Call For Top-Four Primaries with Ranked-Choice Voting

National Election Reform Groups, the Independent Voter Project (IVP) and FairVote, are advocating for a Primary that advances the “Top-Four” Candidates instead of just Two. The groups believe doubling the choices by advancing Four Candidates out of the Primary, allowing Write-In Candidates, and enacting Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) to give Voters more Power, avoids Vote-Splitting, and ensures Majority Rule, is the best-case scenario for Voters and Voters Rights.

Dan Howle Executive Director of the Independent Voter Project, served as a Staff Member and Consultant in the State Legislature. Rob Richie is President and CEO of FairVote, the Nonpartisan Reform Organization he has led since 1992.

In addition to this effort, the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers and California Forward have been working on New Election Models that Maintain and Advance Voter-Centric Reforms.

Our Broken Politics and Changing Electorate Demand Creativity, Persistence, and New Reform Coalitions. In that spirit they are writing to advance Voter-Centric Election through RCV.

They have worked for Electoral Reforms and Voting Rights for years and serve together on the Board of the National Association for Nonpartisan Reformers. Dan was a Chief Architect of California’s Nonpartisan Primary Election, which Voters adopted in the form of Proposition 14 in 2010. Rob has been the Nation’s Leading Proponent of RCV, including as it passed in California Cities like Oakland and San Francisco.

Dan sees California’s Top-Two Nonpartisan Primary System as achieving its Core Objectives: Every Voter should have an Equal Opportunity to Vote for the Candidates of their Choice, regardless of the Voter’s Political Preferences; Every Candidate for Elective Office should have the same Requirements to appear on the Ballot; and Elections should be more Competitive.

Looking at this Month’s Primary in California helps underscore how these Goals have been met. Every Candidate Secured Ballot Access in the same way, and every Voter could Pick a Candidate of their Choice regardless of Party Label in each Primary Contest. Most Elections had more than Two choices, and all avoided the Segregation by Party that in the old system had left so many Primaries Uncontested or Lopsided. No Incumbent today can focus only on the Base of their Party because they know they might need to earn a General Election Majority against an Independent or someone of their own Party.

Focused on Voter Experience in General Elections, Rob’s Priorities include:

- Voters should have real choices in November, with a spectrum of options that enliven debate and reflect voters’ spectrum of views.

- Voters should have their voice matter, with the fullest chance possible to be heard and engage with candidates.

- Voters should earn fair representation, with as many votes counting as possible.

Recent Mayoral Elections with RCV in Minneapolis and St. Paul and Santa Fe in New Mexico underscore how RCV promotes those Goals. Turnout surged over recent Elections, with at least Five Candidates with a range of views in each Race. Political Debate was unusually Substantive and Civil. More than four in five Voters used their power to Rank Candidates, and Winners earned a Majority of the final round Vote and greatly increased their Vote Totals during RCV Tallies.

The Independent Voter Project and FairVote, have and continue to have different Perspectives and Opinions about what is the “best” way to conduct our Elections. But at a fundamental level, they agree that Elections should serve Voters, Maximize Choice, and Broaden our Representatives’ Accountability.

For that reason they oppose any attempt to Restore California’s old system. Its low level of Competition was appalling, both in Primaries and in General Elections. Even when Third Parties and Independents were on the November Ballot, the Vote-for-One, Plurality Voting system sidelined them as “spoilers” or “irrelevant.”

The biggest complaints about the Nonpartisan Primary system are tied to only Two Candidates advancing from the Primary. The practical effect of only advancing Two Candidates, especially when several Candidates are on the Ballot, is that some credible Candidates may not advance to November. This can leave Third Parties, Independents, and even a Major Party from having a Candidate on the General Election Ballot.

The Independent Voter Project supported the Top-Two format, specifically, to ensure that a Candidate needs a Majority Vote to win in November. But we should not, and do not have to, go back to the Old, Party-Centric, and Uncompetitive system to expand Voter choice, provide more Opportunity for Third Parties, and Independents, and advance Voter-Centric Reform even further.

Enter the Application of RCV to a Primary that advances the “Top-Four” Candidates instead of just Two. It’s simple. Double the November choices by advancing Four Candidates out of the Primary, allow Write-In Candidates, and enact RCV to give Voters more Voice, avoid Vote-Splitting, and ensure Majority Rule.

Don't be surprised if some Party insiders use this year’s Elections as a pretext to seek a return California to its Old Incumbent-friendly system. That isn’t going to fly. Instead we should be talking about model Legislation like Top-Four Primaries with RCV that can help bring Voter-Centric Reform to more States.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Legislators Talk New Data on Electoral Reform

Yesterday, FairVote hosted a Briefing on Capitol Hill which featured New Public Opinion Data on Three Key Electoral Reforms:

- Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV)
- Multi-Member Districts
- Congressional Redistricting with Nonpartisan Commissions

Three Members of Congress, Rep. Don Beyer (D, VA-8th District), Rep. Jim Cooper (D, TN-5th District), and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D, MD-8th District), were joined by FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie and FairVote New Mexico Director Maria Perez at the Event, convened for Hill Staffers, Members of the Press. and Reform Activists.

