced representation and competitive elections.

The Political Context in Missouri

Missouri and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, Missouri's population grew slightly, from 5.60 million to 5.99 million, for an increase of 7.0%, as compared to a rate of 9.3% from 1990 to 2000. This rate was slightly below the national average of 9.7%. As a result, Missouri lost one U.S. House seat in congressional reapportionment, going from nine seats to eight, the first time the state has lost seats since the 1980 Census. Missouri was just 16,000 people shy of holding on to its nine seats.

Internally, population shifts appear to be a blow to congressional Democrats, with St. Louis city having seen its population decline sharply by 8.3%. Such a dip continues the Democratic stronghold's decades-long slide, as the ‘Gateway to the West' has now lost just shy of 500,000 residents since 1960, with its population of 320,000 being roughly equivalent to the city's size in 1870. As a result, St. Louis, which currently sends three members to Congress, will likely lose a seat and clout in Congress.

Missouri's other major cities appear to be going in the opposite direction, with Kansas City and Columbia growing between four and five percent and Republican-leaning Springfield soaring by over 25%. As a result, Columbia residents believe the area is entitled to a "central Missouri district," as opposed to being lopped into the northeastern 9th District that encompasses both rural towns on the Iowa boarder and affluent St. Louis suburbs. Racially, Missouri remains predominantly white (81.0%), with appreciable percentage increases for the black (11.5%) and Latino communities (3.5%), the latter of which grew by nearly 80%.

Redistricting in 2001 was relatively sedate, as split control (Democrats controlled the State House and the governorship, while Republicans had a slim majority in the State Senate) required the two parties to work together. Collaboration yielded a congressional map that locked in the 5-4 Republican advantage until 2010. In the five congressional elections since 2001, only one incumbent out of 41 (2.4%) lost, while 38 of the 40 (95%) victorious incumbents prevailed in blowouts (20%+ margin of victory) or uncontested races.

Electorally, a Closely Divided State: Democrats have had recent statewide success in Missouri, with former State Auditor Claire McCaskill - who narrowly lost her bid for the governor's office in 2004 - winning a contentious 2006 U.S. Senate race over incumbent Jim Talent, 49.6-47.3%. In the presidential race, Barack Obama lost by only 3,600 votes, but given the magnitude of his victory across the nation, Democrats in fact lost ground in the state. Indeed, this election marked the first time since 1956 in which the "bellwether" Missouri did not award its electoral votes to the national winner (in 1956, Missouri went for Democrat Adlai Stevenson).

After Democrats' statewide gains in 2006 and 2008, however, Republicans rebounded with a very strong 2010. Most dispiriting for Democrats was Secretary of State Robin Carnahan's (daughter of the late former Governor Mel Carnahan and former U.S. Senator Jean Carnahan) 13-point defeat to U.S. Representative Roy Blunt, the No. 2 ranking Republican in the 111th Congress, for Kit Bond's vacated U.S. Senate seat.

At the U.S. House level, the GOP made significant inroads, as Tea Party favorite Vicky Hartzler knocked off Democrat Ike Skelton in the 4th District by casting the 17-term incumbent as a "loyal lapdog Democrat" and a "foot soldier for Nancy Pelosi." Hartzler's victory increased the GOP control of the state's U.S. House delegation from 5-4 to 6-3. Elsewhere, Democrats Emanuel Cleaver II of the 5th District and Russ Carnahan (son of the late governor) of the 3rd District barely fended off formidable GOP challengers - Cleaver, having shed 11% since his comfortable victory in 2008, won with 53% of the vote, while Carnahan's support actually dipped below 50%, for a 17-point decrease. Perhaps most importantly for redistricting, Republicans expanded their majorities in the General Assembly, grabbing a veto-proof majority in the State Senate and coming within three votes of a two-thirds majority in the State House.

Quarreling Republicans Struggle to Reach Agreement: With control of the redistricting process split between the two parties, state Republicans faced a difficult balancing act: any lines drafted to protect GOP incumbents in Congress would be likely to draw the veto from Governor Nixon, the veto of whom State House Republicans would be unable to override absent the support of at least three Democratic representatives. Early speculation hinted that Republicans would seek to exploit tensions between the Democratic establishment and urban African Americans; by giving the 1st District's William Lacy Clay, Jr. "what he wants," the GOP hoped to persuade St. Louis black state legislators to jump ship (Clay represents Missouri's only majority-minority district).

As the General Assembly began to turn to redistricting in late March, it quickly became clear that House and Senate Republicans were of different minds and that intra-party rather than inter-party squabbles might lead to dreaded political impasse. Under the leadership of State Representative John Diehl, House Republicans made the first move, passing their proposed map on April 6 after having controversially suspended procedural rules that would have delayed the vote. Importantly, the 106-53 vote was three votes short of a veto-proof majority (three Republicans voted against the bill, while four African American Democrats supported the measure). Spurning the House proposal, Senate Republicans on April 13 passed their own plan, 22-11.

Both the Senate and the House plans eliminated Russ Carnahan's seat, forcing the four-term Democrat into either a primary against colleague William Lacy Clay, Jr. of the 1st District or a general election campaign against Republican incumbent Todd Akin in a GOP-leaning 2nd District. Alternatively, some pundits speculate that Carnahan is considering a statewide bid for lieutenant governor. The two maps differed, however, in how to divide the Democratic-leaning St. Louis collar counties of St. Charles and Jefferson in order to optimize Republican chances - the House version provided Akin with a more Republican district, and Akin agreed to support Diehl's map.

With Split Control Comes a Redistricting Nightmare: The deadlock continued with Senate and House Republicans steadfast in their loyalty to their respective proposals. Party leaders, recognizing that further delay would have caused them to miss the party's strategic April 22 deadline, agreed to conference on April 20. Republicans, anticipating Governor Nixon's opposition, wanted to ensure that they would have enough time to override the veto before the conclusion of the regular legislative session on May 13; failure to meet this timeline would have forced the General Assembly to call a special session or to wait until the fall regular session. Conference committee, coupled with the pressures of time constraints, paid dividends for the GOP, which ironed out a compromise between the two competing maps. The House passed the modified map on April 21, 96-55, with the Senate concurring in a subsequent 27-7 vote.

Governor Nixon, who reportedly objected to the map's partition of Jefferson County and its commensurate weakening of the area's influence in Washington, D.C., mollified congressional Democrats when he refused on April 30 to sign the bill into law. Undeterred, House Republicans pieced together a "rare legislative rebuke," overriding the Nixon veto 28-6 in the Senate and 109-44 in the House, making the redistricting map official. The veto override, the first since 2003, required four House Democrats to join with 105 Republicans (one GOP legislator had to leave the hospital bed to which doctors had consigned him) to break with the party line.

That all four "defectors" were African American legislators with ties to the state's two African American congressmen - Clay of St. Louis and Cleaver of Kansas City, both of whom received safer districts under the Republican map - was not lost on the media. Adding fuel to the fire, one of the four Democratic legislators, Jamilah Nasheed, defended her vote to protect Clay saying, "I'm black before I'm a Democrat." Yet another, Leonard Hughes, who had cast the deciding vote to override and who had opposed the House's April 6 map as a "gerrymander," told the Kansas City Star that Cleaver had pressured him to cross the aisle, further highlighting that high-stakes redistricting can lead to odd bedfellows. Michael Brown, a Cleaver ally also of Kansas City, cited similar reasons as Hughes, adding that he hoped the vote would encourage Republicans to work with members of the Black Caucus in the future.

