FairVote Feed: Press

Constitutional Right to Vote Introduced in Congress and Backed in Maryland City

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:49:13 -0700

Takoma Park, Maryland Adopts "Promote Our Vote” Resolution and Becomes First U.S. City to Lower the Voting Age to 16

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 14, 2013
Contact: Elizabeth Hudler , Email: hudler [ at] fairvote [dot] org, Phone: (301) 270-4616

U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) announced on May 13th that they will introduce legislation this week to explicitly guarantee the right to vote in the Constitution. The Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment would amend the Constitution to provide all Americans the affirmative right to vote and empower Congress to protect this right.

This national legislation may soon be accompanied by local actions in its spirit, as called for by FairVote’s new initiative Promote Our Vote (PromoteOurVote.com). In Takoma Park (MD), the city council last night unanimously adopted a resolution in support of a right to vote in the Constitution and the creation of a task force to suggest ways to boost voter participation. As part of its commitment to the right to vote, the council also adopted a charter amendment by a 6-1 vote that makes Takoma Park the first city in the United States to extend voting rights to its residents after they turn 16.

"The right to vote is the foundation of any democracy,” commented FairVote’s Executive Director Rob Richie. “Adding an affirmative right to vote to the U.S. Constitution is the best way to guarantee that the government, whether at the federal, state, or local level, cannot infringe upon our individual right to vote. Building support for this amendment offers an opportunity to inspire a 21st century suffrage movement where Americans come together to protect voting rights, promote voter participation and debate suffrage expansion. Takoma Park’s actions are exactly what is needed at a time when city election turnout can drop to single digit rates, as was the case in the Texas cities of Amarillo and San Antonio.”

“The right to vote is too important to be left unprotected,” said Congressman Pocan about his amendment proposal. “At a time when there are far too many efforts to disenfranchise Americans, a voting rights amendment would positively affirm our founding principle that our country is at its strongest when everyone participates. As the world’s leading democracy, we must demand of ourselves what we demand of others—a guaranteed right to vote for all.”

Congressman Ellison added, “Americans’ ability to elect their leaders is a backbone of our democracy and our most fundamental right. Even though the right to vote is the most-mentioned right in the Constitution, legislatures across the country have been trying to deny that right to millions of Americans, including in my home state of Minnesota. It’s time we made it clear once and for all: every citizen in the United States has a fundamental right to vote.”

Takoma Park City Councilmember Tim Male introduced the right to vote resolution and led the effort to lower the voting age. He explained how the right to vote resolution created an environment where the idea of a lower voting age – one that several of his colleagues initially treated with skepticism – was taken seriously. “This small change to allow 16 and 17-year olds to vote has one profound impact. Whenever a 16- or 17-year old approaches an elected official about an important issue they will get the same respect and responsiveness as any other potential voter. Our city's teens inspired me through this process, through stories of extensive community service, the teenage advocates who came and spoke on behalf of peers and their thoughtful, heartwarming and educational testimony to the City Council. I will be honored to stand in line with them on Election Day.”

The proposal to extend voting rights to people after they turn 16 is an extension of the widespread practice in many states of having 17-year-olds vote in primaries if they will be 18 by the general election. Evidence from nations like Austria that have established a voting age of 16 demonstrates that a lower voting age will almost certainly increase turnout of young people in the short-term and over time. These studies also show that voters at age 16 exercise suffrage rights as responsibly as older voters. Many people at 16 and 17 have lived in their communities for years and are often taking high school government classes. That combination results in more people at this age taking advantage of their first opportunity to vote than older teens who are more likely to have left high school and often their childhood community.

FairVote’s Rob Richie commented, “Takoma Park has shown great leadership with this action. While new to many Americans, extending voting rights to people after they turn 16 is just commonsense upon close inspection. I suspect the idea will spread quickly.” Other backers of Takoma Park’s new voting age include local State Senator and Washington College of Law Professor Jamie Raskin, and Peter Levine, Director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), the nation’s leading authority on youth voting and civic education.

For more information, please contact Elizabeth Hudler at (301) 270-4616 | Hudler@fairvote.org.

RESOURCES

Right to Vote Amendment: http://www.fairvote.org/right-to-vote-amendment
Congressman Pocan News Release & News Conference
Local Right to Vote Resolutions at Promote our Vote project http://www.promoteourvote.com
City of Takoma Park's Right to Vote Resolution and Charter Amendment on Suffrage
Voting Age Links and Analysis

TEXT OF POCAN-ELLISON RIGHT TO VOTE AMENDMENT

SECTION 1: Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.

SECTION 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation

FairVote Releases Projections for the 2014 Congressional Elections

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:14:51 -0700

For Immediate Release For Information, Contact:
April 26, 2013 Devin McCarthy (301) 270-4616, dmccarthy [at] fairvote [dot] org

FairVote Releases Projections for the 2014 Congressional Elections:
Incumbents Dominate, Partisan Bias, Limited Voter Choice

As part of its biennial Monopoly Politics series on the overriding dominance of partisanship in controlling the outcomes of American congressional elections, FairVote today released its initial projections for next year's U.S. House elections in its Monopoly Politics 2014 report. The report projects outcomes in 374 of 435 U.S. House elections in 2014 based on current incumbents seeking re-election. Of those 374 races, FairVote projects 211 to be won by Republicans and 163 to be won by Democrats.

Monopoly Politics 2014 also gives users a tool to simulate the outcome of the 2014 election given different levels of nationwide support for the two major parties, as well as different levels of support for congressional incumbents overall.

FairVote's projections are based solely on incumbency and recent presidential and congressional election results from each district. FairVote has concluded that campaign spending (either by candidates or outside sources) and the representatives' voting records are minor factors compared to district partisanship and candidates' own past performance relative to that district partisanship.