A New Survey of Voters reveals Majority Support for Three Key Electoral Reforms that would give Voters a greater Voice at the Ballot box and more Fair Representation in Government, while tempering the Partisan Rancor that Dominates American Politics.

It finds Support for Major Changes to the way Americans Elect Members of Congress, including RCV, Multi-Winner Districts, and Citizen Redistricting Commissions, which are the Three Pillars included within the Fair Representation Act (HR 3057).

The Study was conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation, and the Results were Released at a Briefing on Capitol Hill.

All Three Proposals were seen as at least Tolerable by more than Two-Thirds of Respondents, including Super-Majorities of Republicans and Democrats. Not surprisingly, given the Outcry over Partisan Gerrymandering in recent months and Two Cases currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, Redrawing Congressional District Lines with Nonpartisan Citizen Commissions is Supported by the Largest Number of Voters at 66%, including 53% of Republicans, 80% of Democrats, and 62% of Independents.

RCV, the Election Method that allows Voters to Rank Candidates in order of Preference, is favored by 55% of Respondents, including 46% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats, and 55% of Independents.

Multi-Winner Districts are favored by 55% of Respondents. This includes 44% of Republicans, 66% of Democrats, and 54% of Independents. Such Districts combined with RCV, would facilitate Candidates getting Elected by Constituencies normally Shut Out in the current Single-Winner District Configuration, more Republicans Elected in States like California and Massachusetts, more Democrats Elected in States like Oklahoma and Tennessee, and more Women and People of Color across the Country.

“It’s encouraging to see that voters are ready to embrace these proposals even as many are still learning about them,” said FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie. “Americans want more fair representation, a stronger democracy, and a more responsive government that works together for the common good. These three proposals – all components of the Fair Representation Act – are essential for us to get there.”

The In-Depth Survey was conducted Online and it provided Respondents with a Background Briefing on the Issues as well as strongly-worded Arguments for and against each Proposal. Before asking Respondents for a Final Recommendation on the Question, they were asked to assess each Proposal as Acceptable, Tolerable, and Unacceptable.

RCV

- 70% of Voters responded with a Positive Evaluation, 52% Acceptable, 18% Tolerable, and 29% Unacceptable.

- 78% of Democrats have a Favorable View, 59% Acceptable, 19% Tolerable, and 21% Unacceptable.
- 70% of Independents have a Favorable View, 52% Acceptable, 18% Tolerable, and 30% Unacceptable.
- 62% of Republicans have a Favorable View, 44% Acceptable, 18% Tolerable, and 37% Unacceptable.

Nonpartisan Congressional Redistricting by Citizen Commissions

Nationally, a very strong Majority of Voters have a Positive Assessment:

- 80% find the Proposal Favorable.
- 62% calling it Acceptable.
- 18% Tolerable.
- 19% Unacceptable.

- 70% of Republicans hold a Positive View, 53% who find the Proposal Acceptable, 17% Tolerable, and 29% Unacceptable.

- Eight-in-Ten Independents hold a Favorable Assessment, including 61% Acceptable, 19% Tolerable, and 20% Unacceptable.

Multi-Member Districts

- Received an equally Strong Assessment Nationally: 50% Acceptable, 21% Tolerable, 27% Unacceptable.

- More than Six-in-Ten Republicans, 65%, view it Positively, 43% Acceptable, 22% Tolerable, and 34% Unacceptable.

- 78% of Democrats hold a Favorable View, 56% Acceptable, 22% Tolerable, and 20% Unacceptable.

- Nearly Seven-in-Ten Independents, 68%, have a Favorable View, 48% Acceptable, 20% Tolerable, and 28% Unacceptable.

The survey was conducted with a National Probability-based Sample of 2,482 Registered Voters, provided by Nielsen Scarborough. It was fielded Sept. 7th – Oct. 3rd, 2017, with a Margin of Error is +/- 2.0 percent.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Are Instant Runoffs a Better Way to Vote?

Maine’s Gubernatorial races often feature more than two candidates, and for 50 years, none of them has won a first term with majority support. Fed up with unpopular Chief Executives who lack mandates for their proposals, voters will decide in November whether to adopt Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV), or Ranked-Choice Voting, system whenever there are more than two candidates.

If voters approve the measure, Maine would become the first State to use IVR in Primary and General elections for U.S. Senators and Representatives, Governor, and State Senators and Representatives, starting in 2018.

“When you explain it to people, they like the idea,” said Jill Ward, President of the League of Women Voters of Maine, which spearheaded the referendum. Under the current system, “people assume somebody who wins gets the majority of votes, but they don’t.”

In four of Maine’s last nine Gubernatorial elections, the winner received less than 40% of the vote. A 2011 League of Women Voters study of alternative voting systems found that IRV was “the best way to ensure a majority vote in competitive, single-seat, multi-candidate elections.”

Eight states hold Primary runoffs when no candidate wins a majority, in State Legislative races: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. North Carolina holds a runoff if no candidate in a State race wins at least 40% of the vote. South Dakota has a runoff only for Governor and Federal officials. Vermont holds a runoff only in case of a tie and only in Local elections. In New York City, if Mayor, Public Advocate, or Comptroller do not receive 40% or more of the vote, there is a Top-Two runoff.