Partisan Implications of the Missouri Map: If anything, the partisan implications of the map are rather predictable, the process having been more enthralling than the product. All six of the state's current GOP members of Congress find themselves in highly safe districts (although Akin has since announced a bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by McCaskill). Jefferson and St. Charles counties remain divided between districts, while fast-growing Columbia now finds itself not in a hoped-for "central district" but the rural southwestern 4th District.

Although the map shores up Clay and Cleaver by packing urban Democrats into two districts - all of St. Louis, for instance, is now in the 1st District - state Democrats are irate, as Carnahan's district has been axed and his home placed inside Clay's urban district. "If anybody believes that this state is a 6-2 state [when] Barack Obama narrowly lost the presidential vote," State House Minority Leader Mike Talboy intoned, "then we really need an education bill because nobody can count." Democrats' only chance for three seats is if Carnahan pulls off an upset in an Akin-less 2nd District instead of taking on Clay. Indeed, POLITICO reports that national Democratic leaders, specifically House No. 2 Steny Hoyer, are quietly encouraging Carnahan to avoid "a kamikaze mission against Clay" by helping him pursue other electoral options.

The Fair Voting Alternative

Time for an Honest and Fair System: These controversies demonstrate the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails not only to represent accurately the people of Missouri, but it reduces voters to mere pawns in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Especially in states affected by reapportionment, there is the impulse to engage in gerrymandering and other highly undemocratic maneuvering.

In contrast to the Missouri state legislature's politically motivated plan, fair voting puts voters first. Rather than use a winner-take-all system, which accentuates the effects of redistricting and encourages partisan games, FairVote has combined these winner-take-all, gerrymandered districts to form multi-member districts called "super-districts" in which a fair voting system will allow like-minded voters to elect candidates in proportion to their voting strength and, as a result, allow far more voters to elect a favored candidate. As our analysis will demonstrate, FairVote's super-district plan with a fair voting system generates competitive elections in every corner of the state; it also allows for fuller representation of the political and demographic dynamics of geographical areas: what we call "shared representation."

Several candidate-based forms of fair voting, notably choice voting and cumulative voting, have been upheld by the courts and fit well with our traditions. Choice voting, in which voters rank candidates in order of choice in at-large elections, helped break the power of urban political machines in New York and Cincinnati. It is used currently by Minneapolis in citywide elections. From 1870 to 1980, members of the Illinois House of Representatives were elected using cumulative voting, where voters can cast as many votes as there are seats, and nearly all of the districts elected both Democrats and Republicans in every election. Fair voting plans in super-districts are legal for congressional elections under the U.S. Constitution and have been upheld by the Supreme Court, but Congress would need to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts.

Under the current winner-take-all system, candidates must receive over 50% of the vote to be sure of winning a seat. Consequently, substantial voting blocs are often left unrepresented. For instance, one party's candidate could get just one vote shy of the 50% threshold, and all of her voters would lose out on representation. Similarly, if a voter lives in a district that widely favors one party, that voter might feel like his vote does not matter, especially if that voter favors the less popular party.

With fair voting in super-districts, on the other hand, nominees from more than one party are nearly certain to represent a district, which enables a more accurate representation of the broad spectrum of political opinion. These multi-seat districts also lower the threshold for racial minorities to select a preferred candidate of their own.

Winning with Fair Voting in a Super-District: If FairVote were working from scratch, we could draw the super-district lines with more geographical compactness. Because we created the super-districts from the recently approved congressional districts, however, our super-districts also appear to look somewhat gerrymandered. Even so, the super-district approach demonstrates that full representation can be attained even within these highly gerrymandered confines.

Missouri 2011 Redistricting Plan Missouri Fair Voting Plan with Super-Districts

From the eight congressional districts in Missouri, the FairVote proposal creates two super-districts: one three-seat district and one five-seat district. Each congressional seat still represents approximately 748,616 people, but with a fair voting system, representation is far more likely to reflect the political opinion and demographic makeup of the state. In a three-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 25% of the electorate, while in a five-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 16.67% of the electorate.

Super-District Breakdown

Super-District	Number of House Seats	Population Per Seat	Threshold of Exclusion	Districts Used to Make SD
1	3	748616	25% + 1	4, 5, 6
2	5	748616	16.67% + 1	1, 2, 3, 7, 8

Partisanship Analysis: Based on the 2008 presidential election, Missouri has a partisanship index of 46.33% Democratic, a narrow margin reflecting its status as a competitive state in presidential elections. However, the recent plan passed by the state legislature does not reflect the close partisan split of the entire state. Based on district partisanship, the Missouri plan would result in six Republican seats (five safe and one leaning), two safe Democratic seats, and zero toss-ups. To put this in perspective, the statewide Democratic partisanship index of 46.33% should result in the Democratic Party winning at least three seats and the Republican Party coming away with four seats at a minimum, while an additional seat would swing to the party or individual candidate performing well that election cycle. Yet, the Missouri plan guarantees the Republicans more than their expected share. To win four seats, Democratic candidates would need to succeed in flipping two solidly Republican districts. This gerrymandered setup presents a daunting challenge for the Democrats every election year, regardless of the party's national momentum.

Missouri Plan's Partisanship Breakdown

District	Population Per Seat	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	748,616	77.24%	1	0	0	0	0
2	748,616	43.28%	0	0	0	1	0
3	748,616	39.89%	0	0	0	0	1
4	748,616	39.10%	0	0	0	0	1
5	748,615	59.02%	1	0	0	0	0
6	748,616	40.30%	0	0	0	0	1
7	748,616	32.52%	0	0	0	0	1
8	748,616	35.58%	0	0	0	0	1
Statewide	5,988,927	46.33%	2	0	0	1	5

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of the 2008 presidential election. Our source for the data is Daily Kos. The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

In stark contrast, a fair voting plan would accurately represent the state's partisan divide and provide representation to voters from all parts of the state. FairVote's super-district plan shows that both major parties would be well positioned to win at least three seats: one seat to each party in Super-District 1 and two seats apiece in Super-District 2. With an additional toss-up seat in each super-district, each party would have the opportunity to gain one or both of the swing seats, depending on the quality of their candidates and the national partisan swing.

FairVote's plan clearly offers a far more reflective representation of the state's political division than the 75% of representation Republicans would earn even when losing the statewide vote. It also increases voter interest since almost all Republican and Democratic voters can elect a candidate in their super-district, who represents their political views - and have a real choice within their party's candidates as well.

Once in Congress, representatives from opposing parties would share constituents of super-districts and, therefore, have new incentives to cooperate on at least some legislative initiatives. There also would be more representatives bridging the gap that currently exists between the major parties, as fair voting means a more balanced representation of the left, right, and center. As far as competition, the current Missouri plan offers zero swing districts; in the super-district plan, every voter would experience a competitive election.

While these partisan breakdowns are based on the current two-party duopoly, the FairVote proposal would open the door for third-party and independent candidates, unlike the single-member district, winner-take-all plan. Because challengers to the major parties are rarely able to acquire over 50% of the vote, their backers are left typically unrepresented. Fair voting methods lower the threshold and provide third parties a better chance to win seats. Fair voting is not just fair for Democrats and Republicans; it is fair for voters of all political opinions.

