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Opinion: Ranked choice voting making a difference in the Bay Area

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:03:13 -0700

By Gautam Dutta and Steven Hill
KALW News

While our creaky, 200-year-old democracy continues to rust at national and state levels, the Bay Area has become a hotbed of political reform. San Francisco and Oakland have led the way in passing pioneering reforms like ranked choice voting (also known as instant runoff voting) and public financing of campaigns.

In Oakland, Jean Quan's riveting victory to become the mayor has brought renewed attention to ranked choice voting (RCV). San Francisco has used this system, which allows voters to rank their top three candidates, in seven elections since 2004. Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro used it for the first time in 2010.

Quan became the first Asian American woman elected mayor of a major U.S. city by coming from behind to beat the favorite, former state Senate President Pro Tem and powerbroker Don Perata, even though he outspent her 4-1. Quan showed how to win with a new kind of politics that better comports with the diverse society we have become – she used coalition building and grassroots campaigning. She told people, "If I'm not your first choice, please make me your second or third choice." She also reached out to her opponents, Rebecca Kaplan especially, saying, "In case I don't win, I think Rebecca should be your second choice." As a result, Quan received three times more runoff votes from the supporters of Kaplan, who finished third, than did Perata. That gave Quan her victory.

Both San Francisco and Oakland are enjoying significant RCV benefits, such as:

1. Broad representation and diversity. Besides electing the first Asian American woman as mayor of a major city in Oakland, RCV has resulted in the most representative and diverse Board of Supervisors in San Francisco's history. Currently, 8 out of 11 members of the Board of Supervisors are ethnic/racial minorities, with four of those being Asians (and three Chinese) in this highly Asian and minority city. Also two supervisors are gay and three female (the latter isn’t high enough, but it's about the same percentage of women in the state legislature). It also has elected a strongly progressive Board of Supervisors, with moderates and conservatives also getting elected. In short RCV, combined with public financing of campaigns, has resulted in a diverse and representative group of elected officials, one of the most representative in the entire country in fact, and the first Asian American woman mayor of a major city.

2. Has reduced “split votes” among minority voters and candidates. One of the reasons why minorities have enjoyed success is because with RCV they are no longer splitting their votes among too many candidates. The November 2011 mayoral election in San Francisco will have three Asian candidates running: Leland Yee, Phil Ting, and David Chiu. If we were still using the old December runoff system – which some like the San Francisco Chronicle want to go back to – there is no doubt that the Asian vote would have split itself among these three candidates, possibly resulting in none of them making the runoff. In order to prevent that kind of vote splitting, we would have already seen all sorts of backroom wheeling and dealing as various powerbrokers twisted arms to keep two of these Asian candidates out of the race.

But with ranked choice voting, all three of these Asian candidates can run, they can turn out the Asian vote to maximize its potential, and whichever of them is the stronger of the three will emerge with all of those Asian votes supporting their candidacy. So RCV actually has been good for the Asian community’s voting cohesiveness. That’s also true for the Latino community, as we saw in San Francisco's District 9 race in 2008. There were four major Latino candidates who under the old December runoff system would have split the Latino vote. But ranked ballots prevented that. RCV also was good for African American voters in San Francisco's District 10 in 2010, where Malia Cohen won by picking up the second and third rankings from the supporters of other black candidates in a district that historically has elected a black supervisor. Minority voters and their candidates have made smart, strategic use of ranked ballots.

3. More coalition building, less mudslinging. RCV has contributed to more coalition building, where candidates seek the support of the second and third rankings from their opponent’s supporters. In some races that has resulted in less negative campaigning as candidates tried to find common ground instead of attacking each other. Back in 2004, in San Francisco's District 5, there were 21 candidates for Supervisor with no incumbent and some candidates who are known to be pretty tough campaigners – the pundits were predicting a bloodbath. But instead, the race was remarkably civil because no one really knew where they would get the second or third rankings from, i.e. from the supporters of which other candidates. So they had to be more careful with what they said about the other candidates, and run their campaigns based more on the issues and finding common ground. The New York Times even wrote an article about it with a headline of "New Runoff System in San Francisco Has the Rival Candidates Cooperating.” And so far we are seeing that kind of civil tone in this year’s San Francisco mayoral race (though it's still very early in the race). Oddly enough, the political consultant opponents whose candidates have lost in RCV races are now calling this kind of coalition building "gaming the system." Instead of looking themselves in the mirror and asking how they could have run a better campaign, they are blaming the voting method.

4. Higher voter turnout. By getting the election over in a single RCV election in November (rather than in a December or June runoff), when more voters are at the polls to vote for president or governor, more voters are having a say in who their local elected officials are. In the 2010 election for Oakland mayor that elected Jean Quan, 120,000 voters participated, compared to about 84,000 voters who participated in the 2006 mayoral election that elected Ron Dellums. That's a huge increase in voter participation – 43% – and that translates into a lot more Oaklanders having a say over who their mayor is (see this report on the Oakland election, and this one on turnout in city council districts, which all saw large increases in voter turnout). In the 34 RCV races held in San Francisco since the first election in 2004, in just about all of them we have seen more voters participating in the final RCV tally than in the old December runoffs. A study of the 2005 Assessor Recorder's race found that RCV had increased citywide voter participation in the decisive round of that race by 168%, or 120,000 voters more than it would have been in a December runoff. That's a huge increase. Moreover, this analysis found that voter participation tripled in the six most minority and poorest neighborhoods due to having a single RCV election in November, rather than a December runoff. In short, a lot more voters in San Francisco and Oakland are having a say in who their local elected officials are, and that has been especially true for minority voters.

5. Reduced election costs. Another positive is that RCV has saved San Francisco taxpayers millions of dollars during tough economic times. The San Francisco Elections Commission did a study a few years back that showed that San Francisco spends $3-5 million per citywide election. San Francisco avoided a citywide runoff election for assessor recorder in 2005, and has avoided a lot of supervisorial district runoffs. This year, it will avoid a citywide runoff for mayor. That's real savings that has occurred, probably a good $10-15 million since 2004 (initial implementation costs for RCV were about $1.5 million).

6. Better support for campaign finance reform. With the Supreme Court ruling in its Citizens United decision that corporations can pour money directly into campaigns, RCV helps level the playing field. That’s because candidates don’t have to raise as much money since they only have to fundraise for one election instead of two. Prior to RCV, the Ethics Commission of San Francisco did a study that concluded that independent expenditures increased by four times in the December runoffs, and it's likely that independent expenditures have declined under RCV. Public financing of campaigns has helped with this as well. Quan's win in Oakland, in which she was outspent 4-1 by her opponent Don Perata, underscored what several San Francisco races have illustrated: that you have to get out into the community to earn second and third choices from backers of other candidates. Big money ads aren't enough, which is why grassroots campaigning matters far more with RCV races than in runoffs.

