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Getting "Sick" of Swing States?

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:08:42 -0700

Do the people of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri need healthcare reform more than Americans living in non-swing states? That's the impression we're getting as we prepare for another presidential healthcare rally tomorrow in the newly minted swing state of Virginia. The president will hold a campaign-style rally at George Mason University, where we expect students and swing state voters to urge Congress to pass the president's top domestic priority. Since the bipartisan "Healthcare Summit" at Blair House on February 25th, the president has held three healthcare events in three swing states. On March 8th, the president spoke in the Philadelphia suburb of Willow Grove, PA, on the 10th, he was in St. Louis, MO and on the 15th he was in Strongsville, OH--outside of Cleveland. His speech in Fairfax tomorrow will make health care events in swing states 4 for 4.

Playing devil's advocate, we could argue that the president is going to George Mason tomorrow simply because it's close to Washington, DC. It only takes a couple of hours out of the president's schedule, as opposed to a cross-country trip that eats up an entire day. Maybe the speech in Rep. Dennis Kucinich's Strongsville congressional district was to push the wavering Democrat to switch his vote to "yes" from "no." We saw yesterday that if this was the president's approach, it worked. The Missouri visit may have been aimed at getting Rep. Ike Skelton, the only Democrat in the Missouri delegation to vote "no," to switch his position.

However, these political calculations aimed at individual members of congress does not account for a broader pattern of visits to swing states since President Obama's inauguration. A Washington Post analysis shows that the president has held events in Ohio 12 times, Pennsylvania 16 times, Missouri 5 times and Florida 9 times. The only other states the president has held events in double digits are Virginia (41), Maryland (55), New York (35) and his home state of Hawaii (42). The Maryland and Virginia events can be attributed to their proximity to the White House, while the New York visits have been primarily for fundraising and social purposes. The Hawaii number is because that is where the president vacations with his family.

Earlier in President Obama's term, FairVote released an Innovative Analysis that showed a trend beginning to develop where the president favored visiting swing states versus spectator states. The choice of states for recent health care rallies underscores this trend and should make it clear that the White House's political calculations are as much about getting to 270 (the number of electoral votes necessary to win the presidency) as they are about getting to 216 (the number of votes needed in the House to pass healthcare reform).

Term Limits Strengthen Colombia's Democracy

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:28:39 -0800

A couple of weeks ago, the Colombian Constitutional Court rejected legislation calling for a constitutional referendum on whether presidential term limits should be increased from two to three terms. This decision prevented President Alvaro Uribe from running for a third straight term in office and sent a strong signal to the international community: the burgeoning Colombian democracy won’t be part of the autocratic wave in South America.

Uribe was first elected in 2002 for a non-renewable four-year term. In 2005, he won a constitutional amendment extending the term limit from one to two terms, which enabled him to successfully run for reelection in 2006. After eight years as President, he still retains very high approval ratings and was leaving open the possibility of running again for the presidency in May 2010 despite the Constitution’s two-term limit.

Both the Colombian Senate and House of Representatives had overwhelmingly approved in 2009 the bill authorizing a referendum on presidential term limits. It stated, “Whoever has been elected president of the republic for two constitutional terms can be elected solely for one other term.”

The final step before the proposed constitutional reform could be put to a popular vote was to get approval from the national Constitutional Court. And the Court fully played its role of ultimate institutional shield by ruling 7 to 2 against it. The decision was founded on irregularities in the process of passing the referendum. Consequently, President Uribe is not running for a third term.

This is how Colombia distinguishes itself, in an encouraging way, from its neighbors such as Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez recently undermined democracy by using his authority as president to change the Venezuelan Constitution to become president-for-life.

Uribe is exceptionally popular thanks to successful security policies against terrorism and drug cartels. As a result, if he had been allowed to run again, he would most likely have been reelected. However, a third term would have inevitably damaged the integrity of the Colombian institutions, established under the 1991 Constitution. Being in office for 12 years would have enabled Uribe to permanently alter Colombia’s institutional checks and balances by appointing most of the Constitutional Court and the Top Generals.

By confirming the current presidential term limit, the Constitutional Court showed a sign of institutional stability and democratic progress. Colombia, which is holding parliamentary elections this month, and presidential elections in May, is indeed on its way towards a strengthened democratic state and teaches a tremendous lesson about democracy: no one is irreplaceable to lead a country and the renewal of politicians ultimately revitalizes the country by putting new life into politics.