But traditional runoffs are costly to Local Governments and often draw a sparse turnout.

Interest among State Legislators in IRV appears to be growing, said Wendy Underhill, Program Director for Elections and Redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Although, she added, “It’s hard to pass a bill changing the electoral system.”

State Legislators in Maine first introduced IVR Legislation in 2001, when the Governor was an independent. They did again when the Governor was a Democrat, and once more during the term of current Republican Gov. Paul LePage. When the bills went nowhere, the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting-Maine collected 73,000 signatures for the Citizen ballot initiative.

Nationwide, Governors are increasingly elected without a majority. Ten Governors were elected without a majority in 2014. In this decade, the rate of Governors winning without a majority is higher than any decade in the last 100 years.

Dissatisfaction with the Democratic and Republican parties has led to rising support for third parties. The Libertarian Party has been recognized, enabling its candidates to get on ballots, in 33 states, the Green Party in 21 states, and the Constitution Party in 15 states. Fourteen states considered 27 bills related to IVR during the 2016 Legislative session, but none became law, according to NCSL.

In California, a measure authorizing Local Governments to use IRV under certain circumstances passed in August with bipartisan support and was sent to the Governor for his signature. In addition to Maine, IVR bills were introduced in Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Rhode Island considered a Constitutional Amendment for IRV. Bills giving some or all localities the option of IRV were also considered in Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York. Georgia and Vermont weighed using IRV for military and overseas voters.

Four state Legislatures: Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina, already have approved IRVi for military and overseas voters, who send in their IRV ballot with their Primary ballot. Mississippi’s Board of Elections, under pressure from the U.S. Justice Department, approved IRV for military and overseas voters in 2014.

The number of bills involving IRV in State Legislatures has been on the rise: from 17 bills in 2012, to 20 bills in 2014, to this year’s 27.

Proponents of IRV say that when candidates have to run to be some voters’ second or third choice, they become more civil and broaden their positions. And the voting system can affect voters’ behavior, too.

In plurality elections, in which the candidate with the most votes wins, third-party and independent candidates are often discouraged from running as spoilers, and voters are often reluctant to “waste” their votes by picking a candidate who’s unlikely to win, Bullock said. An IRV allows voters to cast a first vote as a sincere vote as opposed to a strategic vote. But Bullock said: “Anyone who has been successful under the existing rules thinks they’re pretty good.”

Critics, including Maine’s LePage, who was elected twice with less than 50% of the vote, contend the ballot initiative is politically motivated. LePage, who is giving “very serious thought” to running for the U.S. Senate in 2018, has urged citizens to “just say no” to the IRV referendum. “This is just another way for sore losers to try and overturn election results they don’t like,” LePage said in a radio address in May. Besides, Maine’s Constitution requires plurality elections. “It’s that simple,” he said.

Maine Attorney General Janet Mills said in an opinion in March, “It may not be possible to implement ranked-choice voting as envisioned … without amending the Maine Constitution.” Other Attorneys and Law Professors in the State disagree.

Bringing IRV to Maine would cost about $550,000 for software upgrades with the Secretary of State’s office, ballot printing and public safety, said Kyle Bailey, Campaign Manager of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting-Maine.

Twenty years ago, if you were interested in IRV, you had to look outside the United States. IRV is used to elect the Australian House of Representatives, the President of Ireland and Party Leaders in the United Kingdom and Canada.

Then San Francisco adopted IRV in 2002 for Local elections. Nine other cities have followed, including Portland, Maine.

Today, IRV has growing bipartisan support in the U.S. Among those who’ve endorsed it: President Barack Obama, who as an Illinois State Senator introduced an IRV bill for Statewide and Congressional Primaries in 2002, and U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican Presidential nominee in 2008.

Legislators in states with traditional runoffs are more likely to consider IRV. In Georgia, where Primary runoff turnout has been as low as 12% of eligible voters, Republican State Rep. Buzz Brockway proposed a Commission to study IRV and hit a wall.
“What in the world are you doing?” His colleagues said. “I think we ought to at least sit down and talk about it,” he said.

Even if states were ready to switch to instant runoffs, though, they face a practical obstacle in technology. “Policymakers often think it’s the right way to go but then bump into reality,” said Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote, a Nonpartisan Election Reform Group that advocates for IRV. “Their current voting equipment can’t do it.” Vendors are waiting for more localities to adopt instant runoffs, and localities are waiting for vendors, he said.

When North Carolina tried IRV for a Judicial election in 2010, State Elections officials had to sort ballots manually for the second and third rounds, said Gary Bartlett, who was Director of the North Carolina Board of Elections for 20 years. “You can’t push one button and have everything work. What we had in North Carolina was a workaround, but it worked,” he said. The Republican-controlled Legislature repealed instant runoffs in 2013 as part of a package of election laws.

There’s also a question about whether IRV delivers a majority winner. “The notion that it guarantees a true majority winner is a lie,” declared Maine State Rep. Heather Sirocki, a Republican.