So RCV has resulted in some real benefits in the Bay Area that directly address the challenges of modern democracy. San Francisco and Oakland have become national leaders by passing political reforms like RCV and public financing of campaigns. Indeed, the United Kingdom will be voting in a national referendum on May 5 to change the House of Commons elections to ranked choice voting, and they have been studying San Francisco’s experience.

Gautam Dutta is a business and elections law attorney. Steven Hill is the architect of ranked choice voting in the Bay Area, and author of "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy" and "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age"

How to Avoid the Hamas Problem in Egypt

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 11:29:13 -0700

By Stephen Hill
The New York Times

There is great worry in many quarters that elections in Egypt could result in a polarized government, or even an Islamist takeover. But this need not happen if the electoral rules are constructed to encourage broad representation.

For an example of the wrong way to run an election, consider the Palestinian elections in January 2006. Hamas won a majority of legislative seats, but that was possible only because the “winner take all” electoral system used in those elections produced grossly unrepresentative results.

If the Palestinians had employed the proportional representation election systems used in many democracies around the world, the story would have turned out very differently. The lessons for Egypt are crucial.

The Palestinian elections used a combination of a U.S.-style winner-take-all electoral system and a more European-style proportional voting system. Germany uses a version of the “mixed member proportional”, as does New Zealand, Japan and other countries. (In the “mixed” system, a number of seats in the legislature are set aside for district representatives, and another set of “accountability seats” are held for parties to compensate for unbalanced partisan results in the district elections.)

Palestinian voters had two votes, one for their favorite political party (the proportional vote) and another for individual candidates in winner-take-all districts where the highest vote-getters win. In the proportional vote, which is a national vote and therefore the best measure of the overall support for each political party, Hamas won about 45 percent of the popular vote and about the same percentage of seats — 30 of 66, not a majority. The incumbent party, Fatah, won about 41 percent of the popular vote and 27 of 66 seats, only three seats behind Hamas.

So the popular vote actually was quite close, and if those were the only election results they would have produced a broadly representative legislature. Instead, the winner-take-all seats completely threw the election to Hamas.

Hamas won only 41 percent of the vote in the winner-take-all districts, yet won 68 percent of those seats. That gave them 45 of 66 seats in the winner-take-all districts while Fatah won only 17 district seats even though they had 36 percent of the winner take all vote.

Overall, Hamas won 57 percent of legislative seats even though their national support was around 45 percent. If they had a better electoral system, Hamas would not have won a majority of seats and perhaps would have formed a grand coalition with Fatah. The lopsided result was caused by a winner-take-all electoral system, which was susceptible to distortions from, split votes, poor strategic voting and Fatah running too many candidates.

Iraq, on the other hand, used a proportional system where each political party was awarded legislative seats in direct proportion to their share of the popular vote in each of 18 provinces. When the dominant Shi’ite party failed to win a majority of the popular vote, they also failed to win a majority of legislative seats. Instead, the Shi’ites had to negotiate with the Sunnis and Kurds, preserving a fragile balance of power.

The current Egyptian electoral system uses winner take all elections, with a first-round followed by a second round if no candidate wins a majority. This system could result in a faction with less than a popular majority winning more than a majority of seats, as it did in Palestine. It also could lead to fewer centrists getting elected and a polarized legislature.

By adopting new electoral rules, Egypt could avoid this polarizing outcome. Proportional representation would ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood, former Mubarak supporters as well as the many secular constituencies in Tahrir Square would each get their fair share of representation, but no more.

The Sweep: Vikings, voters and the charge of the Militant Middle

Thu, 19 May 2011 09:32:40 -0700

Tom Foreman
CNN

Washington (CNN) -- This is a political story, complete with angry voters, a frustrated candidate and a scholarly observer or two. So if that's what you're after, take heart.

But I'm going to start a long time ago. With the Vikings. Pointy metal hats. Horns. Dragon ships. Those Vikings.

The Vikings did not meet many foes willing to stand and fight, but when they did, they had an answer: born-and-bred sociopaths called berserkers. Stripped of armor, with a sword strapped to one hand and a battle axe to the other, the berserkers would charge into the opposing force like human wheat threshers, spreading carnage and terror as long they survived. The result was dramatic and demoralizing, and as the enemy fled, the rest of the Vikings swooped in to complete the massacre.

Which brings us to the Tea Party. Despite all the headlines about their impact on the upcoming midterms, I have a theory that out in the political heartland, the trashing by the Tea Partiers may be preparing the battlefield for a much more profound second wave of disaffected, independent voters, who could make the Tea Party look like, well, a tea party.

I've always called them the Militant Middle, and Gary Butts is a founding member. "It's about time the moderates stood up and said, 'Hey, we're in the majority here!'"

He is with ModerateVoters.org, based in Irvine, California, and he says the Militant Middle started growing and coalescing around a broad slogan of "Throw the bums out" long before the Tea Party even started brewing -- and now it's reached a boiling point.

He's not alone. Comedy Central's Jon Stewart stirred the waters with his call for a Million Moderate March on Washington the day before Halloween to "restore sanity."

Stewart tells his devoted audience, "We live in troubled times with real people facing very real problems; problems that have real if imperfect solutions that I believe 70 to 80 percent of our population could agree to try and could ultimately live with. Unfortunately the conversation and process is controlled by the other 15 to 20 percent."

Stewart is putting serious weight behind his words, hosting a week of "The Daily Show" from Washington leading up to the event. His comrade-in-charms, Stephen Colbert, is also jumping in with a tongue-in-cheek counter-rally -- a March to Keep Fear Alive.

On a more serious front, New York billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been hopping around the country lending his support to Democrats and Republicans with a moderate streak, convinced they hold the key to breaking the death grip of the partisans.

Such high-profile efforts are thrilling for Butts. As a young man, he was a page in the U.S. Capitol, and worked alongside and observed a master of mutual respect and bipartisan cooperation -- so much so that the man's colleagues on both sides of the aisle rallied behind him to be president of the United States in one of the nation's darkest, most divisive political hours: Gerald Ford. No wonder Butts finds the politics of today maddening. "I think people are sick and tired, and some of us in the middle are just horrified at the noise coming from the left and right."

There is also serious political science behind this notion. At Stanford University, Morris Fiorina is a professor who theorized well before many others that this rising middle was becoming a major force in American politics. Some of the political intelligentsia back east initially -- and some even now -- dismissed the idea.

