SHARE        Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Remembering John Bayard Anderson, 1922 - 2017 One of my most prized and enduring friendships was with former Congressman, presidential candidate and FairVote board chair John B. Anderson, who died this week at age 95.

SHARE        Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Simulating Instant Runoff Flips Most Donald Trump Primary Victories If Super Tuesday contests had been conducted with ranked choice voting -- a proven system that empowers voters to rank candidates by preference in order to elect the candidate with the strongest support and the one most likely to garner the support of a majority -- the results would look very different.

(2 comments) SHARE        Thursday, January 12, 2012
Democracy Lost: the Iowa Caucus, the New Hampshire Primary, and the Shortchanging of American Presidential Politics Although balloting in the 2012 Republican nomination battle has just begun, the race already appears to be over after just two contests: Iowa and New Hampshire. Such a result, in which the vast majority of the nation's voters are reduced to irrelevancy by an abbreviated primary process, is the newest chapter in a disturbing narrative of democratic ideals lost.

SHARE        Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Was the Iowa Caucuses' Real Winner Not in the Race? Last night, as the numbers rolled in from Iowa, cable news shows pundits analyzed the numbers in almost every way humanly possible -- with particular obsession with who was going to "win." But the media just may have missed the biggest winner: a candidate who wasn't seeking Iowa votes last night.

(7 comments) SHARE        Friday, December 23, 2011
Let's End Gerrymandering with Fair Voting for Congress Most voters' representation in winner-take-all elections will be decided by how redistricting maps are drawn in 2011-2012, rather than by how they vote in 2012-2020. Although seen as the norm in the United States, winner-take-all elections invite computer-facilitated partisan gerrymandering.It is time to take on the winner-take-all rule itself by conducting elections in multi-seat "super-districts."

(2 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, April 28, 2009
John Gideon, R.I.P. - and the "Gideon Initiative" for citizenship ownership of our elections This tribute to John Gideon of Voters Unite suggests that it's time for the Gideon Initiative -- an effort to achieve full citizenship ownership of our elections.

SHARE        Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Death of a swing state? Pennsylvania and Sen. Arlen Specter's party switch Does Sen. Specter's decision mark the final nail in the coffin for a generation of Republicans in the Northeast?

(10 comments) SHARE        Friday, February 6, 2009
Ranked Choice Voting Methods Abound in American Culture and Political Life a review of how ranked voting methods like instant runoff voting and choice voting are used more often than we realize in the United Statse

SHARE        Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Making your city a model for voting rights and civic participation Reviews a range of specific changes in voting policy and practice to boost participation, representation and voting rights

(16 comments) SHARE        Friday, August 15, 2008
Clearing the Barr to a majority president with instant runoff voting Plurality voting works fine when elections have only two choices. But it goes haywire when more candidates run - witness the hand-wringing over Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000. We can expect more hand-wringing this year. In a recent Rasmussen Research poll, fully 10% of likely voters said they would vote for Bob Barr or Ralph Nader if matched against Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

SHARE        Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A Pro-Democracy Agenda for a New Congress With Democrats now in control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years, one way for Democrats to build faith with all Americans would be to pursue policies designed to increase fairness within Congress, as well as improve democracy in the United States.

(8 comments) SHARE        Friday, October 27, 2006
Campaign 2006 and Bringing Instant Runoff Voting to the Tipping Point It's been a big year for instant runoff voting (IRV), the powerful tool to give voters real choices in our elections without charges of "spoilers."

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, November 18, 2005
Redistricting Reform: How Best to Tackle Ultra-Safe Districts In the wake of the twin failures of redistricting initiatives in Ohio and California, reformers must turn to the underlying problem of winner-take-all in our elections if they want to establish fairness and competition in redistricting.