FairVote seems to acknowledge the limits of the system on its website: “When used as an ‘instant runoff’ to elect a single candidate like a mayor or a governor, [ranked-choice voting] helps elect a candidate that better reflects the support of a majority of voters.”

A 2014 academic study concluded that IRV “does not ensure that the winning candidate will have received a majority of all votes cast, only a majority of all valid votes in the final round of tallying.” This is because ballots become “exhausted” and are discarded along the way, when the voter marked only one or two candidates or marked the same candidate twice or candidates were eliminated before the final round.

The finding “raises serious concerns about [instant runoffs] and challenges a key argument made by the system’s proponents,” wrote the study’s Co-Authors, Craig Burnett of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and Vladimir Kogan of Ohio State.

One of the four Local Elections Burnett and Kogan studied was that of Tony Santos, Mayor of San Leandro, in the Bay Area of California, who blames his re-election defeat on a 2010 IRV that went six rounds. Santos had won in a regular runoff four years earlier but had spent $35,000 of his own money, and the runoff cost the city $200,000, he said. “So I came out in support of instant runoff voting. It sounded like a good deal, and you avoid the cost of a runoff,” he said. He had four competitors and turnout was low. When the votes were first counted, Santos was 74 votes ahead but had only 36% of the vote. By the sixth and final round, the winner beat Santos by about 200 votes and had 51% to Santos’ 49% of the remaining vote. The winner held a majority over Santos but his share of the total votes cast was 46%, not a majority. “If we’d stayed with the plurality, I would have won,” Santos said.

Another option is Approval Voting. In this Primary method, you check a box on all the candidates you like. All your choices are counted, and the candidate with the most vote wins.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Change State’s Primary Election to Top-Four System

Primary Election voters have all the fun. And a lot of the power.

Those who wait and only mark their ballots for the General Election, rather than participate in the Primary, see only the narrowest selection of candidates, having left to Primary voters the task of winnowing down the field to the Top Two candidates.

Washington State’s Primary Elections, since 2008, have used the Top-Two system to determine who moves on to the General Election for all partisan Local, State and Federal offices except the President. Only three other states, California, Louisiana and Nebraska, use some form of the Top-Two Primary.

Louisiana went further and runs their Primary as a General Election in November with a Top-Two runoff if a candidate does not reached a majority, 50%+1.

Most States use either Closed Primaries, requiring voters to register a Party preference and limiting voting to only those candidates of the declared Party, or Open Primaries, where voters don’t declare a Party but are still limited to voting for one Party’s candidates.

Since the 1930s, Washington State voters, who had long prided themselves on their independence, had used a Blanket Primary to select candidates for the General Election. The Blanket Primary allowed them to choose, for example, a Democrat in one race, a Republican in another, and a Third-Party candidate in yet another. But the Blanket Primary was declared unconstitutional in 2003 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

But this type of voting would be the ideal voting system. The Voters select their candidates, not the Parties.

To replace it Washington State voters in 2004 passed Initiative 872, which approved the switch to the Top-Two primary. Court challenges delayed its implementation until 2008.

But while the Top-Two system preserves the ability of voters to vote across Party lines for individual candidates in the Primary, it has resulted in some peculiarities.

Washington State’s Primary, as the name suggests, moves the Top-Two candidates to the General Election, regardless of Party affiliation. Last November, for example, that meant that after the Primary Election the race for Snohomish County Executive offered a choice of two Democrats: Dave Somers and John Lovick. Likewise, other races, particularly for legislative seats, have offered a General Election choice between two Republicans or two Democrats. California also has seen this happening more and more.

There are other drawbacks to Top-Two.

Top-Two also is a disadvantage for those candidates from Third Parties or independents, again limiting choice for the General Election when there’s increased interest recently in an alternative to the two Major Parties.

But an alternative is suggested by a nonprofit organization called FairVote that advocates for Election and other democratic reforms. Among the reforms it suggests are Election of the President by popular vote rather than the Electoral College, Ranked-Choice Voting and Opening Primary Elections to 17-year-olds.

Fun fact: FairVote’s Board Chairman is Krist Novoselic, the politically minded former bass guitarist for groundbreaking grunge band Nirvana.

FairVote’s proposed reform, called Top-Four, would keep the basics of Washington’s Primary while expanding the field for the General Election from two candidates to four. Any candidate receiving at least 20% of the Primary vote and finishing among the top four candidates would make the ballot in November.

Top-Four, FairVote says on its website, would increase the likelihood of at least one Democrat and one Republican qualifying for the General Election, and would also improve the chances for Third-Party candidates and independents. And it could limit instances where one Party benefits and wins both General Election spots if a large field of candidates from the other party splits its supporters’ votes.

Washington State’s voters, seeking to preserve the split-ticket voting they enjoyed under the Blanket Primary, approved I-872’s Top-Two Primary with nearly 60% of the vote. The Top Four primary could keep that independence while enhancing voters’ choices in the General Election.