"I take some satisfaction in being right," he says, with a faint chuckle. His best evidence that his prediction was spot on: President Obama, elected largely by independents and moderates who were furious at Republicans, yes, but also at the status quo and the deeply divisive politics practiced by the two main parties. "In part, Obama was elected on a promise to change the tenor of politics and it hasn't happened at all."

That has further fanned the flames of anger for the Militant Middle. In Philadelphia, Rick Bayan runs a website called The New Moderate, and he voted for Obama. "I thought he'd bring the kind of change I wanted. I thought he'd be another JFK, and it's been just the opposite. He's like an economics professor. He's a lot more establishment than I thought."

So day after day, Bayan now urges anyone who will read his online columns to join the bulging center of the electorate -- especially political types who might emerge as legitimate contenders. He has learned that electing one agent of change, no matter how powerful, just won't cut it. "We need more forceful, dynamic leaders," he readily admits of the movement. "Most people perceive moderates as timid, middle-of-the-roaders, who can't take a stand."

State Representative Kathleen Curry, pictured with her family, was a lifelong Democrat who ditched her party.

If they met state Rep. Kathleen Curry out in Colorado, they might not feel that way. She is precisely who Bayan is looking for: a successful, winning politician who has joined the independent cause. "I don't like the two-party stranglehold on votes," she tells me by phone from her office deep in the Rocky Mountains.

Curry was a lifelong Democrat when she was elected to the legislature six years ago, and a rising star in the state party as she was re-elected three times. Then last December she shoved the party aside. She was tired, she says, of party leaders who thought she should listen to them more than the folks at home.

"I have a diverse constituency," she says. Some voters on the right, some on the left, a lot in the middle. She was committed to serving them all, and convinced the two party system was designed to keep her from it. "It's hardwired to promote the interests of the two parties. And they're good people, but they're not motivated to change a system that keeps them in power."

Part of the problem cited by everyone I talked to is the primary voting system. Despite some highly publicized upsets, in most cases the parties still steer the early selection process toward faithful partisans. Such candidates are easier to raise money for, easier to differentiate from the opposition in ads, and more likely to do precisely what moderates do not want: Toe the party line.

The parties defend the practice by saying the electorate itself is polarized. But Fiorina says it is a self-fulfilling assessment. "You give people nothing but polarized candidates and you get polarized voting."

"Our voters," Curry adds, "are not being reflected at all."

Rick Bayan says Obama is "a lot more establishment than I thought."

Just outside of Washington, FairVote.org is trying to do something about that. Rob Richie is the executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. He says fewer than half the states have open primaries in which anyone can help pick the nominees. He is fighting for a wider variety of candidates everywhere, and respects the challenges for independents once polling begins. "I can sympathize with where they are coming from. If you don't start off higher than 30 percent, you're demonized as a spoiler."

Hitting that mark demands buzz in the talk circuit, and that's tough to generate with a moderate message of gradual change, responsible spending and taxes, and a steady hand at the policy wheel. Bayan, a former advertising man, puts it more pointedly. "Nuance doesn't sell."

"So what you need is extremist moderates?" I ask.

"Ha!" Bayan laughs and then concedes, maybe so.

Fiorina admits that measuring the power of independents and moderates is tough because by definition, they don't sign up for party pot luck suppers. But they are, he believes, nonetheless united by an ethos.

"There is a moral thing here," he says. "Moderates believe good behavior should be rewarded and bad behavior punished."

That's why bailouts of the banks, Wall Street, and the big automakers made them so angry. He adds that other characteristics of independents are a belief that the two major parties are putting their own good above the good of the nation and that the political deck has been horribly stacked against the voters in the middle.

"They're right," says Curry, who despite her successful six years in office will be re-elected this fall only if enough Colorado voters write her name in.

Independents face hurdles that the two parties long ago knocked down for their own players, in terms of getting onto ballots, obtaining government campaign funding, being included in debates. The parties argue that they have been the vanguard of politics in this nation for many generations; they have earned certain privileges. But what I've heard from countless de facto members of the Militant Middle for several years now is, "We're fully a third of the electorate, and yet the gatekeepers from the parties keep us from being represented anywhere. How is that democracy?"

Still, there is also an intangible. The roughly one-third of voters on the left and one-third on the right often seem almost unable to comprehend what the middle wants.

"I'm just sick of hearing about the independents," a friend in New York told me some years ago. "They need to make up their minds."

What she did not seem to grasp is that they have. The independents I have met over the years, all of whom espoused generally moderate views, are often deeply concerned about politics, dedicated to their communities and their country, and utterly convinced that choosing either party is a mistake -- a kind of willful decision to ignore the possibilities and ideas offered by all Americans by joining a club composed of one slice of the country. Simply put: Partisans see independents as wishy-washy. Independents see partisans as blind.

So even as the parties mow down their own moderate voices, people like Gary Butts keep beating the drum. "If moderates really turned out in volume in primaries, we could get good moderate candidates."

It is worth noting that no one I talked to for this story seemed particularly interested in joining the Tea Party movement. But in a way, many seemed grateful for it. Because call them patriots, troublemakers, or berserkers, the Tea Party is giving both parties their first real scare since Ross Perot snatched up more than 18 percent of the presidential vote in 1992. And the Militant Middle thinks that could help.

Never mind that some Tea Partiers are virulently anti-moderate. As Democratic strategist and CNN analyst Donna Brazile told me, "The Tea Party is going to knock out the moderates in both parties."

The Militant Middle believes the nation overall is so moderate, and the moderates are so ready to be roused, that the Tea Party can't last. And they think once the rampage is over, both major parties may be so battered that they'll be more than willing to strike a deal with the middle to prevent a new uprising.

It's a long shot. It may be a pipe dream. But listening to all of them, I am reminded of one of my favorite sayings: Beware the fury of a patient man. The Militant Middle has been patient a long time, and with each failure of the two parties to repair faith in government, restore the economy, and get Washington working properly again, their fury grows.

They're just behind the berserkers, sharpening their swords and waiting to charge.

Originally posted at http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/29/foreman.militant.middle/

In Massachusetts, A Victory for Fair Elections

Thu, 19 May 2011 09:32:39 -0700

By Rob Richie
Yes! Magazine

Our current system for filling the highest office in the land is broken. The current Electoral College system of electing a president in separate state-by-state elections allows losers to win, creates opportunities for partisans to game the system, and leads to most voters' preferences being essentially ignored.

But with a stroke of his pen, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick yesterday showed that change is possible. By signing the National Popular Vote plan into law, Gov. Patrick made Massachusetts the sixth state to commit to awarding all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. The law will only go into effect when enough states have enacted identical legislation-i.e. when their total electoral votes add up to 270, the majority necessary to elect a president.