FairVote's Super-District Partisan Breakdown

Super-District	Number of Seats	Threshold of Exclusion	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	3	25% + 1	46.33%	1	0	1	0	1
2	5	16.67% + 1	46.34%	2	0	1	0	2
Statewide	8	-	46.33%	3	0	2	0	3

*The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship ±4% of the threshold, leaning seats have a partisanship 4-8% greater than the threshold, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 8% of the threshold. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

Race and Voting Power: When a racial minority group votes as a bloc and meets the threshold, it has the power to elect a strongly preferred candidate, although it may not choose necessarily a racial minority. To evaluate the racial impact of a state's redistricting plan, we tabulate the number of districts in which the voting age population (VAP) of a racial minority group exceeds the threshold to win a seat (50% + 1 vote). For districts where a racial minority group is within three percent of the threshold, we designate the seat as a strong "opportunity" to win.

In Missouri, the black VAP consists of nearly 11% of the statewide VAP, and despite the state's relatively small black population, two of Missouri's eight seats (25%) belong to African American Congress members, William Lacy Clay, Jr. (D-1) and Emanuel Cleaver II (D-5). Under Missouri's new plan, no district has a black VAP greater than the 50% threshold; however, as noted earlier, pundits generally regard the newly drawn 1^st Congressional District as the state's only majority-minority district. Latinos, for their part, currently make up less than three percent of the state's total population but have negligible influence in any single-member district.

Using our methodology to evaluate the racial dynamics of Missouri's plan, we would expect the white population in each district to have the voting power to elect a preferred candidate. Although the white VAP in Congressional District 1 maintains a plurality, blacks of voting age constitute nearly half (45.66%) of the district's total VAP, enabling that group to have significant weight in any election. Given this considerable influence, the district was the first in the state to elect an African American to the U.S. House (William Lacy Clay, Sr.) in 1968 and has continued to send an African American representative to Congress in every election since. In the 5^th Congressional District, currently represented by Emanuel Cleaver, there is another sizable black community (20.40%). In spite of the voting power that whites possess in each congressional district, the state is consistently friendly to electing representatives of color when running in strongly Democratic-leaning districts.

Missouri Plan Race Breakdown

District	Total Population	White VAP%	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	Black Voters	Latino Voters
1	748,616	48.60%	45.66%	2.69%	0	0
2	748,616	92.21%	2.79%	1.88%	0	0
3	748,616	92.72%	3.63%	1.78%	0	0
4	748,616	91.90%	4.32%	2.66%	0	0
5	748,615	71.95%	20.40%	6.82%	0	0
6	748,616	93.04%	3.62%	2.68%	0	0
7	748,616	92.93%	1.52%	3.31%	0	0
8	748,616	93.39%	4.13%	1.28%	0	0
Statewide	5,988,927	84.54%	10.81%	2.89%	0	0

*Source for race voting age population data is the Missouri State Senate.

While the fair voting plan drastically shakes up the political landscape of Missouri's redistricting plan, it sustains the influence that black communities hold in the new map, even after combining the highly concentrated minority population in District 1 with other predominantly white districts. Similar to the black constituency's prospects for voting power in District 1, this group in Super-District 2 (11.61%) falls merely two percentage points below our threshold for an "opportunity" to win representation (13.67%). Just as District 5 consistently elects an African American representative to Congress, we would anticipate black voters in Super-District 2 to have the comparable influence in electing a candidate who best represents their interests. Super-District 1, which encompasses District 5, offers black voters significant influence (9.46% VAP in a super-district with a threshold of 25%), as candidates in congressional elections would presumably cater to the black community, given the competitive nature of super-district elections and the need to solidify relationships with large voting blocs.

FairVote's Super-District Race Breakdown

Super-District	Number of Seats	Threshold of Exclusion	White VAP%	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	Black Voters	Latino Voters
1	3	25% + 1	85.61%	9.46%	4.06%	0	0
2	5	16.67% + 1	83.90%	11.61%	2.19%	0	0
Statewide	8	-	84.54%	10.81%	2.89%	0	0

Conclusion

Although Missouri Republicans clearly engineered a partisan gerrymander, electoral problems do not rest solely with Democrats and Republicans. Rather, the problem lies with the winner-take-all nature of single-member district elections, which allow district lines to determine most outcomes no matter how they are drawn. In this analysis, we have not touched the blatantly partisan lines that were our building blocks; we merely changed the rules and showed that fair voting provides immediate dividends to all voters.

If the redistricting games of winner-take-all continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. Under Missouri's redistricting plan and many others like it across the country, a vast amount of voters are left with diminshed representation and no real choices. Many of these congressional elections lack competition or offer just two candidates to the diverse array of voters. It is also clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of everyone in a district, as winner-take-all assumes. Therefore, we need a new approach that will more accurately reflect the makeup of each state. By adopting fair voting methods in super-districts, we can attain a more representative democracy.

PR Proposal For California: Interview with Michael Latner

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:05:47 -0700

As FairVote covered earlier this year, Prof. Michael S. Latner and corresponding author Kyle Roach this year published a research paper: Mapping the Consequences of Electoral Reform (The California Journal of Politics & Policy - 2011 Volume 3, Issue 1) The paper states a number of incremental electoral reforms have not measurably improved government performance in California. It simulates and maps electoral outcomes under a simple form of proportional voting, or proportional representation (PR): 16 five-seat districts for the 80-seat California Assembly. The electoral formula can be variations of party-list PR.

In addition to eliminating the institutional advantage that the largest party receives under the current system, the simulation suggests that PR would diversify the composition of both major parties, and provide limited opportunities for minor parties to effectively compete throughout the state. Addressing concerns over the polarization of the state’s legislature and its effect on lawmaking, the paper predicts PR would elect more moderate legislators who, in course, would "increase the political space for moderate legislation and deal making" (pp.13).

I’ll say, and by no means critically, the proposal is modest. They don’t add any seats to the state’s tiny legislature. With PR for the state assembly, it still leaves single-member districts for the state senate and plural executive. This is basically a variation of Mixed Member Proportional system, with single-member districts for the senate and proportional voting in the house.

I recently chatted on the phone with Prof. Latner about the paper and issues surrounding it. Here's our interview.

KN: What motivated you to propose proportional representation for California elections?

ML: Electoral reform has been getting a lot of attention in the last two years, given the establishment of the redistricting commission. We also just passed in California the Top-Two run off system. More generally, California has a long history of tinkering with our electoral system in an attempt to improve representation. There is widespread recognition that California has one of the most polarized legislature among the 50 states. We have a fairly dysfunctional legislature in terms of its performance and productivity. And this is a pretty widely shared view so I thought this would be a good time to discuss for more substantial reforms.

Scholars of comparative politics have a well-established research literature that shows party competition is strongly affected by the rules of play, if you will, and two of the most important rules of play are district magnitude and the electoral formula that is used to convert votes into seats. We thought it would be useful to examine and do simulations using existing electoral data and then extending the analysis to a prediction of what a multi-party system would look like in California.