CLICK HERE for more information about FairVote.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

How and Why to Truly Slay the Gerrymander

On Friday, April 22nd, FairVote and Congressmember Don Beyer’s (D-Virginia) office are hosting an informative panel discussion on Capitol Hill about Gerrymandering in Congressional elections and innovative solutions to fixing the problem.

Place:

Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2318
45 Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC 20515

Time: 10am - 11am

Presenters will be introducing an exciting proposal for Congress that gets to the root cause of Gerrymandering.

Congressman Beyer is in his first term and represents the 8th district, adjacent to Washington, D.C.

The hearing room holds 100 people, so CLICK HERE to RSVP.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Introducing the Public Primary

FairVote is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt, publicly supported organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code. Board members act in an individual capacity and not as a representation of any political affiliation. Members’ political affiliations do not constitute an endorsement by FairVote. FairVote does not support, endorse, or oppose any political party or candidate. Any comments made by a board member acting in his/her individual capacity are personal and do not reflect FairVote’s views.

Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote believes that every vote should matter and be heard in every public election. The fundamental goal of any Primary election system should be to help foster a General election that will include meaningful choices, real competition, and fair representation. That said, a Primary election system funded by the taxpayers ideally will allow voters real choices among an array of candidates, encourage both positive and inclusive Primary campaigns, and elect or advance winners that are reflective of as many voters as possible.

He highlights a new proposal: the “Public Primary”. First proposed last year by Chad Peace of the Independent Voter Project as an “all independent primary,” the idea has taken more shape in the succeeding months. Chad now calls it a Public Primary.

Here’s how it could work:

- Maintain without change all current ways to get onto the General election ballot. If a party holds a closed Primary contest, it could continue to do so. Ballot access for independents and minor parties would be preserved.

- Establish a new “Public Primary” to take place simultaneously with the party primaries that would be open to any candidate, including some who might be seeking a party nomination, and any voter, including some who might be voting in a Party Primary.

- Advance the winner of the Public Primary to the General election. If any candidate won a Party Primary, that candidate would have to accept the Party nomination and be eliminated from the Public Primary before running the ranked choice voting tally.

- Have candidates on the General election ballot list any nomination they received, just as now. The candidate securing a spot on the General election from the Public Primary would also have the option to indicate a preferred party. So the ballot might read “Jill Lopez, Public Primary. Prefers Republican.”

- Use ranked choice voting in both the “Public Primary” and the General election to accommodate the expected increase in voter choice in those contests. A State ideally would use Ranked-Choice Voting within Party Primaries as well.

When evaluating the idea last year as part of their project assessing the impact of 37 structural reforms, both FairVote and participating scholars suggested it would have relatively low impact. At that point, they interpreted its main value as voters always being able to participate in a government-funded Primary even if unaffiliated or registered with a Party not holding a nominating contest. But his broader definition of the Public Primary proposal suggests it could have a far more significant impact.

Consider the U.S. Senate race in Delaware in 2010. That year, Republican U.S. House Member Mike Castle sought his party’s nomination for an open seat and would have been favored in November if winning the nomination. However, Castle was upset by Christine O’Donnell, a strong backer of the Tea Party, who then was handily defeated in November by the Democratic nominee. If a Public Primary had been available, Castle certainly would have contested it, and likely been its winner, giving him an alternate route to the General election ballot. Similarly, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski would not have needed to mount a write-in campaign after being upset by Joe Miller in the Republican Primary in 2010. Former House majority leader Eric Cantor might have had another chance to win in Virginia in 2014 after losing his House Primary.

The Public Primary is not designed to reward one viewpoint over another. If Cantor had won the Republican nomination in 2014, for example, Dave Brat might have secured a spot in November through the Public Primary and presented voters with an additional choice.

He sees the Public Primary as achieving significant pro-democracy goals, including:

- Every voter could vote in a Primary contest, unlike with the status quo in which a growing number of Americans are excluded from Closed Primaries due to their choice of party affiliation.

- Parties would maintain their freedom of association, and no candidate currently securing a place on the November ballot would be denied that opportunity.

- The General election ballot would usually have a significant number of additional candidates for voters to consider in November, when turnout is higher and more representative.

- Ranked-Choice Voting would avoid split votes and “spoiled elections” for all races with more than two candidates, giving voters greater freedom to consider their favorite candidates and encouraging candidates to reach out beyond their base.

Certainly, the Public Primary is much more in keeping with the traditions of our Founders and the first century of our elections than proposals like the Top-Two Primary that address some problems with our status quo at the expense of limiting voter choice to two in November. As FairVote explain in amicus briefs to the Supreme Court last year in cases challenging Closed Primaries in New Jersey and the Top-Two Primary in California, the United States is virtually alone in paying for Party Primaries, which was begun in the early 1900s. For most of the 19th century, we also did not have a government-printed ballot. In other words, for much our nation’s history, the government did not sanction parties, there was very limited voter registration and there was no question of “ballot access” in November. Rather, parties were private associations that brought people together to organize politically to recruit candidates, nominate them and mobilize voters to support them. They typically asked voters in the General election to use the ballots that the party created that only listed the candidates they supported.

Having the government today use its power to limit who runs in November and to deny showing association on the ballot is problematic, and undercuts Representative Democracy when it limits voter choice and weakens the right of political association.

