Why is it so difficult to change our election system?
[RR] Hyper-partisanship makes every electoral reform harder. What's best for voters is not the first calculation that politicians make. Political parties look at reforms and evaluate them in the light of, "Will this hurt us more than the other party?" That view is trans-party. Most Democratic and Republican leaders tend to elevate party interests over the interests of the voter.
Is there any hope for election reform in the US?
[RR] Yes. There's been a sea change in how people perceive what can happen, a different degree of hope. One example is Electoral College reform -the National Popular Vote plan for president. The movement started in 2006, and there already have been bills introduced in 50 states and passed at least one chamber in 20 of them. [Editor's note: National Popular Vote is a state-based plan to guarantee election of the candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. New York's state senate recently passed a national popular vote measure by a 52-7 vote, and Massachusetts' recent passage of NPV makes it the sixth state to enact the law.] I think there's a real chance that we'll get meaningful change by 2016, and perhaps even 2012.
What progress has been made toward Instant Runoff Voting?
[RR] Instant runoff voting is one of the good ideas that speak directly to problems people have with our politics: It upholds majority rule and makes it possible to have third party and independents to run without being attacked as spoilers. It's in an entirely different place from when we started. More than a dozen cities have instituted instant runoff voting, and it's gaining traction in several states.
A good example of how IRV could benefit voters is in Missouri. In
2000, one candidate won the Republican primary for a US Congressional
seat with only 26% of the vote, because Missouri does not require a
majority to win the primary. In this case, as in others around the
country, a relatively small minority of voters chose the candidate.
Instant Runoff Voting would assure that a candidate would reflect the
preferences of a majority of voters in the primary election.
What misconceptions about our election system do you have to overcome in your work?
[RR] People often say that Congress does its job poorly, at the same time that they say that our Constitution is "great." They don't see that the system creates the rules that prevent it from working well. But when change is suggested, they don't want to change what they think the Founding Fathers created. In fact, the Founding Fathers were a lot more courageous than we're willing to be. They would be appalled at how timid we are at reviewing our procedures and rules. They were bold, innovative thinkers who didn't stick with the way things had always been done before. Their role is being misinterpreted.
What's your view of the Top 2 election structure recently implemented in California?
[RR] "Open primaries" have the advantage of creating a majority winner in the final round and giving more voters a chance to help elect their representatives, but we're recommending some changes in the system. Under Top 2, you could end up with an unrepresentative race between two candidates from the same party. The 2008 presidential primary in New Hampshire is an example: The top two finishers there were Obama and Clinton. If that had been the presidential election, the voters would have had to make a choice between two relatively similar candidates, and no Republican. One of our suggestions is to change it to Top 3 and use instant runoff voting in the final round.
How does the US stack up against other countries regarding the fairness of elections?
[RR] Among other, well-established, long-term democracies, we rank near the bottom. Other countries have voter rolls that are more accurate and complete. The international norm for voter-roll accuracy is more than 90 percent of eligible voters. We're at about 70 percent. Also, most other countries' elections require candidates to get a 50% majority to win executive office, and they use proportional representation for legislative elections rather than a winner-take-all system.
Our democracy is stronger in other areas than elections. We have a
lot of media coverage and openness; we have a lot of non-profits
watch-dogging and working on improvements. As to elections, it probably
is one saving grace that we elect so many people. Most everyone
typically can help someone do something, and our elected representatives
kind of check each other and recharge the system frequently. But it's
far from ideal.
What impacts have evolving technologies had on our election system?
The question we need to be asking is, "Who should own the process?" The outsourcing of election technology to private, profit-driven companies is very problematic. One company, ES&S controls a huge portion of our voting equipment and administration of elections: While they no longer own 70% of the voting equipment, because the Department of Justice forced them to divest, they still play a key role administering most elections. Plus, regulating and certifying technologies is all done haphazardly, state by state. Our whole model needs to be rethought.
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