Our FairVote intern Maxine Katz contributed to this post.

Iraq’s 2010 Parliamentary Election - Part 3: The Electoral Process as a Stabilizer for the Country

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:56:24 -0800

Yesterday, about 18.9 million eligible Iraqis had the opportunity to elect their 325-member Council of Representatives through an open-list proportional system.

The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) estimated today that approximately 11.7 million voters cast their ballot in one of the 52,000 polling stations on March 7th. This 62.4% voter turnout does not yet include ballots cast in early voting, or those cast by the 275,000 out-of-country voters.

The nearly two-thirds of eligible voters represents a high level of participation, especially considering the substantial attempts to intimidate voters. Even if the total turnout doesn’t reach the high participation of the December 2005 parliamentary election (over 70%), it will still generate a highly legitimate parliament, particularly if it is confirmed that turnout exceeded 50% in all provinces. It is also interesting to note that the level of participation largely exceeds the 56% of participation from the 2008 U.S. presidential elections.

Counting is now underway and the first partial results could be released later this week. In the meantime, there is a lot to be said about how this Iraqi election is impacting the country’s political future. Iraqis spent a lot of time negotiating and adjusting their electoral law, because they understood that only representative institutions could generate an inclusive democratic process (see the Part 2 of our series on Iraq's 2010 parliamentary elections, about the Iraqi PR system). On this topic, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held on March 1st a special event titled “Iraq’s Elections: Progress or Peril?” offering an interesting perspective on why battling for fair elections is essential in the fledging Iraqi democracy.

As Carina Perelli from the International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES) pointed out, democracy is a long-term process; however, through the drafting of their democratic system, Iraqis are creating habits of debate and cooperation beyond sectarian and political divisions. In fact, the 2009 provincial elections already illustrated a transition from identity issues to more practical ones such as governance or delivery services, particularly with Iraqi voters favoring central government over federalism.

The electoral process contributes indeed to Iraq's stabilization because it is all about finding compromises to determine the country's future. Iraq is not close to a stable democracy yet, with some burning issues like over-militarization of politics, census’ scheduling and oil. It is however very powerful to have voters going to the polls to freely decide their own future. Besides, the complete uncertainty of the electoral outcome provides an exciting extra-motivation to participate, as Brian Katulis from the Center for American Progress, Scott Carpenter from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Michael Rubin from AEI stressed.

Thus, even if the formation of a government takes up to several months, the democratic deliberative process is still beneficial to the development of the Iraqi institutions. The regional open-list proportional system is indeed going to guarantee a healthy connection between the newly elected representatives and their constituents. It also induced the formation of major coalitions beyond strictly ethno-sectarian interests, such as the “State of Law Coalition” led by the Prime Minister Maliki, or the secular alliances “Iraqi Unity” or “Iraqiya,” composed of Sunni and Shiite Muslims. It will also require the future government to be cross-sectarian and multi-ethnic.

Consequently, although the coming weeks may seem uncertain, Iraq’s new electoral system makes room for healthy debates and for a stabilized country.

Stay tuned for our next post that will feature women's role in Iraq, both as voters and as candidates!

Iraq’s 2010 Parliamentary Election - Part 2: A Refined PR System to Improve Representation

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:12:54 -0800

This Sunday, Iraq will elect its parliament for the third time in five years. For the first time, they will use an “open” list proportional system, which is seen as a major step to cement Iraqi democracy. Since the January 2005 elections for a constitutional convention, Iraq has gradually modified its use of proportional representation (PR) to ensure that its voting system is best designed to achieve inclusive, fair representation in Parliament.

First of all, let’s not forget that Iraq does not have a presidential election. Rather, the Council of Representatives elects the President of the Republic, who then nominates a Prime Minister from the majority coalition in the Council. Thus, the Iraqi legislative body, along with passing bills, oversees the executive, which makes it essential to be fully representative of the Iraqi population and prompted several revisions of the mechanism for apportioning seats to help adjust representation.

The first general election since the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq where held on January 30, 2005, to elect the transitional 275-member Iraqi National Assembly (the equivalent of the current Council of Representatives of Iraq, established under the October 2005 Constitution, in charge of drafting the new Iraqi Constitution and exercising legislative functions until the enactment of the new constitution). For its first-ever proportional voting elections, Iraq used a national party list system. This means that Iraq was basically a single constituency, within which, rather than voting for individuals, voters voted for one political party out of the 111 that had been certified by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. Seats were then allocated proportionally to parties’ share of the vote.