The “Public Primary” avoids those pitfalls.

FairVote will continuing to develop and hone the “Public Primary” proposal this month before formally recommending it to their Board of Directors as an “innovation” alongside other FairVote backed proposals to revamp our Primaries such as the Top-Four Primary and the Open Ticket system.

CLICK HERE for more information about FaiVote and the “Public Primary”.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

How to Fix Early Voting Problems With Ranked-Choice Voting

As the first results came in from Arizona on Tuesday night, observers were in for a surprise. Nearly one in five votes in the Republican Presidential Primary had been cast for Marco Rubio, who had withdrawn from the campaign a week before. In fact Rubio was third, close behind Ted Cruz. Were Arizona voters insanely loyal or was something else going on?

What happened was that Arizona has early voting, and many voters took advantage of it. That’s good for making sure you cast your vote, especially given Arizona’s indefensibly long lines on Election Day that resulted in disenfranchisement. But the number of people who failed to vote due to long lines was nothing compared to the 95,429 votes, that’s 18% of all Republican Primary votes cast, that were tallied for Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and seven other candidates who had withdrawn from the race. Making it even worse a higher percentage of such votes were cast by military voters overseas.

Rob Richie of FairVote has a solution.

There’s a straightforward fix to this problem: allow people to vote early, but using a Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) ballot. In fact, several states that have experienced this problem,Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, already send a RCV ballot to overseas voters in Congressional elections that might go to a runoff. In those elections, the RCV ballot is counted in the runoff for whichever runoff candidate is ranked highest on that voter’s ballot. That way, they can hold the runoff relatively close to the first round and uphold Federal law protecting overseas military voters.

Early voting specialist Paul Gronke and Richie first proposed this idea in a 2012 Roll Call commentary, with a focus on overseas voters. FairVote has also written a policy guide brief on it, with sample legislation, and at least two states introduced bills on the idea last year, Massachusetts and Vermont. This election season underscores that this right should not be limited only to overseas voters, given more than half a million voters so far have lost their vote this way this cycle.

The next logical step would be to use RCV for Election Day voters as well, with the system first used to allocate delegates by reducing the field to candidates above the threshold for delegate allocation, the reducing the field two to see who wins the state head-to-head. This cycle has provided dramatic evidence of the value of such comprehensive use of RCV, proposal, but it’s particularly appalling to see so many votes lost. Let’s make this the last Presidential election cycle allowing such disenfranchisement.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Potomac Compact for Fair Representation

Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote and Austin Plier, Communications and Outreach Specialist for FairVote, write about the Potomac Compact for Fair Representation.

Many have called for a National solution to Gerrymandering, but Maryland does not have to wait. Change certainly is needed. Maryland’s obviously manipulated Congressional districts have produced results that skew in favor of Democrats. Only one of eight seats is held by a Republican, and white male Democrats hold five seats in a state where they make up about a sixth of the voting population. No district is likely to be competitive in November.

At least four bills designed to curb gerrymandering were introduced this legislative session, including ones backed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and by legislative leaders. But one bill stood out as an innovative approach that could establish Maryland as a reform leader.

Legislators have a moral obligation to voters to find a state-based solution when one is available. Their best option is SB762, the Potomac Compact for Fair Representation. Unlike other redistricting reform bills, the Potomac Compact would end a national standoff on redistricting reform by proposing an interstate compact that gives state negotiators the ability to use electoral systems to make such compacts work for voters and for partisans.

FairVote projects that Democrats would need some 55 percent of the vote to win a House majority this year. In 2012, Democrats won the popular vote in House races, but Republicans still had a 33-seat advantage.

Establishing an interstate compact is key. Maryland Democrats won’t take action that puts Democrats further behind nationally. The bill would initiate a compact to be negotiated with Virginia, with a Republican legislature and gerrymander, and any additional states necessary to make such a compact work. The idea is that any seats Maryland Democrats might lose would be balanced with gains elsewhere. Having a compact would bind states entering the agreement, unlike passage of separate laws that could then be repealed.

The bill also would allow negotiators to truly end gerrymandering through use of multi-winner districts with candidate-based forms of proportional voting. Voters would elect between three and five representatives in larger districts, and like-minded voters would always earn their fair share of seats. Already proven at a local level, such fair representation systems are the only way to ensure true voter choice everywhere in a state and provide a natural means to increase representation of women and people of color.

They also are key to an effective compact because states will have a more reliable understanding of how many seats each party would win in both states. With winner-take-all elections, putting districting in the hands of a commission is no guarantee of proportional outcomes by party. In 2014, for example, California Democrats earned far more seats than the proportional amount of votes would suggest.

Having fair-representation voting means fair outcomes based on voters’ partisan preferences. Maryland Democrats would reliably earn either five or six, not seven, of the state’s eight districts. Virginia Republicans would reliably win between five and seven, rather than eight, of the state’s 11 districts. Partisan ramifications would be a wash over time, but voters in both states would be accurately represented and finally could participate in competitive elections.