We can do this because of recent advances in political science. Electoral systems are among the most studied institutions in political science and the body of knowledge we have gained in the last 10 to 15 years is substantial. We know a lot about how electoral systems perform so that allows us to predict consequences. I have used California as a case study to apply some of the techniques and theory that we have developed over the last few decades.

One of the nice things about California is that we have voter initiative data, so we can actually look at ideology without being constrained to party politics. I would call the paper less of a proposal and more of a prediction. That is, it's an estimate of what we would actually get because, as you know very well, proportional representation in the United States has a derogatory connotation to it -- seen as sort of an exotic European system of representation.

Michael, you’re talking about a "parliamentary system,: right? (sic) I can’t believe how many times I get that!

Right, right. PR is seen as this foreign thing even though, as you well know, some of the electoral formulas for proportional representation were invented by Thomas Jefferson and Daniel Webster -- like the D’Hondt and Sainte-Laguë system -- for allocating seats to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Although there is this history of understanding PR in the United States, we have huge institutional inertia from the system that we adopted from Great Britain and seem stuck with, even while California is this virtual laboratory of experimentation. We have a history of experimentation that is healthy in a democracy, but those experiments have mostly been incremental reforms; what I would call at a statewide level as junk reforms.

Junk reforms?

That is they are designed to put a band-aid on a problem. We have enough science over the last 50 years to know that what really matters is how many seats are up for election and what electoral formula is used. And if you really want to get competitive elections, you have to move beyond a single-seat system.

It’s so hard to promote proportional voting or even a majoritarian system like Ranked Choice Voting. You touched on this lack of awareness, misunderstandings and myths. It is great to have this paper that shows PR can be done in California. The paper is actually modest in a lot of ways. You touched on electoral systems, D’Hondt and Sainte-Laguë, these party-list systems.

They can work with either a closed party-list or an open party-list where voters choose candidates within parties. The reason I choose Sainte-Laguë is that it is empirically the most neutral formula and therefore the fairest. What I was looking for was a formula that most clearly reflects the principle of political equality that is treating each voter equally. While a formula like D’Hondt is widely used, Sainte-Laguë is more accurate in terms of the way each voter is treated. D’Hondt still gives an advantage to larger parties, so I wanted to use the simplest, neutral formula I could to show the basic difference between a plurality system and a proportional system. They’re fair and easy to understand and of course it has to be a modest proposal because you want to have the simplest simulation possible. The more complex you try to make an electoral system the more difficult it is to predict the results.

That’s the thing about party lists systems - they’re easy to explain. Kathleen Barber in her book
Proportional Representation & Election Reform in Ohio says there is no tradition of these party lists system in English-speaking countries.

Ireland uses the single transferable vote method of proportional representation. New Zealand switched to mixed member proportional representation in the 1990s (MMP, my favorite system), and there are local proportional elections in many countries.

How does that fit into your paper? You also mention in your paper the anti-party attitude amongst voters and elites.

Yes, that is why California is an interesting case. We have this progressive tradition that has systematically weakened parties in the state. In an attempt to open up the legislative process and make it more democratic, there has been a lot of unintended consequences. We can see one of the side effects of having fairly weak political parties in terms of legislative results, but what I wanted to address was the broader party de-alignment in the United States.

I don’t think it is reasonable to impose a strong party system on a population that is going exactly the opposite direction. The data is clear. There has been a consistent decline in party identification in California and the US as a whole, but particularly in California. There are about a quarter of registered voters who are now decline-to-state. Younger people in particular are less inclined to identify with either political party and so the idea that we would some how impose a strong party system on California just doesn’t seem realistic.

On the other hand, one of the things where I think proportionality might compliment the evolution of political culture in California is to provide more choice. What we are seeing is dissatisfaction with the two major parties. When you have all these voters dropping out of the major parties you don’t see major registration increases in the minor parties. But that’s also a pretty reasonable response as given the electoral system; minor parties don’t have much of a chance for victory in California. So that’s a reasonable response on the part of voters.

Yes I agree, citizens say that they’re tired of parties but they really mean; the two major parties. The two major parties are deserving of the scorn. In my opinion, they are relevant only as campaign soft money mechanisms. Recent polling tells there’s a desire for a new party / third party -- an alternative to the majors.

Partisan primaries and non-partisan elections, the anti party machine reforms, what is their effect with over 100 years on the attitudes towards political association?

I think over the long term, they do weaken party attachment. Electoral attachments in the U.S. are more personalistic, as we have a candidate-centered system. This is true and has been true for a long time. But although we now have a more polarized party system, one of the things that is happening simultaneously is that people are less inclined to identify with one of the major parties. Ideology and party identifications are becoming more congruent. This is certainly the case in California where now the average Democratic legislator is much more liberal than the average Californian and the average Republican legislator is much more conservative.

We’re seeing self-fulfilling prophesies where the results of decline in identification, less competitive elections and more partisan districts take parties further and further apart, which makes them even less attractive to Californians.

The proponents of the Top-Two “prefers party” system promote it as a reform against this polarization.

Well, sure, and in a system that is as polarized as California, it could make a difference in a few districts. But the fact is you can’t really draw very competitive districts in California because of the geographic concentration of partisanship. The data is not very convincing that you are going to produce moderate candidates in these systems.

Let us suppose, that in a few districts you do get two Republicans or two Democrats that go in to the runoff; so you have a partisan district and two members of the same party that end up going to the runoff. This is the way that it is suppose to moderate, right? The idea is that the more moderate of those two party members will be the one that is elected because they will be able to build the coalition that includes the people that lost out in the first round. But I’m not convinced that Democrats are going to be mobilized and turn out in a runoff election between two Republicans or vise versa.

You’ve got to look at the factors that motivate turnout. Presumably, the competition will move into this runoff election and away from the first round. If it is not a competitive district and you look at the primaries today, the fact that the turnout in June primaries is so much lower raises a question; what kind of voters are going to turn out in the first round? They’re going to be partisans. That suggests that the people that make it to the November runoff are also going to be more partisan than the average voter.

So I am not convinced that Top-Two is going to make the sort of systemic change that reformers are looking for. And again, it’s an incremental reform that might make a difference in only a few seats. When you have a legislature that is as polarized as that of California, and when you have a supermajority rule for passing the budget, it's true that a few seats could make a difference on occasion. But I don’t think it is going to fundamentally change the nature of the partisanship in Sacramento, which, is what most Californians want to address.

What do you think of the Independent Redistricting Commission’s new maps for the districts in California?

I’m trying to look at them but I’ve crashed a few computers at our University library trying to map the data using GIS. So far, the results are fairly predictable. There looks like there will be some more competitive districts, certainly in the congressional seats. My own district, for instance. Right now, I am in Kevin McCarthy’s district. Lois Capp’s 23rd district is on the coast and is probably one of the most gerrymandered districts in the country right now. It looks a little like Chile - sort of running up the coast. The new district will be a more competitive one. McCarthy’s district might become a little more competitive too. But again, the bottom line in California is that it is very hard to create competitive districts.

There is also a theoretical argument that you don’t really want districts that are fully competitive because if you have district that are always 51% / 49%, lets say, then half of the voters don’t have any representation. Again this tradeoff is just a product of the single-seat district, winner-take-all system.

Our independent commission in Washington is a different setup but it’s looking like it’s going to be an incumbent protection deal at the end. I wouldn’t be surprised because the legislators have to vote on the maps.

