FairVote Blog
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The Role of Fair Voting Systems in the Shelby County Case
by Drew Spencer, Rob Richie // February 21, 2013 //On February 27, the U.S. Supreme Court will hold oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, reviewing the constitutionality of Section 5 "preclearance" provisions of the Voting Rights Act. A largely overlooked part of the case is the fact that Section 5 was the reason that Calera, a growing city in Alabama's Shelby County just south of Birmingham, adopted one of the fair voting systems we recommend to uphold voting rights.
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FairVote's Top Three Electoral College Stories of the Week, February 12 to February 19, 2013
by Andrea Levien // February 19, 2013 //Tune in every week for FairVote's favorite news items on the Electoral College and National Popular Vote.
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California and the Limits of Independent Redistricting Commissions with Winner-Take-All
by Rob Richie, Devin McCarthy // February 15, 2013 //Independent redistricting continues to gain attention as the panacea for American congressional elections. But as the independent redistricting's performance in California shows, on its own it cannot resolve the most serious problems with our congressional elections. We need to combine independent redistricting with adoption of fair voting plans.
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Geography as a Failed Unit of Representation: Why Fifty States of Equal Population Is No Solution for Presidential Elections
The idea of electing the president with a creative alternative map of the United States in which every state has equal population has has drawn sympathetic support from Atlantic writer Jim Fallows. But uneven population of states has little to do with what's broken in presidential elections, just as equal population congressional districts leave us with broken U.S. House elections. We must free ourselves from geographic boundaries and go to the real meaning of one-person, one-vote with the National Popular Vote plan for president and fair voting for Congress.
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FairVote's Top Three Electoral College Stories of the Week, February 6 to February 12, 2013
by Andrea Levien // February 12, 2013 //Tune in every week for FairVote's favorite news items on the Electoral College and National Popular Vote.
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Dubious Democracy: Updated FairVote Report Shows Dysfunctional House Elections
by Devin McCarthy // February 11, 2013 //Since 1994, FairVote has released a biannual report on American congressional elections called "Dubious Democracy." FairVote now presents its updated evaluations of the 2012 congressional elections.
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FairVote's Top Three Electoral College Stories of the Week: January 29 to February 5, 2013
by Andrea Levien // February 6, 2013 //Tune in every week for FairVote's favorite news items on the Electoral College and National Popular Vote.
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Electoral College Rules and the Politics of Immigration Reform
by Andrea Levien // February 1, 2013 //Republican views on immigration reform are shifting to accommodate the demographics of the American electorate. Did Electoral College rules incentivize them to change their views? The answer is complex.
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Czech Republic Holds First Popular Election for President
by Devin McCarthy, Sara Helmi // January 30, 2013 //On January 26, Czech citizens had the chance to directly elect their president for the first time since the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. They used a national popular vote with a majority runoff to do it.
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Israeli Election Results Show Responsiveness of Proportional System
by Devin McCarthy // January 24, 2013 //As Tuesday's Israeli elections show, proportional representation systems guarantee that voters can change their government when they are unsatisfied with its performance.