The National Popular Vote plan builds on states' exclusive power to decide how to allocate their electoral votes. Rather than pushing for a federal change to abolish the Electoral College, the plan uses state power to make it obsolete, guaranteeing that the White House goes to the candidate who earns the most votes.

For many Americans, George Bush's win in the 2000 presidential election-despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore by more than a half million votes-is enough reason to back reform. But it's not why the National Popular Vote plan passed the New York State Senate this summer by a vote of 52-7, with Republicans backing it 22-5 and Democrats 30-2. The current system is broken for just about everyone, election after election.

What's the Problem?

Today, nearly every state awards its electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. If you win a state by 80 percent, you get all its electoral votes. If you only win a state by a single vote, you still get all its electoral votes. That means that you're not going to affect the final outcome by campaigning in states tilting strongly toward one major party-and that means you end up ignoring most of America. Consider a few facts:

Of 300 major party presidential campaign events tracked by The Washington Post between September 5 and November 4, 2008, 57 percent took place in the four large swing states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. As tracked by CNN from Sept. 24 through Election Day, 55 percent of all presidential campaign ads aired in those same four states.

More than 98 percent of all campaign events and all campaign spending in the fall took place in 15 states that collectively represent only 37 percent of the nation's eligible voters, effectively sidelining two-thirds of all Americans.

Voter turnout in those 15 states was 6 percent higher than the rest of the country. In 2004, voters under 30 were a third more likely to vote if they lived in the 10 states with the closest races. It doesn't matter if your state is red or blue-if you know your vote won't count (and no one is working to get it), you're less likely to participate.

According to one of its key strategists, George W. Bush's campaign for re-election did not poll a single person who lived outside of one of 18 potential battleground states for the final 30 months of the campaign.

These patterns of neglect are getting worse. In 1960, for example, 24 states-with a total of 319 electoral votes between them-were true swing states, where a small shift in the vote could have changed who won the election. In 2008 only nine states, with a total of 115 electoral votes, were considered up for grabs. With partisan divisions showing every indication of becoming more intense, not less, the presidential battleground grows smaller every year.

The Alternative: Every Vote Counts

With a national popular vote, every vote-in every corner of every state-would be equal. Americans could get involved in presidential campaigns, in meaningful ways, in their own communities.

Every American voter should have equal power to elect a president and hold that person accountable. We use popular vote elections to choose every governor and member of Congress, so we know what such elections look like. You help your candidate win by talking to your neighbors, not calling strangers in Ohio or Florida. As the votes are tallied on election night, you know that your vote is counted on an equal basis with everyone else's-and that, when all the counting is done, the candidate with the most votes will win.

Many have assumed that the only way to establish a national popular vote is through amending the Constitution. To be sure, that's one potential approach. But states don't need to sit on their hands and accept their diminished role under the current rules. They have the power to take action. Indeed, they have a constitutional obligation to act.

That's because states have exclusive power to decide how to allocate electoral votes, a power characterized by the Supreme Court as "supreme" and "plenary." States also have the power to enter into formal, binding agreements. There are hundreds of examples of such "interstate compacts," from the Port Authority to the Colorado River Compact. Fewer than a thousand words, the National Popular Vote compact establishes that participating states will award all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote in all 50 states. It is activated if-and only if-the number of participating states collectively have a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

States enter the compact one by one, passing a statute through regular legislative channels. If, by July, 2012, enough states have adopted the compact to collectively hold a majority of electoral votes, the agreement is set in stone for the year-and the White House is guaranteed to the candidate who wins the popular vote. All attention before and after the election will be on the popular vote. Gone will be the red-blue maps on election night and the early projections of winners while western states are still voting. Every voter will count the same, whether it is cast in Maine, Alaska, Texas or Florida.

How Close Are We?

Massachusetts' passage of the law means that 27 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the National Popular Vote plan are now committed.

Massachusetts' passage of the law means that 27 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the National Popular Vote plan are now committed. Since the plan's launch in 2006, it has also passed into law in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington. Bills have been introduced in all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., earned the votes or sponsorship of nearly 2,000 legislators, and won approval in 30 legislative chambers. Endorsers include The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, columnists E.J Dionne and Hendrik Hertzberg, and former members of Congress Tom Campbell (R-CA), Jake Garn (R-UT), John Anderson (R-IL) and Birch Bayh (D-IN). A slew of reform groups have signed on, including FairVote, Common Cause, Demos, the Brennan Center, and the League of Women Voters.

Of course, not everyone supports the proposal. Some argue that the Electoral College helps small states-despite the fact that almost every small state is considered "safe" and is therefore ignored. Some fear that third party candidates will do better with a national popular vote, or that we can't count popular votes fairly. But advocates like FairVote and National Popular Vote have addressed these questions thoroughly and well.With media interest beginning to rise, the proposal's popularity will keep growing. In polls taken by National Popular Vote since the 2008 elections, the number of citizens supporting a national popular vote for president reflects landslide support in many states, including 78 percent in Florida, 75 percent in Iowa, 73 percent in Michigan, 72 percent in Nevada, 74 percent in North Carolina and 78 percent in Pennsylvania. Rarely does a state's poll number dip below 70 percent-and never below 60 percent.

Here's the bottom line: With a national popular vote, presidential campaigns would seek votes everywhere. Every vote-in every corner of every state-would be equal. Americans could get involved in presidential campaigns, in meaningful ways, in their own communities. With the National Popular Vote plan, we finally have a roadmap for change.

Rob Richie wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Rob has been executive director of FairVote (formerly the Center for Voting and Democracy) since its founding in 1992. He is co-author of Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan For Electing The President By National Popular Vote and Reflecting All of Us. First published at http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/in-massachusetts-a-victory-for-fair-elections

States can avoid Minnesota's recount mess

Fri, 13 May 2011 13:42:24 -0700

By Rob Richie and Emily Hellman
Politico

Minnesota is proving an old Hollywood truism: Most sequels fall flat.

Launched this week in counties around Minnesota, "Recount 2: The Governor's Race" is nothing like the state's necessary, if overly prolonged, Senate recount in 2008. This recount has no chance of overturning the outcome, but could provide an unfortunate new example of partisanship run amok.

The GOP may find it irresistible that Republican Tim Pawlenty can remain governor as long as the recount and associated litigation delay certification of the outcome. And he now can work with the new Republican majorities in the Minnesota legislature.

Pawlenty staying in office, the St. Paul Pioneer Press observed, "would give Republicans the unchecked ability to pass legislation."

Bills that the former legislative Democratic majority would have blocked during Pawlenty's tenure can now pass. And during this interval, the new GOP legislature can act without fear of a veto from Democrat Mark Dayton, the near-certain winner of the gubernatorial race.