Right, and you know the idea of non-partisan commission is a bit of an oxymoron. My guess would be that if these current maps pass judicial muster and pass the challenges that are being heard right now, they look like they will be somewhat more competitive and look like they might be an improvement over the what is one of the purest forms of an incumbent protection system -- which was the districts that were drawn after 2000 by both major parties in California.

You know 9-11-01 was a terrible tragedy that commanded so much attention. Even here in Washington, redistricting at that time was under the radar.

In California, the 1990 redistricting was eventually thrown into the courts. Neither party wanted that to happen again so there was a very strong incentive to create a bi-partisan incumbent protection plan. That’s exactly what they did after 2000.

Right, so your paper opens things up. What’s interesting about it is there would be moderate Republicans coming out of the Bay area and Los Angeles and moderate Democrats coming out of inland California. Do you want to touch on that a little bit?

Sure, I think one of the results that comes out pretty clearly is, and is something that we would expect to find. The largest party in the state has the advantage in a single district system. And by virtue of just changing the system to PR, Democrats would lose 4 or 5 seats. So you would think that Republicans would be advocates for reform because they would clearly benefit from a more proportional system. I would love to see them take that to the legislature.

Again this speaks to the question of genuine reform versus more superficial reforms. If we had moderate Republicans elected from the most populous areas of the state and more moderate Democrats coming from central valley and the mountain regions, then you would see a genuine change in partisan dynamics in the legislature; because these new legislators would be representing people who right now aren’t being represented in the legislature. It would be more genuine reform in my opinion.

I see that also. The paper also states that out of these five seat assembly districts, there could be space for minor party or independent candidates.

Absolutely, this is what scares both the major parties. They might not agree on anything but the one thing they do agree on is they don’t want competition. Right, now that’s the more speculative part of the paper, certainly. Because trying to predict what sort of parties will emerge is certainly an interesting prediction but it is also more speculative than scientific.

Nevertheless, California provides this wonderful experiment. We have all this initiative data that tells us about peoples’ ideological orientations. We can study that geographically and see what sort of parties would most likely survive within those five district regions.

And we don’t really know what kind of new forms of association will emerge. I promote proportional representation, not because I like to explain vote transfers to people. My thing is association -- that when people get together they amplify their voice. We see this in the internet phenomenon. We see it with the money bomb. Obama for America, he raised a lot of money through small contributions.

Absolutely

I am a member of the Washington State Grange. My wife and I volunteer at our Grange. The Grange is a civic group. It’s a fraternal group and we raise money to give it away. We do community things and there’s an advocacy aspect too. We can promote certain issues, that can create tensions with the fraternal part of the group but perhaps, that’s another issue.

It’s part of that old school progressive tradition

You can go to the old part of town and you see the old Eagles Club or other fraternal group building boarded up or falling apart. It’s Bowling Alone…Putman…the social capital. People can ask me, “Krist how do we get people involved and back in association?” Well, association is exploding with social networking --Twitter, Facebook, those kind of things. I believe it is a matter of time before somebody comes up with the right mix of political association and social networking -- and there is your new party.

You really hit on what is a true dilemma. We have a lot of scientific research and historical data suggesting we know how to get a multi-party system, right, but the reality is that the politics of electoral reform show that you have to get a party in power before there is reform. You don’t get reform from the established parties because they are not going to weaken their own status, right, so you have got to get some electoral success in order to start driving that reform.

I think it is just a matter of time before we are going to get proportional voting because it can accommodate the phenomenon of how the information revolution is transforming democracy in the United States.

I think you’re right there, and historical evidence backs that up as well. If you look at electoral reform across the world over the last 15 to 20 years, there is a clear preference in the direction of more proportional elections. If you look at countries like Japan, New Zealand, Italy and newer democracies; the direction of what sorts of electoral systems are established or revised, they are all going in the direction of greater proportionality. So I think you have a point.

One of the things we are seeing, is the energy there is in dissatisfaction with both political parties. It’s a question of there being the right set of enabling conditions to facilitate a real reform movement. I hope the part that I can play with the scientific community is to provide the evidence we need in order to make the best decisions.

Related: See FairVote's blogpost with a proposal for proportional voting in congressional elections in California. We will soon post an analysis of a proposed plan for state legislative elections.

No More Gerrymanders: Illinois' Partisan Plan versus the Fair Voting Alternative

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:19:52 -0700

Summary:

Lawmakers in Illinois have recently passed a congressional redistricting plan that favors Democratic candidates in 11 of 18 seats and protects nearly all incumbents.

The root of the worst problems associated with redistricting lies with winner-take-all elections, in which 50% + 1 of the vote can elect 100% of the representation. Fair voting systems based on proportional representation are a far better way to achieve public interest objectives and allow all voters to participate in meaningful elections.

As part of an ongoing series, FairVote has produced a "super-district" plan designed to elect several representation from a district with a fair voting system. Our Illinois plan upholds U.S. Supreme Court rulings on apportionment while providing fair representation and voter choice for Illinois voters. Fair voting plans in super-district are legal under the U.S. Constitution, but would require Congress to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts.

A fair voting plan would result in far more balanced representation and competitive elections.

The Political Context in Illinois

Illinois and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, Illinois’ population grew slightly, from 12.42 million to 12.83 million, for an increase of 3.3%, as compared to a rate of 8.6% from 1990 to 2000. This rate was significantly below the national average of 9.7%. As a result, Illinois was one of ten states nationwide to lose seats during the 2010 reapportionment process, going from 19 U.S. House seats to 18. This continued a skid dating back to 1980, when the state lost two of its then-24 representatives.

Internally, population shifts appear to hurt congressional Democrats, as Cook County lost residents to the surrounding suburban counties, the respective populations of which grew by anywhere from 15% to over 25%. Racially, Illinois remains predominately white (63.7%). Latinos (15.8%) increased appreciably as a percent share of the state, while the black population share (14.3%) declined slightly.

Redistricting in 2001 was a somewhat chaotic affair, with divided government – Republicans controlled the governorship and the State Senate, while Democrats were the majority in the State House – leading to a redistricting impasse . Such deadlock forced the state to look to a backup commission, of which Democrats gained control after the name of the tie-breaking ninth member, a Democrat, was randomly drawn.

Democrats, in Control, Push through Partisan Redistricting Plan: In the 2010 election, Republican candidates earned 47% of the statewide vote, a 10-point swing from 2008 that claimed four Democratic incumbents and gave the GOP control of the state’s U.S. House delegation for first time since 2003. Nevertheless, Democrats held on to both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly, and Governor Pat Quinn withstood a robust general election challenge, winning by one percent. Having retained the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, Democrats earned control over the 2011 redistricting process.

Illinois law requires the state legislature to pass a redistricting map by June 30, with the provision for a nine-person, bipartisan backup commission in the event that the General Assembly cannot complete the task. State Democrats were keen on completing their redistricting map before the final day of the General Assembly’s regular session, on May 31 – any plan passed during a special session would have required a two-thirds supermajority likely beyond the Democratic Party’s means.