Using this approach in July 2012, FairVote projected 333 out of 435 House races in the 2012 election. Every single projection proved to be correct. The accuracy of these projections sheds light on the fact that the outcomes of most congressional races are effectively predetermined long before the election takes place, due to the use of winner-take-all voting rules in districts where one party has a consistent and fundamental advantage among voters.

For the 2014 election, FairVote projects winners in more races than in 2012 and is releasing those projections over a year further in advance of the election. Daily Kos recently finalized its 2012 presidential vote totals by congressional district data, enabling FairVote to create updated partisanship ratings for each congressional district. We determine a district's partisanship by how that district voted for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election relative to the candidates' nationwide vote percentages - a method that we pioneered in July 1997 and was later adapted by Charlie Cook to create his Partisan Voting Index.

Using those partisanship ratings and incumbents' margins of victory in 2012 and 2010, FairVote projects winners in 374 of 435 races for the upcoming midterm election. FairVote sees clear advantages for one party in many additional races, but does not project all districts because there is a small degree to which candidate-specific factors will influence outcomes in the few remaining competitive districts.

Underscoring the remarkable degree of partisan bias existent in our congressional election system, FairVote projects 48 more Republican winners than Democratic winners. This bias toward Republicans will likely hold true even in a relatively tilted year like the Democrats' wave year in 2008 or the Republican wave in 2010, in which the national party preference was about 54% to 46% for one party. Democrats would need to win nearly every single race for which FairVote is not making a projection in order to retake the House, which we project would require a nationwide preference for Democrats of about 56% to 44%. If Democrats have a majority preference less than that margin in 2014, it likely would mean a second consecutive election in which one party receives more total House election votes but the other party wins more House seats.

The winner-take-all American congressional map will also be biased heavily toward incumbents, very few of whom have any real chance of losing a general election. FairVote projects that a majority of incumbents (262) will enjoy "safe" races - that is, races in which they are expected to win by at least 16 percentage points, a cushion far outside what it would take to put them at risk even in a year in which their party does very poorly overall. As a result, most Americans will not have a realistic chance to elect a congressional representative of a different party in 2014. In fact, only 21 races (less than 5%) are projected to be true toss-ups - that is, races in which the incumbent is expected to receive between 47% and 53% of the two-party vote.

A table totaling all congressional races by likely winning party and competitiveness in an even partisan year is below (note again that FairVote is not making definitive projections for all these races):

Competitiveness Projections: "Typical" Year with Voters Divided 50-50

Safely Republican:	201	Safely Democratic:	151
Likely Republican:	18	Likely Democratic:	15
Lean Republican:	13	Lean Democratic:	16
Toss Up (Slight R):	5	Toss Up (Slight D):	16
Total R:	237	Total D:	198

The chart below shows the number of seats that the two major parties are likely to win if the 2014 election favors Democrats by 54% to 46% (like 2008), if it is an even partisan year, and if it is a year that favors Republicans by 54%to 46% (like 2010). Note the difference in effect between a 4% shift toward each of the two parties.

National Partisan Tilt	Seats Projected to Favor Republicans	Seats Projected to Favor Democrats
54% - 46% Democratic (Democratic Year)	230 (127 safe)	205 (174 safe)
50% - 50% Balance (No Partisan Edge)	237 (201 safe)	198 (151 safe)
54% - 46% Republican (Republican Year)	261 (230 safe)	174 (123 safe)

For more information on each individual congressional district and FairVote's methodology in producing these projections, see its Monopoly Politics 2014 spreadsheet - embedded online and also available for download. The spreadsheet allows users to manually change the overall partisan lean of the 2014 election, as shown in the chart above. It also gives users the capability to change the average advantage that incumbents will receive over challengers (the "incumbency bump," as explaiend in this December 2012 post), reflecting the overall attitude of voters toward incumbents.

Look in the weeks ahead for the full Monopoly Politics 2014 report, which will feature in-depth nationwide and state-by-state analysis of the coming congressional elections. For FairVote's past analyses of the problems of partisan bias and uncompetitive elections and its fair voting solution to those problems, see the Monopoly Politics 2012 and Fair Voting 2012 reports.

FairVote is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization. For more information on Monopoly Politics 2014, please contact Devin McCarthy at (301) 270-4616, or by email at dmccarthy [at] fairvote [dot] org.

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Press Release: We Know 35 States That Will Not be 2016 Swing States

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:34:28 -0800

Contact: Andie Levien alevien@fairvote.org Phone: (301) 270-4616

WE KNOW 35 STATES THAT WILL NOT BE 2016 SWING STATES
Effect on turnout of being "spectator state" in 2012

FairVote: the Center for Voting and Democracy, a Maryland based nonprofit analyzing elections and advocating for electoral reform, has issued a series of analyses of presidential elections that started with its 2005 report explaining the sharp decline in competitive presidential "battlegrounds" over the past three decades.

"The 2012 elections underscored the static nature of our presidential elections," said FairVote's executive director Rob Richie. "This year only 12 states received even a single visit from a major party candidate for president or vice-president after the party conventions. We expect very few changes in the 2016 elections."

Looking at the underlying "partisanship" of states based on the 2012 returns to date, FairVote estimates that only 16 states fall within a potentially competitive partisanship band of 45% to 55% in 2016. Those 16 states are dominated by the relatively few states that were considered potential battlegrounds in recent presidential elections.