Minnesota's potential crisis is grounded in laws that other states would do well to avoid - both to save taxpayer dollars and avoid partisan temptations.

Here's more background on why this year's recount is so different than the one after the 2008 Senate election. In one of those rare numerical flukes, harkening back to the 2000 presidential election in Florida, Republican Norm Coleman led Democrat Al Franken by just 215 votes out of nearly 2.9 million votes cast.

A statewide recount shifted the margin by just 440 votes (0.02 percent) to Franken, but that was enough to elect him to the Senate. According to our coming study on statewide recounts in the United States, Franken's victory was one of just three recounts that reversed an outcome in the 2,884 statewide general elections that took place in 2000-2009.

By contrast, to win the governor's race this year, the Republican Tom Emmer would have to overcome a 8,775 deficit (0.42 percent) to Democrat Mark Dayton. In other words, Emmer needs a shift in votes 20 times greater than the change in 2008 - and nearly four times greater than the highest margin shift in any statewide recount administered anywhere in the country in the past decade.

Despite the near-certain futility of this recount, Minnesota taxpayers are forced to foot the bill. In any federal or state election where the original margin is less than 0.5 percent, Minnesota must pay for an automatic hand count if not waived by the losing candidate. Twelve other states automatically pay for statewide recounts with margins of 0.5 percent or greater, though not all with hand tallies.

But given how few votes are affected by recounts, an 0.5 percent automatic trigger is far too high for statewide elections. Of the nation's 18 statewide recounts in 2000-2009, the largest margin shift was only 0.11 percent - and even that minimal change was primarily due to many small towns conducting more error-prone hand tallies in the race for Vermont auditor in 2006

Because most states count ballots on machines, the average shift in vote margins in statewide recounts is typically far smaller -- less than 0.03 percent.

The 0.02 percent change in Minnesota's 2008 recount was consistent with that pattern. Given that Minnesota has largely the same voting machines in place, and only a small number of hand-counted ballots, a substantially greater margin shift is highly unlikely.

Indeed, with more than 93 percent of the recount finished by Thursday night, Emmer had only reduced Dayton's margin by 36 votes.

Though Emmer justifies the recount by suggesting it may detect errors in the voting process, this review should not delay seating a new governor. Passing long-sought legislative goals might be tempting, but Republicans should be wary of what will understandably be seen as a power grab. Pawlenty's presidential ambitions would likely go up in smoke, and state political tensions might well reach a breaking point.

Instead, Minnesota and other states should adjust their laws governing automatic recounts to reflect current realities - and the 33 states without any automatic recount should establish one, as recounts uphold the value of every vote when an outcome is in doubt. But while a 0.5 percent recount trigger can make sense for state legislative races with smaller electorates, the trigger for statewide races should be smaller.

Minnesota, in fact, nearlly adopted a bill last year to lowerr the recount trigger to a still overly generous 0.25 percent. Given what really happens in statewide recounts with modern voting machines, we would recommend Arizona's 0.1 percent trigger as a model for most states, perhaps rising to 0.2% for our smallest states.

Our ideal recount law also would allow candidates like Emmer to petition for recounts with larger margins than the automatic recount trigger -- but only if the recount does not prevent seating the likely winner and only if that candidate's campaign or party is ready to pay for the recount if the outcome is not reversed. Local taxpayers in Minnesota are paying some $200,000 for this year's recount, while Washington State's gubernatorial election recount in 2004 cost closer to a million dollars.

We should also mandate post-election manual audits to verify vote counts in all races -- for even ballots in races won by substantial vote margins should be recounted if random audits uncover errors large enough to potentially affect the outcome.

Left unchanged, Minnesota's automatic recount trigger is far too high - and has created the potential to turn recounts into yet another weapon in the unseemly partisan warfare that governs too much of our politics.

We hope Minnesota will survive this latest recount with dignity. And then join other states in establishing appropriate recount thresholds for future elections.

Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote, (www.fairvote.org), a national organization unaffiliated with FairVote Minnesota. Emily Hellman is a FairVote democracy fellow and author of a forthcoming report on statewide recounts.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article suggested that Minnesota legislation to lower the automatic recount trigger to 0.25% was vetoed. This provision was removed in a conference committee.Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45913.html#ixzz1MpFN9x74

House Seat Apportionment: Media Gets It Wrong on Partisan Impact

Fri, 13 May 2011 13:42:20 -0700

By Rob Richie
The Huffington Post

December 21st update. The final numbers are in and there have been slight changes, none of which change my key point about many pundits doing simplistic bean-counting and missing elements of the broader story. The changes were: 1) "red states" earned one more seat for a total gain of seven, as Texas gained four seats in stead of three; 2) "blue states" lost one more seat for a total loss of five seats, as New York lost two seats instead of one; 3) swing states were left with losing two seats, with Missouri now losing a seat, but Florida gaining two instead of one. The end result is an overall gain for Republicans of six seats -- but that gain that will be completely offset if population changes in Nevada indeed push it out of battleground status into the Democratic column.

On Tuesday, December 21, the U.S. Census will release the official population numbers for states from its count earlier this year. The most immediate impact will be on apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unlike the U.S. Senate, the House reflects population differences among states, and the 435 seats in the House will be divvied out to states based on relative population: every state gets at least one seat, and states get additional seats in proportion to their numbers of people.

Already some journalists and half-informed pundits are rushing to political judgment about the partisan impact of these shifts. Nearly all states are growing (indeed, every single state grew in population in the 1990s), but the Sunbelt is growing faster. Because most Sunbelt states currently are reliably Republican in presidential races, the simplistic interpretation of the 2012 shift in House seats is that Republicans will gain an electoral vote advantage.

But the reality is that population shifts not only impact numbers of House seats: they can impact the partisan leanings of states. All it takes is population changes causing one state to shift toward Democrats to undo all the huffing and puffing about electoral vote gains and losses.

It turns out this is exactly the case with the current numbers. First, here are the breakdown of which states are currently projected to gain and lose House seats, grouped by their definition in presidential contests (and with the caveat that the final numbers won't be known for sure until December 21st):

A net of six electoral votes gained in Republican "red" states: Red presidential states gain seven electoral votes from three new House seats projected in Texas and one new seat in Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina and Utah. Red states lose one electoral vote Louisiana's loss of a House seat.

A net of four electoral votes lost in Democratic "blue" states: Blue presidential states lose five electoral votes by losses of one House seat each in Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and New York, but gain a seat with Washington State's projected new House seat.

A net of two electoral votes lost in swing states: Swing states lose four electoral votes from Ohio's projected loss of two seats and the loss of one seat in Iowa and Pennsylvania, but gain two votes from gains of one seat in Florida and Nevada.