Illinois House Democrats unveiled their redistricting plan on May 27, passing a revised version on May 30 by a party line 63–54 vote over GOP protestations that the public had been without opportunity to evaluate the eleventh-hour changes. The Democrats in the state Senate approved the House proposal the next day without Republican support, 34–25, sending the redistricting proposal to Governor Quinn, who signed it into law on June 24, calling the map “fair.” Republicans protested, with one state lawmaker saying , “This congressional map is a national embarrassment [that] doesn’t really reflect the type of product that I think the people of this state would be proud of. This is a power grab.”

Illinois-based Republican consultant David From marveled at the map as “a work of art, [though] in the wrong direction,” while POLITICO called it a “masterstroke” that would place Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan among “other storied pols whose mapmaking exploits have become stuff of political legend.” The Washington Post, referring to the infamous 2003 Republican mid-Census redistricting in Texas, derisively referred to the plan as “Delay-lite.”

Partisan Effects of the Democratic Redistricting Plan: The 18 new Illinois U.S. House districts are unmistakably partisan, boosting Democrats and harming Republicans. It draws nearly all of the state’s 11 Republicans into districts with other incumbents, while creating 11 districts that favor Democrats. Such a move leaves each member of the ‘GOP eleven’ with the choice between three equally disagreeable options: wage a primary battle against a Republican colleague, contest a quixotic general election campaign against an established Democratic incumbent in a blue stronghold, or opt for retirement. Assuming all eleven Republican incumbents decided to run for reelection, it is not yet clear exactly where each will find his or her new political home – representatives are not required by the U.S. Constitution to live in the districts they represent.

The most pressing problem facing the Democratic Party was the population loss in the heavily Democratic Chicago area, a decline that under an independent redistricting proposal could have affected adversely the party’s seven Chicago-based incumbents. The Democratic plan, however, methodically expands the city’s solidly liberal districts outward into the suburbs that in 2010 elected four of the GOP’s five freshmen (Joe Walsh, Adam Kinzinger, Randy Hultgren, and Robert Dold) and eliminating the district of seven-term incumbent Judy Biggert. Republicans, noting that the plan sucks GOP-leaning suburban townships into the urban districts of Chicago Democrats, have charged that Democrats , rather than caring about fair representation, are focused exclusively on protecting the party’s incumbents and diluting the voting power of suburban conservative voters (the collar counties are divided between five districts ).

Downstate, Republicans have not fared much better, as Tim Johnson’s old eastern district, which has expanded south, and Bobby Schilling’s western district, which has moved north, have both become significantly more Democratic. In the center of the state, the plan has constructed an open-seat , which unites the Democratic areas of Champaign-Urbana, Springfield, and the Madison County suburbs of St. Louis, with an obvious Democratic-lean. Nevertheless, Republican John Shimkus appears relatively safe, and the sudden retirement of 12-term Democratic incumbent Jerry Costello, who Roll Call labeled the Democrats’ “point-man for redistricting,” , has increased the opportunities for Republicans in the region. The “ill-time retirement” of Costello only serves to highlight the “perils” to a party of “over-gerrymandering” and spreading its support too thin.

The Illinois map does face numerous legal challenges. State Republicans have joined with some racial and ethnic minority groups to argue that the new districts are in violation of the Voting Rights Act, which requires districts “friendly” to Latinos and blacks. The GOP lawsuit alleges that the new map fails to provide Latinos with ample representation. The Latino community, for its part, believes its population growth entitles it to a second VRA district, with the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund criticizing the plan for favoring “incumbent protection over respect for the Latino community.” The state’s three African American representatives (Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Danny Davis) have also expressed concerns about the map.

A Fair Voting Alternative in Super-Districts

Time for an Honest, Proportional, and Fair System: These controversies demonstrate the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails not only to represent accurately the people of Illinois but reduces voters to mere pawns in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Especially in states affected by reapportionment, there is the impulse to engage in gerrymandering and other highly undemocratic maneuvering.

In contrast to the Illinois state legislature’s politically motivated plan, FairVote's alternative puts voters first. Rather than use a winner-take-all system, which accentuates the effects of redistricting and encourages partisan jockeying, FairVote’s plan combines these gerrymandered districts to form multi-member “super districts” in which a fair voting system can allow far more voters to elect a favored candidate. As our analysis will demonstrate, FairVote’s alternative plan generates competitive elections in every single district and allows for fuller representation of the political and demographic dynamics of geographical areas: what we call “shared representation.”

Under the current winner-take-all system, candidates must receive over 50% of the vote to be sure of winning a seat. Consequently, substantial voting blocs are often left unrepresented. For instance, one party’s candidate could get just one vote shy of the 50% threshold, and all of her voters would lose out on representation. Similarly, if a voter lives in a district that widely favors one party, that voter might feel like his vote does not matter, especially if that voter favors the less popular party.

With fair voting based in super-districts, on the other hand, nominees from more than one party are nearly certain to represent a district, which enables a more accurate representation of the broad spectrum of political opinion. These multi-seat super-districts also lower the threshold for racial minorities to select a preferred candidate.

If FairVote were working from scratch, we could draw the super district lines with more geographical compactness. Because we created the super-districts from the recently approved congressional districts, however, our plan also appear to look rather gerrymandered. Even so, the super-district approach demonstrates that full representation can be attained with a fair voting system even within these highly gerrymandered confines.

From the 18 congressional districts in Illinois, the FairVote proposal creates four super-districts: one three-seat district and three five-seat districts. Each congressional seat still represents approximately 712,813 people, but using a fair voting system such as choice voting , representation is far more likely to reflect the political opinion and demographic makeup of the state. In a three-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 25% of the electorate, while in five-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 16.67% of the electorate.

Super District Breakdown

Super District	Number of Seats	Population Per Seat	Threshold of Exclusion	Districts Combined
1	3	712813	25% +1	12, 13, 15
2	5	712813	16.67% +1	2, 14, 16, 17, 18
3	5	712813	16.67% +1	1, 3, 6, 8, 11
4	5	712813	16.67% +1	4, 5, 7, 9, 10

Partisanship Analysis: Based on the 2008 presidential election, Illinois has a partisanship index of 58.85% Democratic. The recent plan passed by the state legislature is likely to generation representation that will not reflect the state’s overall partisan split. Based on district partisanship, the Illinois plan would result in 11 Democratic seats (nine safe and two lean), two safe Republican seats, and five toss-ups.

For the congressional delegation to reflect accurately the Republican statewide partisanship index of 41.15%, the GOP would need to win seven seats. However, under the gerrymandered Illinois plan, Republicans can secure safely only two seats. For the Republicans to win the seven seats, their candidates would need to succeed in all five toss-up districts. This presents a daunting challenge for the GOP every election year, regardless of the party’s national momentum.