The compact points to a better way nationally. Any system of winner-take-all elections will result in most districts being safe for one party and allow one party to win more seats even with fewer votes. To make the “peoples’ house” truly responsive to voters, Congress should pass a statute to require fair-representation plans in all states.

As the only legislative proposal that combines an interstate compact with the possibility of fair-representation voting, the Potomac Compact is the most comprehensive and politically viable redistricting bill on the table in Maryland. Members of the General Assembly have an opportunity to do right by voters while also taking a leading role nationally to resolve the disastrous effects of gerrymandering. It’s time to seize that opportunity and stand up for Maryland voters.

CLICK HERE for information about SB762.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Analyzing Top-Two and Ranked-Choice Voting

FairVote is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that seeks to make democracy fair, functional, and more representative. they research and propose common sense changes to strengthen our democracy and ensure all voices are heard and every vote counts in every election. Operating since 1992 and with a staff of more than 20 people in 2016, yhey work with scholars, civic leaders, policymakers, journalists and national, state, and local reform partners to advance fairer elections.

This post is about "Simulating Top Two Primary in Michigan and North Carolina Reveals Correctable Problem" from the Executive Director, Rob Richie.

The Presidential Primary season presents a lot of important angles for understanding electoral rules, particularly involving the impact of using a plurality voting system instead of ranked choice voting and using winner-take-all delegate rules instead of proportional representation ones.

The primaries also help demonstrate the limitations of the Top-Two Primary system as compared to the improvement provided by the Top-Four Primary with Ranked-Choice voting. Top-Two has benefits like allowing all voters to participate on an equal basis in primaries and creating incentives for winners to reach out to more voters than they would under the status quo in order to win, but it can be an awkward instrument. As we sometimes see happen in actual Top-Two elections, vote fractures can result in unrepresentative outcomes, ones that can deny one major party a place in the General election even when its candidates collectively earn the most votes.

Take recent Presidential primaries in Michigan and North Carolina. The Republican and Democratic primaries took place on the same day, a fully open Primary in Michigan in which any registered voter could choose either party's ballot, and a semi-open Primary ballot in North Carolina where unaffiliated voters could take either major party ballot. Although the Presidential candidates weren't running against one another across party lines, the results are still reasonably indicative of what might have happened if they were.

In both primaries, a majority of voters chose to participate in the Republican contest, but the Democratic candidates were the two highest vote-getters. Here are the results, as reported in the New York Times, and with independent Bernie Sanders listed as a Democrat given his choice to participate in its Primary.

North Carolina
Total votes for Republicans - 1,138,718
Total votes for Democrats - 1,129,241
Hillary Clinton (D) - 616,383
Bernie Sanders (D - 460,316
Donald Trump (R) - 458,151
Ted Cruz (R) - 418,740
John Kasich (R) - 144,299
Marco Rubio (R) - 87,858
Other (D) - 52,542
Other (R) - 29,670

Michigan
Total votes for Republicans - 1,324,621
Total votes for Democrats - 1,194,643
Bernie Sanders (D) -595,222
Hillary Clinton (D) - 576,795
Donald Trump (R) - 483,751
Ted Cruz (R) - 330,015
John Kasich (R) - 321,655
Marco Rubio (R) -123,673
Other (D) - 22,626
Other (R) - 65,527

In other words, voters in the General election in November in two battleground states, with Michigan leaning toward Democrats and North Carolina toward Republicans, would have only had Democrats to choose using Top-Two. Clinton and Sanders also would have been the only candidates to advance under Top-Two in primaries that took place in Massachusetts and Illinois, states where they also collectively won more votes than Republicans. Clinton and Sanders nearly would have done so in two battleground states where Republicans won the most Primary votes and the Democratic contests were too lopsided to take advantage of the split votes among Republicans, New Hampshire and Virginia.

Although Republicans generally have earned more votes than Democrats in primaries held on the same day, their fracturing of the vote has meant that they only would have shut out Democrats from the General election in the swing state of Ohio.

Top-Two still is fairer than a one-round plurality vote election where the single candidate on the top of the heap is the winner, however. For example, in Hawaiian Congressional vacancy elections, all candidates for office appear on the same ballot, so all Democrats and all Republicans and all others, and the candidate with the most votes wins. If this were used in the Presidential primaries, it would have some truly bizarre results. Not only would Sanders have won Michigan and Clinton won in North Carolina, despite Republicans collectively earning the most votes, but Clinton would have carried South Carolina despite Republican candidates winning nearly twice as many votes as Democrats.

This year's elections are showcasing the increasingly problematic nature of our current electoral system. They also underscore the value of incorporating the Instant Runoff form of Ranked-Choice voting to achieve results that better respect voters and uphold Representative Democracy.

CLICK HERE for more information about FairVote.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

What If the GOP Had Used Ranked-Choice Voting?

How would the Republican Primary have played out differently if the GOP had used a system of Ranked-Choice Voting, allowing voters to rank all the candidates in order?

A guess is that the establishment candidates would have spent more time taking on Trump and less time attacking each other.

In ranked-choice voting, all candidates are not only competing to be the voters' top choice but are also competing to be the voters' second and third choice.