January 2005 parliamentary elections - Ballot Sample

This national party list system was clearly advantageous given that Iraq was deeply fractured between different religious and ethnic groups. By keeping the threshold of inclusion low, it gave minority groups a realistic opportunity to be part of the Constitution’s drafting by securing parliamentary representation. Indeed, the “Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc” was able to win one seat with as few as 0.36% of the vote. The system also encouraged major political groups to build broad-based coalitions to secure more votes and thus more seats. The best example of this incentive is the “Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan”, which brought together the “Kurdistan Democratic Party” and the “Patriotic Union of Kurdistan”, which were previously engaged in a war with each other.

However, if the national party list system created a national legislature that was proportional to the vote, it failed to provide Iraq with representation that matched the country’s demography. Indeed, the Sunni population boycotted the vote in protest of the American presence in the country and only won 5 seats, with 1.8% of the vote. Consequently, the turnout’s disparity between the different ethnic, religious and ideological groups skewed the process of fair representation in the Iraqi parliament.

To begin overcoming sectarian rifts and encourage trust in the democratic process, Iraq needed to guarantee more inclusive representation and thus, to adjust its electoral process. This is why the December 2005 elections, held to elect the first full-term four-year Council of Representatives, used a different kind of proportional voting system: regional party lists.

December 2005 parliamentary election - ballot sample

For this purpose, Iraq was divided into 18 provinces, each of which had been allocated a number of seats proportional to its number of registered voters. The seats won by each regional party, based on its share of the vote, were then filled with candidates in the order they were originally listed. Additionally to those 230 seats, 45 compensatory seats were reserved for parties that did not win seats under the regional list elections but had enough nationwide votes to win a seat at the national level.

This system significantly enhanced the democratic electoral process and generated extensive participation among Iraqi voters, with a turnout of almost 80% and 228 competing parties. It also maintained the incentive to build broad-based coalitions while giving more weight to the Sunnis: the political coalition, the “Iraqi Accord Front,” came in third overall by receiving 15.1% of the votes and 44 seats.

However, even if it improved representation, the closed-list system did not allow Iraqis to vote for individual candidates, which made it unpopular. While strengthening political parties and incumbents, it did not create any constituency link.

March 2010 parliamentary elections - Ballot Sample

This is why the 2010 elections are using an open-list form of PR: it is an incentive to get attractive candidates running for the Council of Representatives, while ensuring that they can be held accountable locally. Indeed, with this open-list system, Iraqi voters will be able to choose their favorite candidate from the regional list they are voting for. This switch should empower Iraqi voters, and thus boost both participation and representation.

The 2009 electoral law also establishes new provisions about seats’ repartition. It increased the number of seats from 275 to 325, in order to observe the constitutional requirement of one seat per 100,000 voters. 310 seats will be apportioned between the 18 provinces proportionally to their estimated population. They will then be allocated to each regional party according to their local share of the vote and eventually filled with the candidates from those parties with the highest number of votes. Among the 15 other seats, 7 will be nationwide compensatory seats and 8 will be reserved to minority groups, such as Christian, Shabak, Yizidi and Sabean. Lastly, out-of-country voters are allowed to vote in the province where they used to live.

Agreeing on an electoral law was fundamental for Iraq’s democratic progression. The bill had been fiercely debated before being passed, with the Parliament and Presidential Council playing hot potato with it. However, it was essential that Iraqis negotiate the new rules of the game, within their own established constitutional and legal rules.

Iraq is indeed a great example of a country that has been willing to evolve to ensure fair representation, switching from reflective representation with the national party list, to the open-list system with more descriptive representation.

Stay tuned for our next post that will describe how the Iraqi electoral system is determining the country's political horizon, with exciting highlights from the March 1st American Enterprise Institute's event on the upcoming Iraqi elections!

Lessons from Burlington

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:49:47 -0800

Let me cut to the chase. Despite winning in five of the city’s seven wards, the use of instant runoff voting (IRV) for mayor was repealed this week by a margin of less than 4% in Vermont’s largest city of Burlington. It’s a disappointment, particularly with a growing appreciation in Vermont for IRV. Those strongly opposing repeal of IRV included the state’s leading civic groups – VPIRG and state arms of the League of Women Voters and Common Cause – and a host of political leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Gov. Howard Dean and nearly every state legislator from the city.