Illinois Plan’s Partisanship Breakdown

District	Population Per Seat	Partisanship (D)*	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	712813	77.50%	1	0	0	0	0
2	712813	77.81%	1	0	0	0	0
3	712813	55.31%	0	1	0	0	0
4	712813	77.55%	1	0	0	0	0
5	712813	66.95%	1	0	0	0	0
6	712813	48.39%	0	0	1	0	0
7	712812	86.16%	1	0	0	0	0
8	712812	58.59%	1	0	0	0	0
9	712813	65.55%	1	0	0	0	0
10	712813	59.92%	1	0	0	0	0
11	712813	58.36%	1	0	0	0	0
12	712813	51.97%	0	0	1	0	0
13	712813	51.95%	0	0	1	0	0
14	712813	47.62%	0	0	1	0	0
15	712813	40.09%	0	0	0	0	1
16	712813	47.34%	0	0	1	0	0
17	712813	57.16%	0	1	0	0	0
18	712813	41.26%	0	0	0	0	1
Statewide	12830632	58.85%	9	2	5	0	2

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of the 2008 presidential election. Our source for the data is DailyKos.com. The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

In stark contrast, the FairVote super-district plan accurately represents the state’s partisan divide. With a fair voting systme, both major parties would be well-positioned to win at least one seat in every super-district. Republicans would have a clear advantage to win five seats and be well-positioned to add between one or two seats based on the quality of their candidates and the national partisan swing. Democrats would have a clear advantage in nine districts and a reasonable chance to add up to three more. FairVote’s plan also increases voter interest, since almost all Republican and Democratic voters will be able to elect a candidate in their district, who represents their political views – and have a real choice within their party’s candidates as well.

Once in Congress, representatives from opposing parties would share constituents of super districts and, therefore, have new incentives to cooperate on at least some legislative initiatives. As far as competition, the current Illinois plan theoretically offers five competitive districts, but a strong incumbent can make elections in that district noncompetitive; in the super-district plan, every voter experiences a competitive election in every election.

While these partisan breakdowns are based on the current two-party duopoly, the FairVote proposal would open the door for third-party and independent candidates, unlike the single-member district winner-take-all plan. Challengers to the major parties are rarely able to acquire over 50% of the vote, so those voters are typically left unrepresented. FairVote’s super-districts lower the threshold and provide third parties and independents with a better chance to win seats. The FairVote alternative is not just fair for Democrats and Republicans; it is fair for voters of all political opinions.

FairVote Plan's Partisan Breakdown

Super District

Number of Seats

Threshold of Exclusion

Partisanship (D)*

Safe Seats (D)

Leaning Seats (D)

Toss-Up

Leaning Seats (R)

Safe Seats (R)

1

3

25.00% +1

48.00%

1

0

1

0

1

2

5

16.67% +1

54.24%

2

1

0

0

2

3

5

16.67% +1

59.63%

3

0

0

1

1

4

5

16.67% +1

71.23%

3

1

0

0

1

Statewide

18

-

58.85%

9

2

1

1

5

*The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship ±4% of the threshold, leaning seats have a partisanship 4-8% greater than the threshold, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 8% of threshold. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

Race and Voting Power: Under Illinois’ redistricting plan, the state’s four representatives of color are well positioned to remain in office; however, the plan does not offer opportunities for racial minority representation outside of these four majority-minority districts. The three majority black districts have elected the state’s three African American representatives, and they maintain their majority-minority status with this new plan. Although Latinos have become the largest racial minority group in the state, they have the power to select a preferred candidate in just one of the state’s 18 districts. The state’s sole Latino representative, Luis Gutierrez, keeps his Latino majority district intact, but the Latino community lacks the voting power other districts to elect another candidate of choice.

If Illinois’ congressional delegation reflected the demographic consistency of the state (14.5% black and 15.8% Latino), then both black and Latino communities would have the voting power to elect two preferred candidates each. FairVote’s plan combines these highly concentrated minority districts with other predominantly white districts, but the super-district approach actually enhances opportunities for racial minority groups.

In the FairVote plan, Latino communities meet the threshold in two super=districts, allowing them to elect at least two preferred candidates. Black communities do not technically meet the threshold under this super district plan, but they do have strong opportunities to elect a candidate in at least three super districts. With three popular African American incumbents, the state has a strong chance to keep its African American representation under this alternative system. In addition, black voters are well-positioned to be influential in Super-District 1, where their population is more than half of what it takes to be able to win a seat. While the current Illinois plan allows for racial minority representation in four districts, there is no real chance to gain more seats. The fair voting alternative creates many more opportunities for fair racial minorities to select a candidate who will address their interests in Congress.

Illinois Plan Race Breakdown

District	Total Population	White VAP%	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	Asian VAP%	White Plurality	Black Plurality	Latino Plurality
1	712813	37.33%	52.40%	7.35%	2.12%	0	1	0
2	712813	33.47%	53.77%	11.09%	0.79%	0	1	0
3	712813	66.33%	4.54%	24.64%	3.96%	1	0	0
4	712813	26.09%	4.05%	65.92%	3.31%	0	0	1
5	712813	73.34%	2.69%	16.05%	7.12%	1	0	0
6	712813	81.62%	2.38%	7.44%	7.96%	1	0	0
7	712812	30.49%	50.28%	11.44%	6.91%	0	1	0
8	712812	60.54%	4.20%	22.14%	12.26%	1	0	0
9	712813	68.00%	8.72%	9.60%	12.64%	1	0	0
10	712813	64.95%	6.43%	18.09%	9.60%	1	0	0
11	712813	59.72%	10.73%	21.81%	7.02%	1	0	0
12	712813	79.72%	15.72%	2.44%	1.20%	1	0	0
13	712813	83.41%	9.44%	2.56%	3.74%	1	0	0
14	712813	83.55%	2.51%	9.35%	4.00%	1	0	0
15	712813	92.85%	3.97%	1.87%	0.62%	1	0	0
16	712813	88.08%	3.25%	6.55%	1.51%	1	0	0
17	712813	81.66%	10.00%	6.40%	1.11%	1	0	0
18	712813	91.77%	3.55%	1.92%	2.12%	1	0	0
Statewide	12830632	67.10%	13.60%	13.40%	4.70%	14	3	1

FairVote Plan Race Breakdown

Super District	Number of Seats	Threshold of Exclusion	White VAP%	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	White Voting Power	Black Voting Power	Latino Voting Power
1	3	25.00% +1	85.33%	9.71%	2.29%	3	0	0
2	5	16.67% +1	75.71%	14.62%	7.06%	4	1 opportunity*	0
3	5	16.67% +1	61.11%	14.85%	16.68%	3	1 opportunity*	1
4	5	16.67% +1	52.57%	14.43%	24.22%	3	1 opportunity*	1
Statewide	18	-	67.10%	13.60%	13.40%	13	3 opportunities*	2

*Opportunity is designated if a racial minority group is within three percent of the threshold.

Conclusion

Although Illinois Democrats clearly engineered a partisan gerrymander, electoral problems do not rest solely with Democrats and Republicans. Rather, the dysfunction lies with the winner-take-all nature of single-member district elections, which allow districts lines to determine most outcomes no matter how they are drawn. In this analysis, we have not touched the blatantly partisan lines that were our building block; we merely changed the rules and showed that fair voting systems in super-districts pay out immediate dividends to all voters.

If the redistricting games of winner-take-all continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. Under Ohio’s redistricting plan and many others like it across the country, a vast amount of voters are left unrepresented. Many of these congressional elections lack competition or offer just two candidates to the diverse array of voters. It is also clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of her district, as winner-take-all assumes; therefore, we need a new approach will more accurately reflect the makeup of each state. By adopting fair voting in multi-seat super districts, we can attain a more representative democracy.

Maryland Gerrymander Triggers Support for Fair Voting

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:44:13 -0700

The Maryland state senate today passed a proposed map for congressional redistricting that has been highly controversial for its gerrymandered district lines and disputes involving partisanship and race. State Senator Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor and former FairVote board member, made a well-received floor speech arguing that the best way to address the problem in the future was to put voters in charge over their representation. Raskin shared FairVote's plan for fair voting in super-districts with three and five members that would lead to nearly every voter being able to elect a favorite candidate.