These numbers led Charles Babington of the Associated Press to write an article entitled "New Census count may complicate Obama 2012 Bid," in which Republican spokesman Doug Heye comments, "The way the maps have shifted have made Obama's route to success much more difficult."

Of course a loss of six electoral votes in itself isn't necessarily problematic for Barack Obama, given that he won his 2008 election by 192 electoral votes. But more fundamentally, the analysts miss a basic point: shifts in population can change the partisan definition of states. As one example, Nevada has moved steadily from being a strongly Republican state (Ronald Reagan won by 34% there in 1984) in the direction of Democrats. FairVote's analysis of state partisanship shows a shift of 2% to 3% toward Democrats in each election in 2000, 2004 and 2008. In 2008 Barack Obama defeated John McCain by 12.4% in Nevada, more than 5% ahead of his national average, and in 2010 Senate majority leader Harry Reid earned a surprisingly comfortable 5.6% win in his re-election bid.

It's easy to argue, then, that Nevada's population growth in the 2000s has not only earned it a new House seat, but moved it from a state leaning Republican to a state that looks to becoming a reliably blue state. If so, Nevada's six electoral votes in themselves completely wipe out the six votes margin gained by Republicans from reapportionment. Throw in potential shifts toward Democrats due to the partisan leanings of new voters in other states like Colorado, and one could argue that population trends are helping Democrats more than Republicans.

But all this number-crunching speaks to the foolish nature of our current state-by-state method of electing the president. Presidential elections should not come down to deciphering the impact of Census counts. Rather, it should come down to real Americans coming together every four years to select their president. Every vote should count the same. The candidate with the most votes should win.

The big story that the media is largely missing is that every year we are growing closer to that straightforward goal: elections determined by the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states (and D.C.). The National Popular Vote plan for president now has 28% of the electoral votes necessary to trigger its implementation in our next presidential race (that's because to become active, the agreement requires states adopting it to collectively have a majority of the Electoral College, currently 270 electoral votes). With increasingly bipartisan support in legislatures, the National Popular vote plan shows every promise of making big headway in the next couple years -- thereby transforming the 2016 election, and still potentially the 2012 election.

I for one can't wait to have elections for president where, come November, my friends and neighbors here in Maryland are just as important to the presidential campaigns as voters in swing states like Pennsylvania. "Every vote equal" -- that's a concept we can live with when it comes to electing our highest office.

Finally, two postscript items:

• Charles Babington in his Associated Press article suggests that there is a link between which party hold the governorship and which party has an edge in presidential races in that state. In fact, there seems to be no such link. As one example, in 2009 we reported in our innovative analysis series that of the 13 states that lean most strongly toward Republicans in presidential races and the 10 states that lean most strongly toward Democrats in presidential races (all of which went safely to their respective parties in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections), more than half had governors in 2009 from the party that always lost the presidential election.

• Another "big" story being missed in most reporting on reapportionment is that having 435 House seats is a completely arbitrary fact based solely on the number of House seats not changing since 1910 except for a fleeting addition of two seats when Alaska and Hawaii joined the union. Up until 1910, the number of House seats changed every decade, growing by 41 seats from 1900 to 1910. Since then, our nation's population has more than tripled, as have average House district populations, but suggesting it's time for more House seats can trigger incredulous looks. Perhaps states losing seats despite gaining population - and perhaps Montana again only to have one House seat despite nearly a million people - will finally trigger calm discussion (as suggested in admirable legislation from Congressman Alcee Hastings) of the question of whether it's time to add House seats after a century of inertia.

First published at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-richie/us-house-seat-apportionme_b_798840.html on Dec 19th, 2010 by Rob Richie

Harry Reid devising plan to press forward with filibuster reform, aide says

Fri, 13 May 2011 13:42:17 -0700

By Greg Sargent
The Washington Post

Still more good news for filibuster reform: Harry Reid is in active discussions with his caucus about moving forward with reform in the new year, and is currently devising a plan to do just that, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me.

At a caucus meeting this week attended only by Senators and no staff, Reid and fellow Dems devoted a significant chunk of time to a discussion about specific ideas on how to proceed, the aide says.

Word of Reid's machinations comes after the National Journal reported yesterday that all the returning Democratic Senators have indicated support for efforts at reform, and are urging Reid to press forward at the start of the new year.

Though Reid has said in the past that he's generally supportive of reform, it has been unclear whether he would support active measures to make it happen. But the senior Dem leadership aide says Reid is already working on specific steps forward.

"They are already talking it through and devising a plan," the aide said of Reid and fellow Dems, adding that Reid is having "conversations" with other members of the caucus "about the best way to move forward."

The aide declined to say which specific reforms Reid favors and wouldn't specify a timetable, saying it would tip the Dems' hand to Republicans. Various ideas making the rounds include everything from propoposals to make senators actually filibuster to tinkering with the vote number threshold to start and end debate. Dems are also coalescing behind the so-called "constitutional option," which has it that each new Congress has the right to set its own rules by simple majority vote.

This is the Senate, of course, so plans can always change or even disappear without a trace. But it looks like Reid is gearing up to try to make reform happen.

First published at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/12/harry_reid_devising_plan_to_fo.html on 12/23/2010

Census will reshape Peoria's council districts

Fri, 13 May 2011 12:14:24 -0700

By Sonu Munshi
The Arizona Republic

It's time to pull out some sharpies.

Peoria has hired consultant National Demographics Corporation for $57,000 to help with its redistricting process. That will start once new census numbers are released by the February deadline.

After each census, congressional, legislative and local districts are redrawn to adjust for population numbers so that districts have roughly equal population. The redrawing of maps would lead to some residents

That shift also means a change in political boundaries for council members, one or more of whom may even find themselves out of his or her current district

Residents impacted

"It's going to be very controversial," City Attorney Steve Kemp said.

He said the process has a political element to it and at the same time affects residents.

"They may have had a longtime relationship with a particular council member or sometimes people develop an identity in a particular district and they are no longer part of that," Kemp said.

Peoria plans to hold public meetings by January.

Kemp said based on estimated population growth - largely in the northern Peoria, Pine, Acacia, Palo Verde, Willow and Ironwood districts - should see their northern boundaries move further north. Palo Verde and Willow could see their southern boundaries move north.

The changes would apply in the 2012 council elections slated for Ironwood, represented by Councilman Dave Pearson, Willow district, represented by Councilwoman Joan Evans, and Mesquite district, represented by Cathy Carlat. Carlat's district, with 55,000 residents, is going to be cut in half.

"This is going to be a major shake-up in our city," Carlat said.