IRV in Burlington only has been used in two mayoral races, as it was not adopted for city council races. Its defeat stems from a simple fact: the only candidate ever to win with IRV in Burlington is current mayor Bob Kiss, who won two elections for mayor in 2006 and 2009 in hotly contested races where no candidate won 40% of first choices. In a city with three major parties, all with roughly comparable support, victories for only one party's nominee meant that a majority of voters had yet to see their first choice win in an IRV race. Kiss was the majority choice over his top opponents in 2006 and 2009, to be sure, but with new controversies in the his administration in the past year, it was clear that in a referendum on the mayor this year, he would lose.

Opponents of IRV were well aware of this fact, and did everything they could to attach IRV to Kiss. At a televised debate, they carried signs saying “Where’s Bob,” suggesting Kiss should be the one defending IRV. They called out at the polls “if you don’t like Bob Kiss, vote to repeal IRV.” They focused on the 2009 election results, suggesting that IRV had cheated voters into a Kiss victory so that backers would have to explain how in fact Kiss had earned his majority win. After Tuesday’s vote, one city councilor called on Kiss to resign – showing the direct link in many voters’ minds between IRV and the mayor.

IRV opponents were led by Kurt Wright, who lost the 2009 race in a cliffhanger. Wright had led after the count of first choices and continued to lead in the count until the field was reduced to two. In the final instant runoff, a majority of voters ranked Kiss ahead of Wright, giving Kiss re-election. Within weeks of his defeat, Wright's supporters were in the streets collecting petitions for repeal – joined by some backers of other losing candidates. Their drive seemed to falter after initial enthusiasm, but then a public scandal enveloped the mayor, and petition gatherers rushed to finish getting their repeal on the ballot. In the repeal, the two wards where Wright ran most strongly voted against IRV by a margin of two-to-one after supporting it when first passed in 2005. The rest of the city voted 60% to keep IRV.

I don’t have a shred of doubt that if Kurt Wright or 2009 Democratic nominee Andy Montroll had won in 2009, IRV would be safe in Burlington. Some might grumble about the system to be sure, but more than one party would have been successful with IRV, and the anti-incumbent energy directed to Kiss wouldn’t have been part of the campaign – and indeed there wouldn’t have been a repeal campaign in the first place.

Reformers can’t control who wins and loses elections, but the lesson from Burlington is they need to be aware that many voters measure the value of a reform by who wins under the new rules. In the case of Burlington, exit polls after the first IRV election in 2006 found overwhelming support for IRV, with voters four times more likely to support it than oppose it and only a handful saying they found it confusing. But that was before they knew who won. As soon as you have winners and losers, as of course you always will, some voters will rethink their assessment. If the same candidate wins twice in a city where that candidate commands perhaps a third of the vote, you have to be ready.

This helps explain that keeping reform can sometimes be harder than winning it – at least until it’s understood as a change that doesn’t favor one side. The irony is that because IRV has been such a potent electoral vehicle -- winning by landslide margins in ballot measures in a range of cities such as Memphis (TN), Oakland (CA) and Minneapolis (MN). that it can be won before there is much grassroots effort to introduce it to voters. There’s a gut appeal to winning majorities in one round of voting and to being able to rank candidates instead of just “X”-voting for them. That’s good for IRV, but dangerous when those first results come in, and backers of losing candidates finger the new rule as the reason their favorite candidate lost.

Local backers [www.fiftypercentmatters.com] did a terrific job in responding to the attack on IRV, although formed their campaign too late to fully dispel some of the rampant misconceptions being spread by opponents. I hope that education is done because Burlington remains a city with a strong coalition that backs IRV and a problem to fix. The city has three major parties and a history of independent candidates, and the system just voted in – one allowing a candidate to be elected with just 40% of the vote – brings back the problems of “spoilers” and minority rule.

More broadly, backers of IRV in other cities and states adopting IRV must work to keep reminding people how the system works and to be clear in explaining the results after they happen, starting with the media (which did an inadequate job in Burlington after the 2009 election, leading some to think that some voters had two votes and others just one). New cities facing that opportunity this year included Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro in California.

Going even more broadly, that same education challenge exists for all reformers – never take your wins for granted, and keep working to make the case for your change even after you win it. You will reach a point where your proposal is the accepted status quo – for IRV backers, that will happen with the idea of voting becomes ranking. At that point your reform probably is safe, as it seems to be in other countries using IRV for decades such as Australia and Ireland.

