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Louisiana's Cajun Primary: An Innovative Primary Undone by Electoral Stagnation

Fri, 20 Nov 2015 13:42:05 -0500

Louisiana's open primary system is designed to give more voters an opportunity to participate in competitive elections. The first round of their one-of-a-kind “Cajun Primary” was held on Saturday, October 24th, for the two chambers of its state legislature, Governor and other statewide offices. While the first round election is called a “primary,” it's in fact a general election that can be won if a candidate earns an absolute majority of the vote. Nearly every race in Louisiana’s legislature was actually decided on (or before) the 24th thanks to uncontested races and winner-take-all voting rules that put the power of elections in the hands of the parties, not the voters.

Of the 144 seats in the Louisiana legislature, only 18 remain to be filled in a runoff election. Fourteen of those involve a runoff election in which two members of the same party will face off, with only four "classic" legislative runoffs between a Democrat and a Republican. Even considering just the seats that were contested in October, Louisiana experienced astonishingly non-competitive races for most state representative seats. This is due in large part to the high number of incumbents running for re-election without meaningful competition, and the fundamental flaws of single-winner districts.

By law, in federal election years, the first round of the election takes place on the federally mandated Election Day in November. That makes Louisiana the only state that effectively does not hold a primary election for Congressional contests, but instead has a contingent runoff election in December, akin to the nonpartisan general runoffs common in municipal elections in many states. In odd-numbered years for state office, the election also consists of a general election content in October and a November runoff if needed to ensure a majority outcome.

The "Cajun Primary" as an Open General Election

Louisiana's unique approach to elections should afford voters more choice and competitive elections for state legislature. The Cajun primary is really an open general election where all candidates, no matter their party, compete for a seat. If any person gets more than 50% of the vote in the primary, they win outright. If no person wins 50% of the vote in the primary, then the top two vote-getters proceed to a runoff election, where a winner will be decided.

Louisiana’s current runoff system is also encouraging vitriolic rhetoric from its two gubernatorial candidates. Both David Vitter and John Bel Edwards are flinging insults and ripostes left and right, bringing up past scandals and political sticking points to undermine the other and ensure their own victory on Saturday.

Here are more specifics of who has already won and how elections are likely to proceed later this month:

Supermajority of Legislature Decided in First Round of Election

Table 1: 2015 Louisiana Elections

Let’s start by taking a look at the Louisiana Senate, composed of 39 seats. Before the first round of elections, 21 of those seats had already been effectively decided thanks to a simple lack of competition: no challengers presented themselves for more than half of the seats composing the Louisiana Senate (Table 1). For example, John Alario (R-8), who ran unopposed for his third election in a row this year – even after the FBI opened a probe into his use of campaign funds (for, among other things, leasing a BMW and buying tickets to LSU Football games).

Nearly the entire Senate was elected in the first round. Of the 18 seats actually contested in the Senate, 14 were filled by day’s end and only four were headed to a runoff. Of those 14 filled, nine were decided in landslide elections and a grand total of zero were truly competitive (decided by less than 5% of the vote).

This means that the Republicans have already secured a majority in the Louisiana Senate, even though Louisiana’s official “Election Day” won’t be until November 21. Democrats secured 13 seats for themselves, ensuring their minority status in Baton Rouge for another four years. The runoffs will not change the partisan outcome much: two of the four contests going to a runoff are between members of the same party. In other words, Louisianans have the chance to choose between parties in a total of two elections out of 39 for their Senate in November.

Table 2: Partisan Breakdown of Seats Already Won

Just as in the Senate, more than half of the seats for the House were uncontested and decided before the October election. Representatives like Truck Gisclair (D-54) and Major Thibaut (D-18) were re-elected to what will be their final terms in the House (due to Louisiana’s term limit law) without any competition, allowing them to ride off into the sunset no matter what happens in their final terms.

Of the 52 seats contested in the first round, 30 were contested only by members of the same party (14 seats between Republicans and 16 between Democrats). Of the 22 seats where voters could actually choose between parties, a grand total of two led to a runoff between a Republican and a Democrat. Just as in the Senate, the parties have already settled into comfortable majorities and minorities, with Republicans taking 56 seats, Democrats 33, and an independent and a third party candidate grabbing one apiece.

In those instances where multi-party races did not result in an outright winner in the first round, they transformed into Republican- or Democrat-only runoffs. We can see, then, that Republicans and Democrats have already won 60 and 41 of the seats in the House, respectively, leaving just two house seats up for grabs in contests between the major parties.

Table 3: Comparison of Competition, 2011 v. 2015

This lack of competition is even worse than the 2011 elections in Louisiana (Table 3), which boasted 62 uncontested elections across the legislature, 40 elections contested by a single party, and a grand total of 25 runoff elections. Compare that with 2015’s 74 uncontested elections, 35 elections contested by a single party, and 18 total runoff elections and you’ll see a widening gap in competition for legislative seats. Even fewer Louisianans got to express a preference for their state representative this cycle compared to last, and only 18 districts were competitive enough to trigger a runoff.