Residents, too, can suggest how to divvy up Peoria's estimated current population of about 160,000 into six districts. Each district will have between 26,000 and 27,000 residents, compared to 18,000 residents a decade ago.

Challenges ahead

Council members will send their preferred option to the U.S. Department of Justice, which makes the final decision.

The federal government places some caveats on the process. A district with a primarily minority population has to stay intact, so its voting power as a bloc remains. In Peoria, that district is Acacia.

In the last two decades, Kemp said Peoria has witnessed a regression of the minority Hispanic community in Acacia. He said that's because with a rise in income levels, many have moved into more-expensive homes outside the area. That would make it hard to fulfill the federal mandate.

"We literally will have streets where we're going to have one side of the street in one district and another side of the street in another district," Kemp said.

Communities of interest also have to be protected. These are neighborhoods with a strong identity such as Vistancia or Desert Harbor.

Each district's population has to also be within a 5 percent difference of each other.

Another challenge is a narrow point of the city between Bell and Beardsley roads. Peoria is only 1.25 miles wide at that point without natural landmarks.

Kemp said to bring three council districts through that narrow point to move up north would be a head-scratcher.

A warning to the sitting council from Kemp - the federal guidelines don't leave room for accommodation of keeping their district intact so council members don't find themselves out of it. That's a concern because council members are required to live in the district they represent.

Also, Maricopa County voting precinct boundaries could be significantly different from city boundaries. So it would be hard to avoid having residents in the same precinct in multiple council districts.

"In some cases preserving incumbents is going to be an extremely challenging issue," Kemp said.

Political ramifications

Political consultant Phillip Hubbard, who in 1990 was involved in legislative redistricting, said, "There are few things in politics as political as redistricting."

And for elected officials, it could mean they find themselves out of their own district.

"When the music stops, someone won't have a chair," Hubbard said.

Ask former Peoria Mayor Ken Forgia. As a councilman in the Mesquite district, he found himself ousted from his own district in 2001 and dumped into Ironwood after Westbrook Village, where he lived, shifted to Ironwood after the 2000 census.

Hubbard said in his experience he said there is typically some horse trading.

"It's common for an elected official to say, 'I'd be happy to give this one to you because the community never liked me anyway,' " Hubbard said.

The final boundaries are drawn by council members, under federal guidelines, despite the potential for conflict of interest.

Rob Richie, executive director of fairvote.org, said there are certain voters whom politicians want or would like to get rid of. Or, an incumbent may try to avoid running against someone else, so they carve out a district that doesn't include the potential opponent or put two elected officials in the same district.

But council members are accountable to voters and risk getting criticized if they put their own interests ahead of a credible redistricting process, Richie said.

Pearson said hiring a consultant can dampen the political aspects of the process.

"Left internally, you would see more pressure on staffers," he said.

And Hubbard said public participation in the process, if only from "political junkies," is vital.

"The reality is that only a few people participate in these things but those few who do, their opinion really can count," he said. "If a decision goes to court, for instance, their comments, which are public record, can make a difference."

Originally Published at: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/11/05/20101105peoria-redistricting.html#ixzz1MGTqMnBn

GOP rolls the dice in 2012 with plurality, winner take all rules

Fri, 13 May 2011 12:14:24 -0700

By: Rob Richie
Executive director, FairVote
Posted: December 8, 2010 03:00 PM
The Huffington Post

I wrote the following with Chris Marchsteiner, who worked with FairVote as an intern this fall

No elected office in the world matters more than the presidency of the United States. Given that reality, it's remarkable that our method of electing it can have such flaws. Take the nomination system.

An upcoming FairVote research report on plurality voting systems will review the history and effects of "first-past-the-post" voting rules in the last decade of elections in the United States. Of particular importance are insights into the Republican Party's nomination rules. With the mid-term elections done, the nation's political pundits are naturally turning to who Republicans will nominate in 2012 to face off against the Democratic nominee, almost certainly to be incumbent President Barack Obama.

What seems clear is: first, the race seems to be wide open, with any number of candidates having a chance to win; second, Republican nomination rules poorly accommodate a divided field, and may easily result in a highly unrepresentative nominee.

Consider the 2008 Republican nomination contest. John McCain secured an essentially insurmountable lead on February 5, Super Tuesday. Sen. McCain had become the frontrunner heading into Super Tuesday by winning three key primaries: South Carolina, Florida and New Hampshire. His average percentage share in those contests was just 34.5%, and he never even broke the 40% threshold. Even on February 5, he won only three states with a majority of the vote.

Although McCain did not capture a majority of the popular vote on Super Tuesday (and did not, in fact, ever reach a majority of 50% of votes cast in primaries), McCain's disproportionately large delegate count forced his leading opponents to drop out of the race. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney only trailed McCain by 842,355 votes in the popular vote after Super Tuesday; however, he trailed him by 683 delegates. Winner-take-all states played a major role in this disparity. Unlike the Democratic Party, the GOP contests often assign all the delegates in a state to the plurality winner.

Such a disparity is the result of the GOP's undemocratic voting rules -- rules that produce such unrepresentative results that Republicans reformed them after the 2008 primary. Those rules can be defined in two ways: "winner-take-all" allocation rules in most contests that give frontrunners a highly disproportionate share of delegates, contrasting with Democrats' requirement of proportional allocation; and plurality voting rules, that allow candidates to build momentum by "winning" states with relatively low pluralities -- even if they would have lost in a one-on-one race against their top opponent with those same voters.

Going into 2012, one of the Republicans' key changes was to have winner-take-all elections take place in April. Proportional contests would be allowed to take place in March. Republicans do not appear to want a repeat of 2008. Despite these changes, however, there has been speculation that winner-take-all states, regardless of when they take place, could help a divisive nominee achieve the Republican nomination -- one popular with a relatively narrow base of the party, but not a strong general election candidate. Some might argue former Alaska governor Sarah Palin would fit that description, although others would argue her star power may be just what Republicans need.

Palin currently leads in the Republican field: a Public Policy Polling survey shows the national numbers currently as: Sarah Palin 21%, Newt Gingrich 19% and Mitt Romney 18% -- with others like Tim Pawlenty and Mike Pence hoping to break through with good results early.

So Palin's lead, though insignificant at this point, could end up being magnified similarly to John McCain's lead in the early 2008 primaries.

The contest that may be most revealing on the "momentum" of early wins is the 2004 Democratic nomination contest. Going into the Iowa caucuses, Sen. John Kerry had slumped from early front-runner status. But he surged in the final two weeks before the caucuses, and ended up winning 38% of caucus delegates, just ahead of surging candidate, John Edwards who secured 32%. But although Kerry's delegate count was only slightly ahead of Edwards, he was the one who secured magazine covers and momentum. His win with 38% in New Hampshire, where he had a "home field" advantage, further cemented his momentum.