What American reformers have going for us is that the constraints of our two-choice system are bitterly resented by a growing number of Americans. IRV represents a means to accommodate more options and encourage more inclusive modes of campaigning in a range of settings, such as nonpartisan elections and primaries. The case for IRV remains as strong as ever, and appreciation for its value keeps expanding. Losses hurt and lessons from them must not be forgotten, but our nation’s shift to “rank the vote” continues.

FairVote Signs onto HAVA Funding Letter

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:22:02 -0800

This week, FairVote signed onto an open letter to Congress in support of full funding of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). HAVA was the congressional response to the 2000 Florida election debacle that illustrated how unprepared many states were to run high turnout and high stakes elections. For the first time, Congress authorized money for states to purchase new voting equipment, upgrade their voter registration systems and ensure people with disabilities could easily cast a ballot. The legislation also created the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which is tasked with certifying voting equipment and serving as a clearinghouse for best practices.

With the 2010 midterm elections rapidly approaching, Congress has not lived up to its responsibility to fully fund what HAVA authorized eight years ago. The letter, reprinted below, asks Congress to "appropriate the remaining $387 million in authorized funding for requirements payments to States and $11 million for the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to assist states with ensuring polling place accessibility for people with disabilities and maintaining the protection and advocacy programs."

We hope congress will pay attention to this letter and move quickly in appropriating the remaining authorized funds.

Open Letter To Congress:

Honor Commitment To Election Reform

Support full funding for HAVA

March 2, 2010

We, the undersigned organizations, are deeply appreciative of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funding that states have received since the law's passage in 2002. 2010 marks the fifth federal election cycle since HAVA became law, and the third federal election cycle since states and localities were required to meet its deadlines for federally-mandated voting processes and equipment.

As such, we urge you to honor your commitment to election reform and appropriate the remaining $387 million in authorized funding for requirements payments to States and $11 million for the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to assist states with ensuring polling place accessibility for people with disabilities and maintaining the protection and advocacy programs. These amounts represent the difference between what Congress promised for comprehensive, long-term assistance to states in adopting HAVA mandates, and the very real possibility that such reforms cannot be sustained or fully realized.

While states and localities have done much of the groundwork to put HAVA requirements in place, the lack of full federal funding has significantly hindered their initial plans for implementation and resulted in significant cost increases. Nowhere is this more obvious than in voting machine certification and purchasing. Congressional delay in providing proper funding for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) prevented the timely development of voting system guidelines and the creation of a federal voting system certification program. Some state and local governments were unable to utilize existing equipment, while others had to replace voting equipment more than once in an effort to comply with evolving guidance on accessibility and security.

The development of statewide voter registration databases and major upgrades to voting systems have been two of the most costly, yet innovative outcomes of HAVA. Without full funding, there is very little hope that states can manage the costs of these election improvements. Full funding will also help maintain efficiency and effectiveness in poll worker training and voter education during this period of rapidly changing election laws.

For example, federal law now requires state and local governments to implement new processes for military and overseas voters which include electronic delivery methods for election materials and ballot tracking mechanisms. These common sense requirements, while commendable, were adopted by Congress in October 2009 without any funding to support them.

In summary, we ask for your support in authorizing the remaining $398 million dollars that was originally allocated in HAVA. It is critical to fulfilling the promise of election reform and to providing resources that will help state and local governments meet their long-term challenges.

Should you have any questions, please contact the organizations listed below.

Sincerely,

Organizations Representing State and Local Election Officials

The Election Center
International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers
National Association of Counties
National Association of Secretaries of State
National Association of State Election Directors
National Conference of State Legislatures

Civil and Disability Rights and Voter Advocacy Organizations

American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD)
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Asian American Justice Center
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
Common Cause
Demos
Fair Elections Legal Network
FairVote
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
NAACP National Voter Fund
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO)Educational Fund
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund
Paralyzed Veterans of America
People for the American Way
Project Vote
SAVE
U.S. Public Interest Research Group

FairVote testifies to Maryland Senate Committee

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:11:52 -0800

Yesterday, the Maryland Senate Education, Health & Environmental Committee held a public hearing on several election bills. FairVote’s Right to Vote Director Adam Fogel testified in favor of two of the bills that are sponsored by Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-20):
- SB 292, which will set a uniform voter registration age of 16
- SB 293, which will establish a permanent absentee ballot list.

Youth preregistration bills have been introduced and debated in the Maryland Legislature for the last three years now, as part of policies designed to encourage voter registration and participation. As Adam Fogel stated in his testimony, “Maryland’s 18 to 24-year-old voter registration rate is below the national average and is in danger of falling further if policies are not enacted now to increase voter registration opportunities for our youth.”

SB 292 was unopposed during the hearing, and notably supported by the County Council at-large candidate Hans Riemer, Ryan O’Donnell from Common Cause Maryland, Fielding Huseth from Maryland PIRG, and by the Maryland League of Women Voters. FairVote is optimistic that the bill will be favorably reported by the Committee and signed by the Governor at the end of the legislative session. If Maryland enacts the bill this year, they’ll join the list of states with 16-year-old registration: Hawaii, Florida, North Carolina, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia.

You can read Adam’s testimony for SB 292 here.

FairVote was also particularly interested in the permanent absentee ballot list proposal as a way to expand access to the polls. As Adam Fogel stressed it in his testimony, SB 293 would ensure that the most vulnerable among us (senior citizens in nursing homes, disabled citizens), as well as students studying out-of-state, and overseas voters, have the chance to cast a ballot in every election without having the burden of submitting an absentee ballot request before every single election. This bill would considerably strengthen Maryland law, according to which citizens do not need any excuse to vote absentee, and we’re hopeful that the Committee will report it favorably.

You can read Adam’s testimony for SB 293 here.

You can watch video of Adam Fogel, Ryan O'Donnell and Hans Riemer testifying below:

Watch the video on YouTube

Iraq’s 2010 Parliamentary Election - Part 1: Chronicles of a Struggle for Democracy

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:51:12 -0800

Preparations for the Iraqi parliamentary elections, now scheduled for March 7, 2010, have turned out to be especially chaotic and contentious. This is why, we, here at FairVote, are excited to have this great opportunity to catch you up on what has been going on and to analyze what, in this electoral process, is at stake for the fledgling Iraqi democracy in a series of comprehensive blog posts! The key element of this series will be how Iraq has been working on building an inclusive fair voting system by relying on proportional representation (PR) instead of winner-take-all.

For the first time since the 2005 Constitution was adopted, Iraqi voters on March 7th will have the opportunity to renew their Council of Representatives, which as of today is the only chamber of the Iraqi parliament. On the same day, a referendum will be held on the presence of US troops. At a time when the US troops in Iraq dropped to 98,000, the lowest level of their presence in the country since the 2003 invasion, this is supposed to be a huge step towards their absolute sovereignty by producing a legislature that fully represents Iraq.

However, instead of appeasing sectarian divisions that followed Iraq’s 2005 legislative election, the electoral process has revealed massive ongoing conflicts between the Iraqi parties and ethnic groups, creating new fears about Iraq’s stability. In fact, due to the difficulty last year in passing an electoral law through both the Parliament and the Presidential council (that has veto power), the voting date had to be delayed from January to March. Then, last month, another political crisis emerged when the Iraqi Electoral Commission disqualified 511 candidates because of their alleged ties to the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein, delaying the beginning of the campaign until February 12th. There are also concerns about fraud in the elections.

Another point of interest regards the outcome of the elections. Iraq uses a proportional system in order to allow each ethnic group to receive fair representation. This implies that Iraqi parties will need to build a ruling coalition, and thus creates room for real political debates that have to overcome sectarian rifts.

Furthermore, another huge consequence of the March elections is the disappearance of the Presidency Council, which has to act unanimously and is composed of the President of Iraq and two Vice-Presidents elected with a two-third majority of the Iraqi Council of Representatives. Its creation was a transitional measure in order to maintain harmony among Iraq’s three largest groups: Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. After the election, the President will be autonomous and will only need a simple majority of the Council of Representatives to be elected. This obviously increases anxiety about potential sectarian rifts. However, ultimately, and thanks to the PR in the Parliament, the President will need to earn support from more than one party and be responsive to more than one group within Iraq.

18.9 million registered voters will have to choose among 6,500 candidates appearing on the ballot on March 7th. In an effort to involve as many citizens as possible while maintaining the integrity of the election, they will use an open list form of PR, contrasting with the 2005 closed list system. However, the allocation of the seats will be similar: they will be allocated regionally, with additional compensatory seats allocated to parties whose national share of the vote is not reflected by the seats won at the provincial level. This is another reason why a PR system is great: it gives parties a strong incentive to run candidates in all the areas, since they know that each vote contributes to make them earn seats at the national level.

There is a lot at stake in this parliamentary election. Iraq seems to be working really hard on building a stable, multiparty pluralistic system through a fair vote. This is why we want to break down the Iraqi electoral system and the background of the campaign. This series of posts about the upcoming Iraqi elections aims at showing that, even if you spend a huge amount of time trying to establish the fairest system possible, the context ultimately determines the result.

Stay tuned for our next post that will feature a more detailed background on the Iraqi electoral system!

Remembering Karla Irvine: Fair Elections and Fair Housing Advocate

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:52:07 -0800

On February 19^th, the proponents of election reform and fair government lost an outspoken and fearless advocate. Karla Irvine, a founding member of FairVote, was 76 years old. An active member of the NAACP and the Charter Committee in Cincinnati, Karla was a fierce champion of proportional representation and electoral equality. Most recently, she was active in the campaign to bring back proportional representation to Cincinnati in 2008. During the campaign, not only did I have the pleasure of working with her, she also graciously opened her home to me. Our daily chats at the kitchen table provided the encouragement and insight I needed to get through the grueling campaign.

In addition to her dedication towards proportional representation, Karla was a lifelong activist and a nationally recognized leader in the fair-housing movement. Her obituary can be viewed at http://news.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100222/NEWS0104/2230350/10 A memorial service will be held at 6:30 p.m. March 22 at Christ Church Cathedral, 318 E. Fourth St., Cincinnati.

Karla, your zeal and tenacity for equality and improving the lives of others is unmatched and will surely be missed.

Cleaning up politics: the UK to use alternative voting?

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:25:30 -0800

In the context of major distrust by British citizens of their almost 800 year-old democracy and their politicians, Gordon Brown proposed on February 2nd, in a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research, to get rid of the UK’s “first-past-the-post” voting system.

Public faith in the British political system has been weakened by the recent expenses scandal in which many MPs have been accused of making undue claims. This strengthened the already existing gap between citizens and the members of the House of Common, that results from the defect of the first-past-the-post system, which obviously failed to provide voters with an accurate representation in parliament. Indeed, it is an appalling fact that none of the 646 MPs were elected by a majority of their constituents, and that two of every three MPs were elected without securing a majority of the vote. Besides, the rising of multi-party politics is not likely to improve the situation.

Consequently, Gordon Brown’s proposal to use an alternative voting system, in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference, is a huge step towards building new politics. A choice voting system, slightly different from the proportional one used for elections to devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales, would help the UK have a more representative parliament: it would ensure that each elected candidate has more than 50% of the total vote and maintain the benefit of a strong constituency link. Thus, the Prime Minister’s idea to mandate a referendum in 2011, through an amendment to the Constitutional Renewal bill, would help the UK get a fairer electoral system and make politicians more accountable.

This is how Prime Minister Brown rightly sees the alternative voting:

“But as we seek to re-engage people and enhance public participation I believe we should ask the people to look afresh at whether the electoral system can enhance the mandate of the constituency MP, as well as engaging people further in the choice they have at the ballot box...
But if the people decide to back the alternative vote, it also offers voters increased choice with the chance to express preferences for as many of the candidates as they wish. It means that each elected MP will have the chance to be elected with much broader support from their constituency, not just those who picked them as their first choice. In short it offers a system where the British people can, if they so choose, be more confident that their MP truly represents them, while at the same time remaining directly accountable to them.”

However, the path towards the referendum is pretty tough. First of all, the proposed amendment still needs to become law before the soon-coming general election. Then, it could be repealed by the Tories for ideological reasons if they win the election, whereas the Liberal-Democrats are likely to support it if the Labour wins, since they favor a proportional system.

Furthermore, the referendum itself will be a major obstacle. Actually, if a lot of people agree about the need for a reform, an organized enough campaign to win will need long-lasting, strong support from the Labour Party. This means Brown needs to prove that his suggestion to implement alternative voting is more than an excuse for political scheming. Implementing alternative voting would indeed be some of the best evidence that popular opinion matters, by handing power back to the people.

Correction: This post was edited to reflect that Scotland and Wales use proportional systems, not preferential voting.