FairVote also analyzed voter turnout patterns in the 2012 elections. Based on its projections of ballots remaining to be counted, it believes as many as 133 million votes may be cast in this election. This number would provide an overall turnout of eligible voters of 61.3%. Our preliminary analysis also found that:

* Turnout in the 12 states with at least one candidate campaign event after the Democratic National Convention: 66.8%

* Turnout in remaining 39 spectator states (including DC): 58.7%

* Turning in safely Republican spectator states: 56.7%

* Turnout in safely Democratic spectator states: 61.4%

FairVote's presidential tracker summarizes its tally of all campaign events involving major party candidates since the conventions. The 12 states that hosted at least one campaign event are all among potential battlegrounds in 2016. The four additional potential -- if unlikely -- 2016 battleground states are Oregon, New Mexico, Georgia and Washington.

Finally, FairVote's partisanship analysis underscores how the current Electoral College system can have a slight partisan bias in any given election -- with this election being slightly titled toward Democrats -- but has no intrinsic bias, including looking to 2016. It recently simulated national popular vote ties to see which party would have benefited from the system in each election over the past half-century.

"The only bias," said FairVote's executive director Rob Richie, "is against the two-thirds of states that are stuck in long-term spectator status. They won't be polled. They won't have presidential campaigns seeking votes there. They are simply ignored for the purposes of presidential elections. It's time for a level playing field and one-person, one-vote elections through adoption of the National Popular Vote plan for president."

The National Popular Vote plan is a state-based reform developed by National Popular Vote. It is grounded in the states' power under the Constitution to award their electors in a manner of their choosing. It would guarantee the election of the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Enacted into law in states with a total of 132 electoral votes, it will govern the next election if passed by states with a total of 270 or more electoral votes, a controlling majority of the Electoral College.

For more information, contact Andie Levien at alevien[at]fairvote.org or (301) 270--4616.

Press Release: How FairVote Correctly Projected 333 Congressional Races Last July

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:17:03 -0800

FairVote: the Center for Voting and Democracy, a Maryland-based nonprofit analyzing elections and advocating electoral reform, correctly projected 100% of 333 congressional races more than three months before Election Day. In FairVote's Monopoly Politics 2012 report - available online in an interactive map - FairVote makes projections solely on the basis of district partisanship, the length of an incumbent’s tenure in Congress and the incumbent’s margin of victory in 2010.

Our report illustrates how no great forecasting talent or luck is needed to correctly predict more than three out of four congressional races. Predictions are easily made due to the United States’ politically polarized congressional map, which is caused by the winner-take-all electoral system and exacerbated by partisan gerrymandering. Congressional races lack healthy competition.

Underscoring the power of partisanship, in the 2010 elections 40 of the 52 seats in which Republicans beat a Democratic incumbent were in districts in which Barack Obama underperformed his national average in 2008. At the same time, Republicans that year failed to defeat a single one of the 139 Democratic incumbents running in a district where Barack Obama outperformed his national average by more than 4%.

In the 2012 elections, all eight Republican incumbents from a district in which Obama outperformed his national average in 2008 by more than 2% (excepting Gary Miller, who did not face a Democratic challenger due to running against another Republican in a Top Two race) were defeated. Miller now will be the only Republican representing one of these 177 districts. No Democratic incumbent was defeated in a district where Obama in 2008 outperformed his national average.

"In the vast majority of congressional districts," said FairVote's executive director Rob Richie, "casting a ballot is essentially a symbolic gesture. The outcome of these elections is predetermined by the partisanship of districts."

FairVote proposes structural reform of winner-take-all elections as the necessary step to allow all voters to participate meaningfully in every congressional election. FairVote’s Fair Voting 2012 report illustrates how these reforms can be accomplished by a mere statutory change, grounded in our own electoral traditions of using multi-seat "super district" elections with American forms of proportional representation.

For more information on this topic, please contact Devin McCarthy at (301) 270-4616, or by email at dmccarthy@fairvote.org.

E-Newsletter November 5, 2012

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 11:35:46 -0800

Greetings!

It's Monday, November 5: one day to Election Day, the culmination of a presidential election marathon that started well before the Iowa caucuses last January. We obviously hope every eligible voter on this list participates -- and joins us in a lasting commitment to the right to vote by participating in our Promote Our Vote campaign, building a movement to establish an affirmative right to vote in the Constitution, grounded in local efforts to protect voting rights and boost participation.

FairVote has had a busy fall, with high-profile news coverage, important new research and preparation for what we think promises to be our most successful reform year in our history next year. As we head to the election, I wanted to highlight a few links I hope you'll be able to click on before election night.

FairVoting.Us and Representative Elections for Congress: Our interactive USA map at www.fairvoting.us allows you to get detailed information about U.S. House elections as they are and then toggle over to see how they could be with simple changes in statute to establish American forms of proportional representation. Read our recent blogpost, and watch our chair Krist Novoselic's recent CSPAN interview focused on our fair voting plans.

Presidential Election Scorecard: We've created a presidential election scorecard that will allow you to see which candidate is likely to win the national popular vote as the first results come in. Of course the national popular vote winner can still lose the election; for that, we must adopt the National Popular Vote plan by getting involved in this exciting effort that has every promise of winning by 2016. FairVote's analysis about what's wrong with presidential elections was featured in the New York Times on Sunday, and we've been building the case for what's broken in the system with our Presidential Election Tracker series.

Eliminate "Spoiler" Fear with Instant Runoff Voting: In Maine, the Democratic Party has become the "spoiler" third party in statewide elections, as explained in our board member John Anderson's recent commentary and a follow-up commentary . Four California cities are holding elections using the instant runoff voting form of ranked choice voting. Voters in Pomona (CA) may adopt instant runoff voting in a ballot measure this week, as has happened in at least one city in eight of the last nine November elections around the nation. Free and Equal has a final presidential debate with Gary Johnson of the LIbertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party tonight, with the two candidate chosen last month for this debate through an instant runoff vote.