Looking to 2012, then, we may well see a candidate emerge with early wins in fractured fields in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, gain momentum and keep that frontrunner status long enough to keep winning plurality victories when the GOP turns to winner-take-all contests. The ultimate winner may well be a strong nominee, but the rules do not guarantee it.

In 2010, FairVote provided testimony to the Republican Party about recommendations for improving its nomination process. Two specific proposals were: (1) proportional allocation of delegates; (2) instant runoff voting (IRV) in as many contests as possible, giving that state's IRV winner a delegate bonus and more deserved bragging rights as that state's winner. Although pleased that Republicans have made improvements like delaying contests and requiring proportional allocation in early contests, we suspect they may end up regretting not adopting more substantial reforms.

At the very least, they're rolling the dice. And when it comes to the world's most important elected office, it seems like we can do better than that.

First published at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-richie/gop-rolls-the-dice-in-201_b_793915.html

A Voting Reform Finds its Moment

Fri, 13 May 2011 12:14:18 -0700

by Katrina vanden Heuvel, December 3, 2010
The Nation

In a midterm election that otherwise brought grim news, progressive Oakland city councilwoman Jean Quan scored a stunning upset of Don Perata, described by East Bay Express reporter Robert Gammon as "the East Bay's king of big money campaigns."

This was a sweet victory not only because Quan was a great candidate who ran a savvy campaign (expertly described by Gammon in an example of alternative journalism at its best), but also because voters used Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). At a moment when so many people know in their gut that our voting system is in trouble and needs reform, the Oakland example shows what can happen when people try a different approach.

"The Oakland election was a remarkable one, not because of who won but the way she won and the way she campaigned," said Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote. "And how the system seemed to promote that better, more grassroots style of campaigning. Money is a lot less effective when it needs to be used to wipe out everyone, rather than just targeting a single opponent with attacks. In almost every executive race with instant runoff voting the candidate with the most money didn't win."

With historically high levels of voters supporting candidates outside of the two major parties, or registering independent or with a third party affiliation, Richie says it's paramount that we "figure out ways to give people more than two choices."

Here is how RCV does just that: if four candidates were on a ballot, you would rank them 1 to 4. When the votes are tabulated, if one candidate is the first-choice for 50 percent of the electorate, then he or she wins. If not, then the last-place candidate is eliminated, and if you voted for that candidate, your vote in the next round of tabulations is added to the vote totals of the candidate ranked as your second-choice. The process continues until one candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote, ensuring that a majority of voters are supportive of the winner. Under this system, citizens don't have to worry about "spoiler votes" for candidates that are perceived as long-shots. It also allows a candidate who isn't flush with cash to run an old school, grassroots campaign and compete.

In the case of Quan-the first-ever Asian American woman to be elected mayor of a major American city-she embraced the RCV system from the start. She attended over 30 debates, held numerous town halls and two hundred house parties and asked voters to consider ranking her their second- or third-choices. Even if a resident posted a yard sign supporting another candidate, Quan would approach the voter and make her appeal.

In contrast, Perata showed disdain for RCV from the start, despite the fact that 69 percent of Oakland voters had supported it in a 2006 referendum. According to Gammon, the front-runner skipped most debates, repeatedly said that he didn't understand how RCV worked and "urged supporters to just vote for him." This strategy was pursued even though Perata paid top political consultants and campaign staff hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Quan, and no pre-election polls showed him getting a majority of first-place votes.

"Ranked-choice voting, it turns out, is all about humility," Gammon concludes.

On Election Day, nearly 36,000 more votes were cast in the Oakland mayoral race than in 2006, probably reflecting the diversity of candidates who could be supported without risk of a "wasted vote." Perata won 35 percent of the first-place votes-11,076 more than Quan who won 24 percent. But she destroyed him when it came to people's second- and third- choices-24,631 to 11,530-enough to give her a 51 to 49 percent win.

Increasingly more places are turning to RCV as a way to minimize the impact of big money in a post-Citizens United era, level the playing field and give voters more choices. Maine's largest city, Portland, adopted RCV for its mayoral elections starting in 2011, and its controversial race for governor was won with less than 50 percent for the sixth time in the past seven elections-a non-majority outcome seen this year in more than a dozen races for the US Senate and state governorships. With that electoral trend in Maine, and a lot of independent and third party activity, Richie is hopeful that if all goes well in Portland, Mainers will make a strong push for using RCV statewide.

"Then if it were used at a statewide level in a Maine governor's race, for example, people would really see it in action and understand it clearly," said Richie.

In Minnesota, where Minneapolis successfully implemented RCV in 2009, the state has also seen a string of non-majority statewide election winners. A recent Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial favored RCV for all state offices, and a strong grassroots network, FairVote Minnesota, is working to achieve that. The Democratic Farmer Labor Party also supports that goal in its platform.

San Francisco has run RCV elections since 2004, and now has a remarkable, diverse group of elected officials. Candidates for the city's open seat mayoral election next year are scrambling to learn from Quan's victory. One candidate, city Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, commented on RCV in announcing his mayoral bid yesterday. "The way the person wins is by building coalitions and working together with others," he said. "The electorate is saying to those running for office that they want people who want to work with others, and we're going to be reaching out directly to the voters, every single day."

The voters of Fort Collins, Colorado will hold a referendum on RCV this April, and Memphis is slated to implement it next year if it can figure out a way to run it on the current voting equipment; this majority-African American city adopted the reform by a 71 to 29 percent vote in 2008.

But the recent successes and growing appeal of RCV have also led to stronger opposition. Powerful candidates who don't win and the big-monied interests that support them aren't exactly known for losing gracefully. In Aspen, CO, for example, Richie says a losing candidate led a "conscious, deliberate, and deceptive campaign" that cost tens of thousands of dollars "in a city where 2500 people vote." And some voters who supported a losing candidate with the most first-place votes don't necessarily understand how the voting system works and are bitter.

"We were cruising to important ballot measure wins without much resistance but now we are getting some resistance because it's really making a difference," says Richie.

One solution is to carefully introduce and explain the system before it's implemented. Oakland did a good job with that, developing an iPhone app to educate voters and running a video in local movie theatres, for example.

Cities like Oakland, Minneapolis and Portland are now working hard to develop a broad civic base of support for RCV that will hopefully be strong enough to withstand misinformation campaigns by reform opponents. That's exactly the kind of work that is needed if we are to give voters real choices. It certainly worked to give Mayor-elect Quan a fighting chance against the well-funded forces who were used to getting their way.

From http://www.thenation.com/blog/156827/voting-reform-finds-its-moment