Transform American Democracy and Transform the World

Graf­fiti voic­ing frus­tra­tion with elec­toral politics

We live in a time of immense chal­lenges, amid inter­na­tional upheaval, eco­log­i­cal imbal­ance, and eco­nomic uncer­tainty. Humanity’s capac­ity to improve lives may never have been greater, yet it is matched by new pow­ers to destroy and divide. Unfor­tu­nately, our gov­ern­ment has failed to meet these chal­lenges. Despite obvi­ous hunger for polit­i­cal change, too many Amer­i­cans are stuck with a “lesser of two evils” choice with­out a viable can­di­date to speak for them. Deci­sions to vote are moti­vated far more by fear than by hope.

Per­haps it’s no sur­prise, then, that many of our nation’s most fer­vent and astute believ­ers in change aban­don rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy and any hope to win seats and trans­form gov­ern­ment power and pol­icy. Instead they focus on non-electoral orga­niz­ing, from high-profile move­ments like Occupy Wall Street to the less noticed, yet indis­pens­able work of pro­tect­ing and secur­ing local progress.

Their efforts are wor­thy, of course, but the expe­ri­ence sug­gests that such efforts’ effec­tive­ness is great­est when com­bined with elec­toral pol­i­tics. Engag­ing with the peo­ple of a com­mu­nity, state, or nation in the enter­prise of seek­ing votes and win­ning rep­re­sen­ta­tion pro­vides a means to build pub­lic sup­port and, ulti­mately, make a gov­ern­ment an ally in seek­ing change. In clashes between cor­po­rate power and peo­ple, it’s bet­ter to have gov­ern­ment on your side as an instru­ment of the pub­lic good.

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Many of our nation’s most fer­vent and astute believ­ers in change aban­don rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy and any hope to win seats and trans­form gov­ern­ment power and pol­icy.
Instead they focus on non-electoral orga­niz­ing.
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The glar­ing dis­con­nect between the urgent demands of the times and the pas­sion and tal­ent of Amer­i­can activists on the one hand, and our nar­row, depress­ingly sta­tic elec­toral pol­i­tics on the other is rooted in out­dated vot­ing and gov­ern­ing laws that dis­cour­age cre­ativ­ity, depress com­pe­ti­tion, dimin­ish debate, and destroy accountability.

It’s time for elec­toral reforms designed to embrace the beauty and power of peo­ple com­ing together for the com­mon good. Activists from the Tea Party, No Labels, Occupy, and less pub­li­cized move­ments may often dis­agree on pol­icy, but we all ulti­mately ben­e­fit from trans­lat­ing their energy into a voice in gov­ern­ment. Doing so demands elec­toral reforms designed to uphold core prin­ci­ples: Fair elec­tions demand real choices no mat­ter where you live. Real rep­re­sen­ta­tion means being able to join with like-minded peo­ple to elect can­di­dates in pro­por­tion to your vot­ing strength. Pri­vate money must not exag­ger­ate the power of the few. Democ­racy rests on our ongo­ing participation.

Cer­tainly other nations have long ago stopped imi­tat­ing the Amer­i­can model. Nearly all democ­ra­cies hold at least one of their national leg­isla­tive elec­tions with pro­por­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tion rather than winner-take-all rules that exclude so many peo­ple from shar­ing power. No well-established nation (with a pres­i­den­tial office that wields real power) has an Elec­toral Col­lege, and few have plu­ral­ity vot­ing. Instead they have a national pop­u­lar vote with a major­ity require­ment, thereby mak­ing every vote equal and accom­mo­dat­ing voter choice and avoid­ing “spoiler” effects. They typ­i­cally have auto­matic voter reg­is­tra­tion and estab­lish an affir­ma­tive right to vote in their con­sti­tu­tion, remov­ing access to suf­frage from crass par­ti­san cal­cu­la­tions. They often pro­vide free access to pub­lic air­waves and other means to pro­vide equity in spend­ing, which do much to check the influ­ence of big money when com­bined with pro­por­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tion sys­tems that weaken the strong­hold of swing vot­ers who are most prone to be affected by cam­paign ads.

In short, these nations do far bet­ter at liv­ing up to the motto of my orga­ni­za­tion Fair­Vote: respect for every vote and every voice. Talk­ing with young peo­ple from emerg­ing democ­ra­cies with such rules pro­vides a marked con­trast with talk­ing with young Amer­i­cans about elec­tions. Their national gov­ern­ments and level of democ­racy may be far from per­fect, but they have hope about the future and pas­sion for under­stand­ing the impact of dif­fer­ent rules. They believe that elec­tions and pol­i­tics mat­ter. It’s a far cry from the vir­tual eye-rolling of so many Amer­i­can stu­dents who can’t even believe you’re seri­ous when talk­ing about elec­tions as a mean­ing­ful route to change.

The Core Reform: Pro­por­tional Rep­re­sen­ta­tion
The foun­da­tion for a more vital elec­toral democ­racy is replac­ing winner-take-all elec­tions with forms of pro­por­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tion (PR) that are con­sti­tu­tional in the United States and already used in some local elec­tions. Even our own polit­i­cal fore­run­ner, the United King­dom, has adopted PR for elect­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the Scot­tish and Wales regional assem­blies, the Lon­don City Coun­cil and Scot­tish local coun­cils. As the Arab Spring move­ment takes root, its most democ­ra­tized coun­tries are adopt­ing forms of pro­por­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tion, just as was true of East­ern Europe nations after the fall of the Com­mu­nist bloc. Indeed, the degree of pro­por­tion­al­ity in an emerg­ing democ­racy is usu­ally the best ther­mome­ter of how demo­c­ra­tic that nation truly has become.

PR takes many forms and can­not be under­stood by any one exam­ple of its prac­tice, but the com­mon thread is that more vot­ers elect pre­ferred can­di­dates from a broader spec­trum of choices, and like-minded vot­ers (be it a party or some other mea­sure of com­mon views) win rep­re­sen­ta­tion in close rela­tion to their share of the vote. Win­ning a major­ity of more than fifty per­cent of the vote should result in win­ning a major­ity of seats, but not all seats. Ten per­cent of the vote means one out of ten seats and twenty-five per­cent of the vote means one out of four.

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Nearly all democ­ra­cies across the world hold at least one of their national leg­isla­tive elec­tions with pro­por­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tion rather than winner-take-all rules that exclude so many peo­ple from shar­ing power.
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Amer­i­can forms of PR typ­i­cally involve vot­ing for can­di­dates in multi-seat dis­tricts. In Cam­bridge, MA, they have a ranked choice vot­ing sys­tem where earn­ing the strong sup­port of just over 10% of the vote earns a seat on the nine-member city coun­cil. In 2009, a young Asian Amer­i­can grad stu­dent ran a strong cam­paign using new forms of social net­work­ing, and sur­prised the old guard by earn­ing a seat. In 2011, he ended up earn­ing the most first choices and won eas­ily. Indeed, the Cam­bridge city coun­cil has had a per­son of color on its coun­cil for more than a half-century, and always rep­re­sents peo­ple with a mix of opin­ions and from a mix of neigh­bor­hoods. Sim­i­lar sys­tems include cumu­la­tive vot­ing, now used in Peo­ria, IL, and Amar­illo, TX, after being adopted to set­tle vot­ing rights cases and used for more than a cen­tury (from 1870 to 1980) to elect the Illi­nois House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, dur­ing which time nearly every cor­ner of the state always had rep­re­sen­ta­tives of both major parties.

Con­gress could impose pro­por­tional vot­ing for U.S. House elec­tions with a sim­ple change in fed­eral law. That’s not likely soon, but it at least could repeal the 1967 law man­dat­ing single-member dis­tricts, restor­ing states with the power to try dif­fer­ent sys­tems, as they reg­u­larly did before 1967. FairVote’s new Fair Vot­ing Solu­tion report show­cases just how pow­er­ful it would be to adopt Amer­i­can forms of pro­por­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Our inter­ac­tive map allows an easy com­par­i­son between con­gres­sional elec­tions as they are and con­gres­sional elec­tions as they could be. At least one Demo­c­rat and one Repub­li­can would likely win in every multi-seat dis­trict, and the num­ber of vot­ers with at least one woman rep­re­sen­ta­tive would likely triple from 17% to more than half of the electorate.

We also need to be more ambi­tious in seek­ing PR in cities. Racial minori­ties in cities can seek PR sys­tems in law­suits brought under the Vot­ing Rights Act to change exclu­sion­ary, winner-take-all vot­ing sys­tems. Women can be reform allies, as PR con­sis­tently results in more women run­ning and win­ning. We’re look­ing at states with ini­tia­tive rights—like Maine or Montana—for a sus­tained effort to build a move­ment ready to go for a statewide bal­lot mea­sure to replace winner-take-all elec­tions with pro­por­tional voting.

Reforms that Enhance Pro­por­tional Vot­ing and a Roadmap for Change
We can do much to begin the tran­si­tion from our two-party duop­oly to a sys­tem where vot­ers have real choice among more par­ties and inde­pen­dents. Reform­ers have made great head­way in win­ning the instant runoff vot­ing form of ranked choice vot­ing (IRV). Designed for one-winner elec­tions, IRV allows long­shot can­di­dates to run with­out being attacked as “spoil­ers” by uphold­ing the prin­ci­ple of major­ity rule.  Vot­ers can rank can­di­dates in order of choice (a first, sec­ond, and third) and elec­tion offi­cials use those rank­ings to sim­u­late tra­di­tional runoff elec­tions. In 2000, for exam­ple, a Florida voter back­ing Ralph Nader might have indi­cated Al Gore as a com­pro­mise sec­ond choice. Once it was clear that no can­di­date has a major­ity, Nader would have been eliminated—and bal­lots cast for him moved to their sec­ond choice.

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Young peo­ple from emerg­ing democ­ra­cies with pro­por­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tion tend to believe that elec­tions and pol­i­tics mat­ter. It’s a far cry from the vir­tual eye-rolling of so many Amer­i­can
stu­dents who can’t even believe you’re seri­ous when talk­ing about elec­tions as a mean­ing­ful route to change.
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IRV has been won recently in more than a dozen cities, includ­ing San Fran­cisco, Oak­land, Min­neapo­lis, and Port­land, ME. While a winner-take-all sys­tem, it lib­er­ates vot­ers to indi­cate their true pref­er­ences and boosts can­di­dates who work hard at grass­roots, neighborhood-based pol­i­tics. It has weak­ened the influ­ence of big money because it turns out that the best way to secure voter sup­port when they can ran can­di­dates is through direct inter­ac­tion. Knock­ing on doors and attend­ing local events can show peo­ple that you will lis­ten, even if they dis­agree with you. Mean­while, the tra­di­tional big money tac­tics of highly neg­a­tive attacks on oppo­nents are less effec­tive when you have more than one opponent—you may knock down sup­port for one can­di­date, but that doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily help you win.

IRV has had sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess on the bal­lot, but is at a key point in its reform tra­jec­tory. Advo­cates are under-funded, and local par­ti­sans mea­sure every use of IRV with a sim­ple yard­stick: did their side win? If not, they can fin­ger the “exotic” new sys­tem and attack it before it becomes firmly set­tled as part of a city’s pol­i­tics. That alone wouldn’t nec­es­sar­ily be a prob­lem, but we also must work hard sim­ply to imple­ment IRV: fight­ing with vot­ing equip­ment ven­dors refus­ing to imple­ment it and with over­bur­dened elec­tion offi­cials not want­ing to take on new tasks. If we can sus­tain and steadily expand IRV’s use, those admin­is­tra­tive hur­dles will soon dis­ap­pear. With a straight choice between the sta­tus quo and IRV that doesn’t include new costs, we will win.

Indeed, I believe we can win major elec­toral reforms far sooner than most peo­ple believe. Change breeds change, and our pol­i­tics has reached a break­ing point: cur­rent rules just don’t work when the major par­ties are so polar­ized and when new voices are shut out. In the midst of all our non-electoral pri­or­i­ties and efforts to make progress within the cur­rent rules, we must keep our eye on the elec­toral reform ball: with smarts, good tim­ing, and resources, we can make the United States the truly rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy so urgently needed as we move for­ward into a per­ilous, but promis­ing future.

Check out the The Fair Vot­ing Solu­tion for U.S. House Elec­tions, fea­tur­ing an inter­ac­tive map

Read about other threats to democ­racy in the com­plete series, “Seven Sins Against Democracy”

Rob Richie has served as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Fair­Vote since 1992. His writ­ings have appeared in the nation’s lead­ing news­pa­pers and in nine books, includ­ing as co-author of Every Vote Equal about estab­lish­ing a national pop­u­lar vote for pres­i­dent and of Whose Votes Count about the case for pro­por­tional vot­ing and ranked choice vot­ing. He has been a guest on NPR’s All Things Con­sid­ered and Talk of the Nation, C-SPAN’s Wash­ing­ton Jour­nal, NBC News, CNN, FOX, Bloomberg News, Democ­racy Now and MSNBC and addressed con­ven­tions of the Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Asso­ci­a­tion, National Asso­ci­a­tion of Coun­ties, National Asso­ci­a­tion of Sec­re­taries of State, Free Press, National Latino Con­greso and National Con­fer­ence of State Leg­is­la­tures. He serves on the Haver­ford Col­lege Cor­po­ra­tion. He and his wife Cyn­thia Ter­rell have three children.