FairVote is drawing such plans for all states in the nation. They could be established for congressional elections by repealing a 1967 law requiring winner-take-all districts.

* Fair Voting Plan for Maryland

* Baltimore Sun on Sen. Raskin's speech

* The congressional map as passed state senate

* Example of Fair Voting plans for Ohio and North Carolina

* Commentary from FairVote's Rob Richie and Krist Novoselic

Update: Lebanon Discusses Adopting Proportional Representation

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:06:43 -0700

The Arab Spring movement has influenced Lebanon differently than many of its neighbors. Unlike nations like Syria and Yemen, there aren't street protests. Rather, the turmoil in the country is within the Parliament, not the people themselves. In a country that has relied on winner-take-all elections, the key pro-democracy movement is for adopting a proportional representation voting system to be used in the next parliamentary elections in 2013.

President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Najib Mikati agree that the best solution to Lebanon's extremely divisive political system is to put in place proportional voting. Interior Minister Marwan Charbel put together a committee for electoral reform. He affirms that a new law will be presented to Parliament by late September. Others backing the proposal include Speaker Nabih Berri, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, the Lebanese Forces lead by Samir Geagea, the Marada Movement lead by Suleiman Frangieh and the Kataeb Party lead by Amine Gemayel.

But opponents of reform have emerged. Walid Jumblatt, Progressive Socialist Party leader and Lebanon's most prominent Druze political figure, has made a clear stance against the idea, saying that "it is better to postpone discussing proportional representation and to keep the current situation to preserve diversity and plurality."

Grounded in the fact that Lebanon's democracy today is based on quotas rather than voter preferences, Jumblatt's argument goes against what proportional representation stands for. As the current electoral process works today, each party is guaranteed a set number of seats in each district. The number of seats in Parliament is divided equally between Christians and Muslims (50:50). Within each block, each religious sect holds a set number of seats.

Not only does the unchangeable number of seats assume falsely that no religious sect is going to see its population grow disproportionately than other parties, but it also assumes that there will be enough people in each district to support the candidates of each religious sect. By guaranteeing a number of seats for each political party based on each religious sect, diversity is maintained at the expense of proportional representation based on voter preferences.

Instead of having a limited number of seats for each religious sect, proportional voting would allow the people of Lebanon to choose the candidates they feel are stronger based on their political views, not on religious beliefs. Elected officials will therefore be able to better represent citizens based on what the people have voted on Election Day, not on a pre-established archaic law that only promotes national divisions. Not only will proportional voting be better able to represent citizens but it promises to promote higher voter turnout.

Despite multiple public endorsements for the impending law, many are still skeptical about the reform being passed due to political parties not willing to give up their guaranteed seats. Media adviser to Speaker Nabih Berri, Ali Hamdan told the Daily Star that "the [adoption of proportional representation] requires a national political will ... so far there is [only] semiunanimity over the adoption of proportional representation."

Although the electoral committee reform is facing high opposition, it should rally as much support as possible before the end of September. Mobilizing citizens about the cause will help pressure politicians to passing the new electoral law on proportional representation in time for the Parliamentary elections of 2013.

Dawning Digital Democracy

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:35:46 -0700

Michael Lind of the New America Foundation shared his views in an August 9 Salon article about the dysfunctional two-party system in the US. After starting with a view of how proportional representation voting systems accommodate more voices, he wrote about the need for a social movement to inject new issues into politics.

I agree we need a social movement and I read the piece as a call for more association. The information revolution is at the heart of the new forms of association. Lind says that, “Comprehensive, multi-generational, nation-rebuilding movements are rare”. If we see the new forms of association as a movement itself, then we are at the beginning of that rare moment of change.

It’s no news to say that Facebook, Twitter and other social networking platforms are bringing the world together. And you’re probably aware of how technology is changing the nature of campaigning. So it should be no surprise that efforts like Americans Elect, No Labels and Ruck.us are vying to be the next big thing in digital democracy. Even though these groups go out of their way to say they’re not parties, they are still a form of political association. And it’s Americans Elect that recognizes the most important aspect of a party – oops! - I mean political association: providing voters a cue on the ballot itself.

Lind says it’s not possible in advance to predict which of the two major national parties will be most closely associated with reform. I’ll go further and say we cannot depend on either of the two crusty, soft money machines / state parties to bring change on their own.

The leading effort to reform presidential nominations is Americans Elect with their national on-line primary. This party – oops! – political group are planning on nominating then running a bi-partisan ticket with the Americans Elect imprimatur on the ballot. These folks deserve props for their landmark innovation within our blossoming digital democracy – the glaringly simple idea to use the ballot itself for a political message! It’s about the most critical phase of the election; the moment the individual voter is casting a ballot. And Americans Elect seeks to lead voters to this juncture with social networking.

But there still are many institutional barriers that benefit the two major parties. It’s not just about the rules; it’s also in the minds of voters. Ask our own John B. Anderson about catching fire in a presidential election as an alternative to the two parties. John knows first hand how voters become afraid that their choice of an alternative might spoil the election for one candidate or another. They then run back, quite reliably, to the major parties. It’s strategic voting - and that’s what will hurt an independent or third party effort on the ballot.

As a result of his 1980 election experience, John B. Anderson started promoting proportional voting and other election reforms. In 1992 he helped found FairVote and for many years served as chair of its board.

Metric Perspective

Michael Lind also says that “in a country that rejected the metric system in the 1970s as un-American, the replacement of our archaic, dysfunctional and undemocratic electoral system is not going to happen soon.”

We here at FairVote can relate to Lind’s sentiment. The American version of proportional voting has not only been off the political radar, there are also many myths and misunderstandings (1).

I promote election reforms like Choice Voting not because I like explaining thresholds or transfer values. I want to see election rules that accommodate political association. People coming together provide the balance to the concentration of power by big money interests. And things are quite out of whack these days. To restore a balance we need ballots and ways of counting them that are more sophisticated than what we’re used to.

Automobiles sold in the United States have both the Imperial and Metric scale built into their speedometers. I find this handy while driving my car in British Columbia. My point is that if a car can accommodate two systems of measurement, we need an election system that can handle the new forms of association with wider voter choices.

100 mph is a much faster rate of travel than 100 kmh. Like a speedometer that reads wrong, current election rules are not responding to the situation. This means Americans Elect can wreck the presidential election for one party or another. And, it’s the strategic thinking fostered by plurality voting that wrecks elections for new approaches like AE and others (2).

The 21st Century is about communication. The convergence of technology and our democracy makes space for more voices. As voters try to make the jump from digital democracy to our 18th century electoral system, they should see the gap. Proportional voting is here to accommodate the movement towards real choices and new voices. Micheal Lind wrote a great article and I hope he keeps promoting proportional voting.

(1) American versions of proportional voting are different than European party systems. We have higher thresholds for election with ballots that are candidate based. Several cities in the US use proportional voting and versions of this kind of election have been used in Voting Rights Act settlements.
(2) Let’s not forget that proportional voting is for legislative bodies and there’s no constitutional barrier to using it for the US House and state legislatures.