So rather than Rubio and Bush trying to take each other down, they would have had far more incentive to both say something like, Vote for one us, but whatever you do, don't vote for Trump, and then let their surrogate Super PACs act on it, going after Trump instead of each other.

After this election, GOP leaders will almost certainly be doing some deep thinking about how they run their Primary process.

They ought to put Ranked-Choice Voting on the table. They would get fewer unpleasant surprises that way.

The good news from a FairVote survey is that Republican voters like Ranked-Choice Voting, 57 percent, say the GOP should indeed use it in its primaries.

The survey was done by the College of William and Mary and FairVote, which asked Republican voters to rank the candidates in order of preference a few weeks ago, when there were more candidates.

CLICK HERE to read the 75 page survey titled "How Better Polling Tells Us What Republican Voters Really Think" created on Feb. 18.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

SC Republican Primary With Ranked Choice Voting

As part of FairVote's ongoing series based on Public Policy Poll (PPP) polls, they have done a simulation based on the latest South Carolina poll from PPP of a ranked choice voting contest in which the first round results are compared to what happens when the trailing candidates are eliminated and the field is reduced to three, and when the last-place finisher is eliminated and the field is reduced to two.

Interact and watch what happens:



This simulation is almost certainly what would happen with ranked choice voting in which voters rank the candidates in order of choice, and ballot-counting follows this same algorithm. Although Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio trail Trump by 35% to 18% in first choices, the contest dramatically changes once Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. John Kasich, and Dr. Ben Carson are eliminated. Rubio moves into second, well ahead of Cruz. Once Cruz is eliminated after the second round, his voters overwhelmingly back Rubio over Trump. In the final round with only Trump and Rubio, it’s a statistical tie.

Observations

- The first round margin in the PPP poll is similar to the margins in the New Hampshire primary. Despite his landslide win in a fractured field, their analysis of PPP polling there indicated Trump might well have lost in a one-on-one contest. Keep in mind that he barely edged out Hillary Clinton in popular votes, and was far behind the votes won by Bernie Sanders, a fair comparison given that unaffiliated voters in New Hampshire can choose which contest to vote in. Notably, if New Hampshire’s results governed who went to the November ballot and it used the “Top Two”: primary results, Trump only narrowly would have squeaked onto the November ballot despite more New Hampshire voters overall choosing to vote in the Republican contest than the Democratic one.

- To underscore how Trump’s tactics for the moment are lowering his ceiling of support, the PPP data shows that Cruz voters give 32% of their second choices to Rubio, and only 11% to Trump. In contrast, before Trump started attacking Cruz, the November 2015 PPP poll in South Carolina showed that Trump and Rubio were essentially tied as the second choice of Cruz voters, with Trump securing 19% and Rubio 22%.

- Some voting method reformers support approval voting, which would elect the candidate with the highest rate of approval. In this system, a voter approving more than one candidate will have their vote count for more than one candidate at the same time, and a candidate can lose despite being the first choice of more than half of voters. The PPP data reveals that Ben Carson right now might win an approval voting contest going way, as his approval rate of 68% is far higher than that of Rubio (58%), Kasich (52%), Trump (50%), Cruz (42%) and Bush (41%).

Such results underscore FairVote’s concerns regarding the viability of an approval voting system in meaningfully contested elections.

CLICK HERE to read the 82 page (PDF) Public Policy Poll report.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

13 States Consider Ranked Choice Voting in 2016

FairVote produced this chart.

With a new year comes a new legislative session in state houses around the U.S. 2016 has seen state legislators nationwide use this opportunity to empower voters by introducing bills that create new uses of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) at the state and local levels.

Just one month into this year’s session, at least 27 Pro-RCV bills have been introduced in 13 states and the District of Columbia.

Arizona: HB 2283

District of Columbia: B21-0002 A Washington bill that has passed one chamber would allow localities to resolve voting rights challenges with a multi-winner version of RCV.

Georgia: SB 102 Call to join the five jurisdictions already providing ranked ballots to overseas and military voters.

Hawaii: SB 623 Would have RCV used in elections for state-level offices.

Indiana: SB 277

Maine: (See The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting)

Maryland: MC 15-16, SB 762 Lawmakers are discussing legislation that would enable local governments to use RCV. Another Maryland bill would establish an interstate compact to use fair representation voting methods such as ranked choice voting for congressional elections.

Massachusetts: HB 575 Call to join the five jurisdictions already providing ranked ballots to overseas and military voters.

Minnesota: HB 1280 lawmakers are discussing legislation that would enable local governments to use RCV.

New Jersey: A1762 Lawmakers are discussing legislation that would enable local governments to use RCV.

New York: SB 2738, SB 2741 Lawmakers are discussing legislation that would enable local governments to use RCV. New York again will debate legislation to establish RCV for New York City’s citywide Primary elections that passed the State Senate last year with a large bipartisan majority.

Rhode Island: HB 7311, a three page (PDF) Would have RCV used in elections for state-level offices.

Bill in Vermont calls for the state to join the five jurisdictions already providing ranked ballots to overseas and military voters.

FairVote anticipates even more bills that advance RCV will be introduced later this year in other states and in Congress.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker