<div><p>FairVote acts to transform our elections to achieve secure access to participation for all, a full spectrum of meaningful ballot choices and majority rule with fair representation.
Last month, the Brennan Center released a scathing report on gerrymandering in America. Using multiple metrics, they uncovered several damning findings: * A net structural advantage towards Republicans of 16 to 17 seats across states with six or more congressional representatives (85% of House seats). * Most of the bias against Democrats
Sam Wang has used a combination of computer simulations and simple math tests to help reveal the partisan intent behind the post-2010 redistricting. All this work gave the neuroscientist a new obsession with political reform, electoral fairness, and ending the gerrymander once and for all. What started has a hobby
More diversity. More choice. More civility. Those were just a few of the reasons touted by city councilors in London, Ontario, last week when the Canadian city made history as the nation’s first to adopt ranked-choice voting for municipal elections. Starting in 2018, London will scrap its “first past
Last week, we released our Dubious Democracy 2016 dataset on U.S. House elections. The story that the 2016 election data tells is damning. Like past elections, the 2016 U.S. House elections proved to be incredibly uncompetitive. As demonstrated in FairVote’s most recent Monopoly Politics report, multiple metrics
When French voters went to the polls Sunday to choose among 11 presidential candidates, they knew one thing for certain: The ultimate winner would have majority support. That’s because France elects its leader with a general election followed by a run-off between the top-two finishers. It’s a system
“Are American elections working well?” [...] “All of this said, things could work much better." The first of these two sentences appears in Chapter 1 of Changing How America Votes, edited by Todd Donovan (published, 2017). The second caps off the end of Chapter 15. In the ellipses are 13
More than a decade after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida, the litigation following the 2016 presidential election demonstrated that our electoral system is still not equipped to confront challenges and uncertainties. Five states saw petitions for recounts, but only one state (Wisconsin) conducted a full recount. In between
On HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” John Oliver tackled an issue that many consider the most pressing threat to our democracy: gerrymandering. As he often does, Oliver explained the intricacies of this complex policy issue with wit and humor, much to the alarm of voters everywhere. After explaining how politicians
From May 9th to 13th, the Arlington County Democratic Committee (ACDC) will be using ranked choice voting to select their nominee for a seat on the Arlington County Board. With incumbent Jay Fisette not seeking a sixth term, a crowded field of four candidates are seeking the party’s nomination
A total of 31 lawmakers in Massachusetts are co-sponsoring H. 2897, which would allow towns, municipalities, and cities to use ranked choice voting for their local elections. Originally sponsored by Representative Mike Connolly, H. 2897 also specifies certain requirements for ranked choice voting ballots, establishes ranked choice voting election procedures,
In 2010, the Supreme Court overturned the ban on corporate election spending in the landmark Citizens United case. A majority of the justices considered political spending to be a form of free speech, corporations were free to ‘speak’, with the goal to persuade the voting public, through political contributions. Since
On Friday, March 3rd, 2017, the Utah House voted 59-12 to pass HB 349, a bill that would require the use of ranked choice voting for nearly all Utah elections. Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D) introduced the bill, however it passed out of committee last week with Republican support in an