Let's Vote - and Promote our Vote: Check out Promote Our Vote to be part of a new suffrage movement. And if you experience any problems at the polls, call election specialists at 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Democracy Fellows: Please get to know FairVote's great new team of Democracy Fellows -- read their biographies and watch them explain on video what they're working on. With their help we're unveiling several new exciting projects soon, including FairVote Action, new legal challenges to winner-take-all voting, Representation 2020 to promote rule changes to boost representation of women and a comprehensive policy guide for elected officials.

Election Night Tweets and Facebook Updates: FairVote will be regularly tweeting and updating our Facebook page on election night on the many election stories we're tracking. By Thursday, our site will be chock-full of updates and news. We hope to be engaging with many of you during that time.

Thanks for reading. Stay turned, and happy voting!

Rob Richie

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E-Newsletter October 24, 2012

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 07:28:09 -0700

Greetings!

We're in the final two weeks of the election, and there's a lot going in states across the nation as we approach a hugely important election. Here's news from FairVote:

Krist live on CSPAN to talk about our Fair Voting 2012 Report: I hope that you can tune in tomorrow morning (Thursday at 7:45 am Eastern) on CSPAN's Washington Journal for a 45 minute segment with FairVote board chair Krist Novoselic. Krist will focus in particular on our fair voting plans to replace winner-take-all voting for congressional elections with American forms of proportional representation. It's a call-in show, which gives you a chance to share your thoughts our democracy and how we can advance to Democracy 2.0

Join Washington Post in checking out how congressional election s are and how they could be: Our twin reports Fair Voting 2012 and Monopoly Politics 2012 have an invaluable interactive map that allows you to compare your state's congressional elections as they are with how they could be. The bottom line is that a simple statutory change would establish a level playing field and result in every voter in every state likely having shared representation of more than one party and a real reason to vote in every election. The Washington Post highlighted our report's findings on the impact of redistricting on competition.

Reception this Friday in Washington, D.C.: For those of you in the DC area, please join Krist, me and our great team of democracy fellows for a Capitol hill reception on Friday evening at 5 pm with congressional staff, public interest reformers and area supporters. Just let us know you're coming: RSVP here.

Richie on CSPAN: I enjoyed my opportunity to be on CSPAN's Washington Classroom this week. The program will air again in the days ahead. My segment (lasting about a half hour) starts at the 23 minute mark. I addressed questions about the Electoral College, the National Popular Vote plan, instant runoff voting and FairVote's new Promote our Vote website with resources to build a movement for a constitutional right to vote and higher voter turnout in your community.

Electoral Dysfunction on PBS stations around the nation: Electoral Dysfunction is an excellent new film narrated by humorist Mo Rocca. It masterfully shows what hotly contested elections are like down at the grassroots -- and how the battle over suffrage is an ongoing one. I was fortunate to be an adviser to the film, and pleased to see strong arguments presented for establishing a popular vote for president, universal voter registration and a constitutional right to vote. Check the film's website for more on the film and when it's airing in your local PBS station.

Presidential candidate debate using instant runoff voting to pick debate finalists: Last night I was an analyst for Free and Equal, discussing electoral reform before a debate among four of the nation's six presidential candidates who on the most state ballots. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney didn't participate but Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Virgil Goode and Rocky Anderson had a spirited discussion of their policy views from across the spectrum, with Larry King as moderator. there will be a final debate on October 30 between two candidates, who you can help select with instant runoff voting.

Instant runoff voting on the ballot in Pomona (CA) & being used in four cities: Instant runoff voting is a ranked choice voting system that makes it easier for voters to have more choices on the ballot. It will be on the ballot as a charter amendment in Pomona (CA), a city of more than 150,000 in Los Angeles county and being used this Sunday in a Palms Neighborhood Council election in Los Angeles.

IRV is also being used in four Bay Area cities this November, including Oakland and San Francisco. See a collection of our resources about Bay Area IRV elections and an article I helped write about the Berkeley mayoral election. Last week I made a presentation on IRV to an impressive commission in Rhode Island studying advanced voting methods to handle more voter choice.

FairVote analyses show case for a national popular vote never stronger: FairVote this year has issues a steady stream of blogs, opeds and analyses that hammers away at the "shrinking battleground" in presidential swing states -- a problem we first highlighted in a 2005 report by that name. See our presidential tracker series and peruse our regularly updated blog for more on just how bad it's gotten -- and that's without the real prospect that once again the Electoral College winner loses in the popular vote.

This is one problem we are getting close to fixing. Please take a moment to contact your state legislator to ask them to support the National Popular Vote plan for president.

Richie on the road, from MIT to Bridgewater State / "Top Wonk": My colleagues and I have had many opportunities to make lectures and participate in conferences this fall. Here's an excerpt from my talk at Bridgewater State from its "what is fair" series, and here's the agenda from last Friday's conference on presidential election reform at MIT where I spoke on panels on Electoral College reform, moving toward better voter registration laws and single winner systems like instant runoff voting. FairVote has a number of great speakers. Please see information on our Speakers Bureau page about bringing someone to your community or campus.

I've done a number of radio interviews too this fall too. Thanks to Public Agenda for naming me a "Top Wonk" and featuring FairVote on its Practical Progress guide to civic groups and for the Institute for Public Accuracy highlighting our analysis in a new release.

John Anderson's widely-published commentary on instant runoff voting and other notable new writings: Our long-time board chair John Anderson wrote a powerful commentary on the case for reforming presidential elections with instant runoff voting that has run in more than a dozen newspapers around the nation. I have two long pieces making my case for proportional representation and the national popular vote plan in Presbyterian Church USA's Unbound and have published several new commentaries at Huffington Post.

Don't miss our new websites Fair Sports Rules and Promote Our Vote: We've recently launched two very different websites. Fair Sports Rules highlights ways that the structure of sports could be improved in practical ways that incorporate some of our ideas for improving elections. Promote Our Vote lays out a plan of action for building a movement for the right to vote in the United States, starting with community and campus actions and moving to affirming the right to vote in the Constitution. Stay tuned for FairVote Action, which will encompass ways to get involved in a full range of electoral reforms and connect with other reformers.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! Please visit FairVote's pages on Twitter, and Facebook and our blog. They provide a great way to get in touch and engage with FairVote staff, fellows and interns -- and to see creative artwork, including our can't-miss graphic on the major party presidential candidates focusing only on swing states.

Stay tuned: We have several terrific new resources coming our shortly: our website for FairVote Action, a wide-ranging policy guide, detailed presidential and congressional election analyses, a new website resources on representation of women and more. Please visit FairVote.org to see the latest.

Last but not least, keep in mind that America's representative democracy rests on the participation of its people. We passionately believe in reforms that will better respect every vote and every voice -- yet at the same time hope that all eligible voters can show that we value our vote by exercising it in the days ahead.

Best wishes,

Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote

P.S. The World Series is underway. Read Devin McCarthy's take on why presidential elections should not be like the World Series.

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After Four Years, Which States Made the Cut? FairVote Data on President Obama's State Travels and Preview of 2012 Campaign Analysis

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:10:53 -0700

FairVote, a nonpartisan organization that studies elections and proposed election reforms, has tracked and analyzed the travels of President Barack Obama since he took office and of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney since he became his party's presumptive nominee in April.

As reported on FairVote’s website, the states in which President Obama attended the most events in the period of time between entering the White House and accepting his party’s nomination for reelection were dominated by his biggest donor states in 2008 and swing states that he hopes to win in 2012 (along with White House’s neighboring state of Maryland).

President Obama’s Most Visited States between January 20, 2009 and the Close of Democratic National Convention (September 7, 2012)

	Total Events	Fundraisers
New York	71	35
California	56	32
Florida	46	18
Virginia	46	4
Ohio	44	4
Illinois	32	16
Maryland	31	2
Iowa	30	0
Pennsylvania	28	6
Texas	21	12

As we can see, even before the two month period prior to Election Day when campaigning is most intense, Obama very clearly favored swing states, unless the potential for big donations to his campaign was involved. The five most visited states either hosted the most major fundraising events for him during the 2012 election cycle or had the most swing electoral votes up for grabs. The three states to receive the most visits from President Obama were also the ones that have held the most major fundraising events for him during the 2012 election cycle. Another large state, Illinois, had a lot visits from the president, but had to hold sixteen large fundraisers for him in return, whereas the swing states of Ohio and Virginia did not. The state with the biggest discrepancy between visits and fundraisers, Iowa, has seen the president 30 times since he entered office, but has not hosted a single fundraiser for him that he attended.

In contrast, the president has yet to visit 6 states. One stark example is South Carolina. Despite the fact that he has attended 19 events in its neighboring North Carolina since he became president, and despite the fact that his party held its national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, just a few miles from the South Carolina border, he has yet to visit South Carolina since he won the state’s delegates in the 2008 presidential primaries. Twenty other states have been visited three times or less. None of these 26 states are projected to be swing states in the November election, and all 12 of the states with one or less visit from the president are expected to vote for Mitt Romney in November.

President Obama’s 12 least visited states (all 1 visit or less)

	Total Events
Arkansas	0
Idaho	0
Nebraska	0
North Dakota	0
South Carolina	0
South Dakota	0
Utah	0
Kansas	1
Kentucky	1
Montana	1
Oklahoma	1
Wyoming	1

Gov. Romney’s visits in the four months leading up to the end of the Democratic National Convention showed a similar pattern to President Obama’s visits during his presidency. New York and California have seen the governor 17 times, but only in return for holding 14 major fundraisers. Ohio, on the other hand, has seen Romney more than New York has, even though Ohio has not held a single fundraiser that was large enough to merit an appearance by Romney. The other states on his list, apart from Republican stronghold Texas, are all potential swing states.

Romney’s Most Visited States between April 24, 2012 and the Close of the Democratic National Convention (September 7, 2012)

	Total Events	Fundraisers
California	10	8
New Hampshire	9	1
Ohio	8	0
New York	7	6
Colorado	7	2
Michigan	7	2
Texas	6	3
Iowa	6	1
Virginia	5	0
Pennsylvania	4	1

Just as in our reports on the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, FairVote is tracking the candidates’ travels and spending habits after the conventions, the time when campaigning is the most heavy. At this point in the campaigns, candidates spend more of their time wooing potential voters rather than potential donors, and therefore, we should see a great shift away from the country’s richest states towards the country’s most closely contested states. So far, just as it did in the previous two elections, this pattern has held up.

For the peak season, we tally campaign events designed to influence a state’s voters, not the total events in the state (for example, an appearance on a national talk show filmed in New York does not count as a campaign event in the state). In the days since the end of the Democratic National Convention (September 7), the candidates campaign events have been in the following locations.

States with the Most Campaign Events from the Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates, September 7, 2012 to Sept 20, 2012

	Obama	Biden	Romney	Ryan	Total
Florida	6	0	4	1	11
Ohio	2	4	2	1	9
Iowa	1	3	1	1	6
Virginia	0	0	3	2	5
New Hampshire	1	0	1	1	3
Colorado	1	0	1	0	2
Nevada	1	0	0	1	2
Wisconsin	0	1	0	1	2
Pennsylvania	0	1	0	0	1

These visits, along with ad spending from the past four months, have mirrored the activities of the candidates in the 2004 and 2008 election, during which they focused almost all of their campaigning efforts on a handful of swing states. In 2004, for example, 92% of candidate visits were to only 11 states. In addition, CNN data showed that the George W. Bush and John Kerry’s campaigns spend 52% of the their ad money in only three states - Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania – while the three most populous states – New York, Texas, and California – only received seven ads combined.

The 2008 election proved no different from the 2004 one, with 99% of visits and 95.1% of ad money given to fourteen states. As can be foreseen from our 2012 data up to this point, the number of competitive states should decrease in 2012, since states such as Missouri and Indiana, which became possibilities for Obama in 2008, will no longer be electorally feasible for the Democratic candidate.

Stay tuned as FairVote continues our efforts of tracking the presidential candidates’ activity, and for our upcoming report on the 2012 election, Presidential Electoral Inequality.

Andrea Levien is a FairVote Democracy Fellow. Contact Andrea or FairVote executive director Rob Richie at (301) 270-4616 or alevien [ at ] fairvote.org.

Monopoly Politics 2012

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:45:42 -0700

Visit Report's USA Map here.

Contact: Lizz Hudler, Media Relations, at Hudler [at] fairvote.org, 301-270-4616

Washington, D.C. -- FairVote, a nonpartisan think tank that analyzes elections and proposes electoral reforms, has issued its new Monopoly Politics 2012 report on U.S. House elections. The report demonstrates the growing partisan rigidity of voters in U.S. House elections with a detailed state-by-state, district-by-district review of this year's congressional races and the 2010 elections. It includes information on the presidential election results in every 2012 district, how each district's partisanship has changed since 2010 and the likely outcome of the Congressional elections next month.

Monopoly Politics 2012 underscores the structural edge that Republican candidates have in today's electoral landscape. If Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were to tie in the popular vote this November, for example, Romney would likely win 242 congressional districts compared to Obama's 193 districts. Republicans therefore start with an advantage in 49 more districts, and Democrats cannot win control of the House without at least 25 of its U.S. House nominees winning in districts that would be carried by Mitt Romney in a close presidential race. In districts with a distinct partisan advantage (with a lean of least 54% to 46% for one party), Republicans have an advantage in 195 districts compared to Democrats having an advantage in 166 districts.

Monopoly Politics 2012 provides insight into the root cause of the lack of competition in House races and the decline of the center in Congress. This root cause is not any dramatic shifts in district partisanship, but rather the combination of winner-take-all voting rules and reduced ticket-splitting by voters. The overwhelming majority of districts are won by the party that has a partisan edge in those districts -- far more than in recent decades -- and most of the decline in centrists is due to a drop in the number of candidates able to win in districts that lean toward the other party. Just as with the steadily shrinking number of swing states in presidential elections over the past two decades (as demonstrated powerfully in FairVote's Presidential Election Inequality reports), imbalanced partisanship is a natural consequence of where people live and the increasing partisan rigidity of the American electorate. Partisan gerrymandering only affects the number of competitive congressional districts on the margins.

"What Monopoly Politics 2012 demonstrates beyond any doubt is that the United States is divided into a growing number of 'spectator districts' and declining number of 'battleground districts,' explained FairVote's director Rob Richie. "But most analysts miss the key point, one that should be overwhelmingly obvious from similar trends in presidential elections. In this era of partisan polarization, the core culprit for our broken congressional elections and polarized Congress is winner-take-all voting rules. Anyone who suggests that the decline in competitive congressional districts and centrist lawmakers is primarily due to redistricting or campaign spending simply isn't understanding the numbers."

To present this fact visually, FairVote's new report features an interactive map that allows users to see the partisan leanings of every district in the nation -- both nationally and in each state -- and click through a series of ways to understand this year's House elections. The visual tells a powerful story: very few areas of the nation fall within a competitive partisan spectrum.

Although undesrcoring how redistricting reform would only marginally affect partisan competition, FairVote's interactive map does showcase the many outlandish districts that mar the current redistricting process -- and our analyses show how mapmakers did act to shield potentially vulnerable incumbents.

Richie commented: "Although we dismiss the simplistic notion that gerrymandering or campaign spending is the root cause of our nation's monopoly politics, we remain highly critical of the redistricting process. For us, it's time to liberate voters from winner-take-all boxes and allow them to define their own representation with fair voting -- relying on constitutional, candidate-based, American forms of proportional representation in multi-seat 'super districts'."

Released along with Monopoly Politics 2012 is Fair Voting 2012, a report grounded in FairVote having drawn multi-seat plans for Congress in every state. The report illustrates a dramatic affect on representation by partisan preference and racial identity of voters. By toggling back and forth between congressional districts on our interactive map, users can compare congressional elections as they are and as they could be with our fair voting plans.

One key finding is that by using a fair voting system in districts with between three and five representatives (with such "super districts" being allowed by the Constitution, used in many congressional elections earlier in our history and used today in many state and local elections), every voter in every state (at least those with three representatives or more) would have a meaningful vote in every election and have representatives from the left, center and right of that district -- including having at least one Democrat and one Republican represent every super district. The number of voters with at least one House representative who is a woman would likely triple from 17% to more than 50%.

Below are key analyses from Monopoly Politics 2012 along with state-by-state profiles of every district and analyses from Fair Voting 2012. For more information, contact FairVote at (301) 270-4616 or email Rob Richie at rr [at] fairvote.org or Lizz Hudler at hudler [at] fairvote.org.

Monopoly Politics 2012 Analysis

Impact of redistricting - How redistricting in 2011-2012 affected voter choice and shielded vulnerable incumbents
Election projection overview - What our projections say about the 2012 elections and beyond
Power of partisanship - How district partisanship overwhelmed all other factors in 2010 elections
The great partisan shift in the South - Comparison of the partisan landscape in southern states in 1991 to 2011 and that shift's impact on competition and voting rights
Partisanship and crossover voting in the U.S. House - How district partisanship is the strongest explanation for why some Members break from their party's majority on certain votes

The state links below provide:

The partisanship rating for all 435 House districts
The partisanship rating for incumbents' 2012 district compared to their 2010 district, along with information about incumbent's performance
2012 election projections for every district based on these factors
Each state's redistricting process in 2011-2012
Overview of election and district projections for 2012-2020

Click a state name below for each report. Click here for national projections. Our methodology clarifies the reports.

Alabama	Hawaii	Massachusetts	New Mexico	South Dakota
Alaska	Idaho	Michigan	New York	Tennessee
Arizona	Illinois	Minnesota	North Carolina	Texas
Arkansas	Indiana	Mississippi	North Dakota	Utah
California	Iowa	Missouri	Ohio	Vermont
Colorado	Kansas	Montana	Oklahoma	Virginia
Connecticut	Kentucky	Nebraska	Oregon	Washington
Delaware	Louisiana	Nevada	Pennsylvania	West Virginia
Florida	Maine	New Hampshire	Rhode Island	Wisconsin
Georgia	Maryland	New Jersey	South Carolina	Wyoming

Source Data: Find here a spreadsheet containing the complete data used to create the Monopoly Politics 2012 and Fair Voting 2012 reports. This data includes partisanship ratings and racial makeup for each congressional district before and after redistricting, as well as a breakdown of each proposed Super District by partisanship and race.

Fair Voting 2012 Analysis and explanation

Fair voting overview
Fair voting FAQ
Examples of fair voting methods
District lines built from scratch, a Louisiana fair voting plan
National comparison of fair voting to current plan and summary
Illinois history with fair voting for state house of representatives
Legality of fair voting for Congress
Department of Justice Support for Fair Voting
Proposed congressional statutes to allow and require fair voting, with background
Methodology
Voting Rights Analysis
Glossary of terms
Dedication to William Raspberry and Lindsey Needham

______________________________________Related_________________________________________

Dubious Democracy

Comprehensive state-by-state data on competition and representation in every state since 1982

Top Two in California Primaries, June 2012: By the Numbers

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:38:10 -0700

Contact: Rob Richie, Executive Director
(301) 270-4616, rr [at] fairvote.org

Read as a PDF

Washington, DC - 6/13/2012 - On June 5, California held its first "top two" primary in races for Congress and state legislature. All candidates competed against one another. Voters cast one vote, and the top two finishers advanced. FairVote today released an analysis of the primaries based on a series of disturbing numbers.( Note that ballots are still being tallied, and we will update this analysis after final results are certified in July.) Executive Director Rob Richie commented:

"Some editorial writers have been quick to praise the new system. But our findings help point to the need for improvements like those proposed by FairVote in 2010. At a minimum, we believe that: 1) parties' association rights should be better protected; 2) more than two candidates should advance to the general election ballot to avoid unrepresentative outcomes; 3) write-in candidates should be allowed in the general election; and 4) ranked choice voting should be used in the general election to uphold majority rule while preserving voter choice."

Here are FairVote's numbers and analysis.

200 of 212 party-endorsed candidates won: Major party organizations dominated outcomes

The major parties endorsed 212 candidates in Top Two primary races for Congress and the legislature. 200 of those candidates advanced to November and are favored in the great majority of races. Every incumbent seeking re-election advanced, and only four did not finish in first place. Of non-incumbent endorsed candidates, 101 of 113 won.

1.35% of ballots spoiled in Senate race: Many San Francisco voters were confused

The Top Two is supposed to be simple. Voters vote for one candidate, and the top two finishers win. But voters in San Francisco (and likely elsewhere) had trouble with the system. In the U.S. Senate race, 1.35% of ballots cast in San Francisco were invalidated due to "overvotes" for more than one candidate, including 1.67% of vote-by-mail ballots. Overvote rates were over 6% in 18 precincts.

San Francisco voters had trouble in races with fewer candidates as well: 0.84% of ballots were invalided in Nancy Pelosi's CD-12 race with six candidates, and 0.57% of ballots in Jackie Speier's CD-14 races with three candidates. (In contrast, in 2011's mayoral election with ranked choice voting and 16 candidates, only 0.42% of voters cast overvotes.)

69% of voters lost out in U.S. House race: In CD-8, winners combined for 30.8% of vote

In an open seat race for Congress (CD-8), nearly seven in ten voters cast votes for losing candidates. In the much higher turnout election in the fall, voters will choose between two candidates who received a combined total of 25,000 votes (30.8% of the total).

29.7% of CD-31 is white: But low Latino turnout and split votes advance only white Republicans

District 31 is a Democratic-leaning congressional district. Barack Obama ran more than 4% above his national average in the district in 2008, meaning that a Democrat would be favored in an open seat race by more than 8%. The overall district population is less than 30% white and close to a majority Latino.

But the general election contest will be between two white Republicans: incumbent Gary Miller, who won 26.8%, and Republican Bob Dutton, who won 25%. Latino Democrat Pete Aguilar finished with 22.6%, but was knocked out because of relatively low Democratic turnout and the fact that the three remaining candidates also ran as Democrats. If any had not run, Aguilar likely would have finished second and been the favorite in November.

10 state senate candidates lost: In 20 state senate primaries, few candidates ran for office

The state senate elections were particularly uneventful. Despite redistricting and four-year terms that mean these races will not be contested again until 2016, most races had only one or two qualified candidates. Only ten candidates were defeated.

40 of 63 races with 4 candidates may have had "wrong" wins: Did split votes spoil outcomes?

Out of 63 races with at least four candidates, the margin of victory between the second and third place candidates was less than the total votes cast for candidates trailing in fourth and below. In other words, the two winners in these 40 races would have been different if backers of candidates outside the top three had instead voted for the third-place candidate. These races may have had "spoiler" candidates.

11.5% turnout of non-major party voters: Independent voters did not respond to Top Two

Voter turnout overall was among the lowest ever in a statewide primary election in California. In Los Angeles County (as of June 11), only 11.5% of voters registered as independents or with a minor party cast ballots. That turnout contrasted with 28.2% of Republicans and 21.0% of Democrats. But most Californians will not have a chance to consider non-major party candidates in any election other than the race for president (which did not rely on Top Two).

- End -

The Chairman's Corner: FairVote reforms featured in Mann-Ornstein book

Wed, 30 May 2012 14:11:11 -0700

The Chairman's Corner

Krist Novoselic on FairVote reforms

Krist Novoselic has been chairman of the board at FairVote since 2008. He first became politically active while playing bass for the band Nirvana in the early 1990s. Novoselic published his book "Of Grunge and Government: Let's Fix This Broken Democracy" in 2004 and joined the FairVote board in 2005. This is the first of The Chairman's Corner series.

May 31, 2012
News

FairVote comments on the Voter Empowerment Act

Meet FairVote's 2012-2013 democracy fellows starting this fall

FairVote Writing

Broader reform lessons from Dick Lugar's primary defeat

Primary defeats spotlight disappearing center in American politics

Presidential tracker: The orphaned states of America

Democracy demands civic education

FairVote's vision of election reform has been making excellent progress. We've seen wins in cities and states for ranked choice voting, the National Popular Vote plan for presidential elections and voter registration changes that advance the goal of full and accurate rolls.

Our ideas also keep moving farther into the mainstream. The Washington Post on April 6th wrote an editorial in favor of ranked choice voting. The New York Times has become a champion of the National Popular Vote plan. The Voter Empowerment Act bill has 126 congressional sponsors for the goal of modernizing voter registration. FairVote staff and Board members regularly are printed in our nation's leading publications.

I was particularly pleased to read the new book by two of our nation's leading political scientists and most influential pundits, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein. Their new It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism makes a cogent case for how best to reform our elections. They feature ranked choice voting (RCV, also known as instant runoff voting), independent redistricting commissions (IRC's), changes to boost voter turnout and American forms of proportional representation (PR) - what we call "fair voting" in our new feature on how such systems could work in U.S. House elections.

On May 20th they published a commentary in the Washington Post addressing widespread concern over the polarization in Congress and the authors briefly examine reform proposals - expressing what they think will and what will not remedy our current state of broken politics.

Taking on Gerrymandering

Here's what they have to say about independent redistricting commissions:
"With the partisan redrawing of congressional district lines skewing American politics, we support a redistricting process that - like several states have done - uses independent commissions to draw the lines based on respect for communities' boundaries and for real political competitiveness. It is no cure-all (none of these solutions is), but such an effort could contain and possibly reduce our escalating partisanship."

IRCs are a good way to lessen the influence of political insiders on the redistricting process. But these commissions only go so far and even the authors say it is no cure-all. Mann and Ornstein don't expand on this point in the editorial but in their book finger single-member districts as the culprit and reach to the heart of the matter by suggesting American forms of proportional representation grounded in our own traditions.

FairVote supports well-designed IRCs. Still, we recognize that when tied to single-member districts, they still produce winners and losers in most elections before any ballot is cast. The usual result is the safe-seat dynamic where incumbents run unopposed or face uncompetitive challengers. These safe-seat legislators then have little incentive to reach beyond their base.

It would be great if every single-member district were competitive, however, competitiveness simply can't be the only criteria an IRC need consider when seeking a fully representative legislature. Applying various important criteria is why IRCs can produce safe-seat districts that benefit one party or another - for more, check out our resources on redistricting and state-by-state data in Dubious Democracy: 1982- 2010.

The Fair Voting Solution: Proportional Representation

FairVote agrees with the Mann and Ornstein position in their book (page 149) supporting American forms of proportional representation. They write, "Any group of like-minded voters should win legislative seats in proportion to its share of the popular vote, [proportional representation] facilitates the direct representation of racial and political groups and encourages multi-party systems and broad coalitions within legislatures." They go on to recommend candidate-based fair voting systems with higher thresholds than European party-based / low threshold voting. (See FairVote's research on Choice Voting and Cumulative Voting.)

Ranked Choice Voting

We also agree with Mann and Ornstein on ranked choice voting when electing a single winner like governor. In their Washington Post commentary they write:

"Another option that would help make votes more accurately reflect the electorate's real feelings is instant runoff voting, where voters can rank their candidate preferences. Such a system produces majority winners, eliminates the spoiler role and reduces the "wasted vote" calculation for minor-party candidates, allowing them to participate more fully in the election process. Building more legitimate majorities in this fashion could extend the electoral reach of the major parties and thereby reduce their polarization."

Ranked choice voting is proven here in the United States and abroad - including elections in the past year for mayor of London, mayor of San Francisco, president of Ireland and Australian parliament. It is a constitutionally protected voting system with a long track record. It certainly deserves the endorsement of Mann, Ornstein and other establishment commentators and leaders.

Mann and Ornstein remind us that things will not get back to normal on their own. They add, "There is a more sensible and promising reform agenda, one more focused on fixing the party system and addressing the roots and the weapons of political partisanship."

I am happy FairVote's reforms speak to this sentiment. I'm pleased that we're finding ways to make our reforms viable in the United States - and ways that you as readers can get involved in our work where you live. Stay tuned for the unveiling of our FairVote Action website this summer, and keep up with the latest on Twitter, Facebook and our blog.