Incumbents Welcomed Back with Open Arms

Table 4: Incumbent Election Statistics

Incumbents had a great primary too, enjoying a perfect record in the Senate. Of the 28 who ran for their seats, all 28 managed to secure those seats in the first round (Table 4). None had to campaign in November. House races were only slightly less kind to incumbents: 83 ran, 73 won outright, seven are being sent to a runoff to fight for their seats, and three lost in the first round. Two of those who lost in the first round lost to members of their own party. The majority of incumbents who ran were not even challenged by other candidates, and when they were challenged nearly all won handily.

Ranked Choice Voting: A Better Way Forward

What can be done to remedy this electoral stagnation in the Bayou State? Louisiana’s best option is to eliminate its winner-take-all system, and replace it with a multi-winner system using ranked choice voting. By combining single-winner districts into multi-winner districts electing three, four, or five representatives at once, and electing those representatives using ranked choice voting, this problem could be eliminated entirely. Districts currently represented only by Republicans or Democrats would be combined into multi-winner districts, in which the formerly voiceless Republicans or Democrats could elect representatives who reflect their views.[1]

Louisiana could further promote the goals of majoritarian outcomes with real voter choice if it consolidated both elections with the use of ranked choice voting. Many cities have gone from two elections to one with ranked choice voting, and their elections this year highlighted how well that system works. Ranked choice voting systems also discourage the sort of scorched-earth campaigning seen in the gubernatorial race, instead encouraging candidates to find a broad base of support and to avoid alienating their opponent’s supporters.

Implementing ranked choice voting would be especially easy for the state given that they already use it – but only for overseas and military voters and out-of-state military voters. These voters do not have the opportunity to receive and mail back a second ballot for the runoff, so they compete in both elections at once with a single ranked ballot.

More incrementally, Louisiana could keep single-winner districts, but end its use of a two-round election system and instead adopt just ranked choice voting. That way, round-by-round elections could be done instantly, and voters would only need to show up to the polls once. Given that Louisiana already uses ranked choice ballots for its overseas and military voters, the transition would not be difficult. Although doing so would not break up the partisan lock on safe districts in the way a multi-winner RCV system would, it would empower Louisiana voters by allowing them to vote in a single, efficient, high turnout election, and be confident that election results will be grounded in majority rule.

[1] For example, the 105-seat House of Representatives could consist of 21 five-member districts where candidates would only need 17% of the vote to guarantee themselves a seat in the legislature. Those 21 five-member districts would be created by combining the already existing districts in groups of five, keeping districts grouped by city, parish, or both. This way you could combine a number of districts comprising New Orleans, such as districts 103, 105, 102, 85, and 84, which currently elect four Republicans and one Democrat to the House, and create an entirely new coalition of representatives from that one New Orleans-based district. District 102 had a diverse Democratic race, with six different Democratic candidates; 103 had a close race between two Republicans and two Democrats; 105 had a landslide win for a Republican incumbent, and 84 and 85 feature incumbent Republicans who ran without opposition. Combining these districts would 1) challenge the incumbents in 84 and 85; 2) create more opportunities for the Democrats in district 102, 103, and 105 to gain representation and 3) create a district representing a more diverse set of interests from the southern and western sides of New Orleans.

Rich Tradition of Minority Party Representation Continues in Pennsylvania and Connecticut

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:54:05 -0500

An interesting thing happened this year on Election Day in towns, cities, and counties across Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Despite the odds being stacked against them, minority parties earned representation thanks to fair representation voting methods. Many of the jurisdictions we highlight that use these sorts of non-winner-take-all voting methods had those systems imposed upon them by judges in Voting Rights Act cases, but just as many – including all these uses in Pennsylvania and Connecticut – introduced these reforms through statute.

Pennsylvania has used fair voting methods for over a century and Connecticut for more than half a century (since before the Voting Rights Act even existed). They ensure that minority parties can earn representation in communities where they would be otherwise shut out of government. Minority party representation in cities and counties across Connecticut and Pennsylvania reflects structural rules that have been in place for decades to ensure more political diversity than we see in most American cities today.

The key has been the use of a modest form of fair representation voting with the unfortunate label of “limited voting.” Contrary to the moniker, limited voting greatly expands the number of voters who can elect a candidate of choice. It does this by making sure that a single cohesive majority does not have the power to elect every single member of a legislative body. If five are to be elected, voters may only be allowed to vote for three. That way, that cohesive majority will be able to elect three, but not all five. Another group – otherwise shut out – will be able to organize to win the other two seats.

Most places in Pennsylvania and Connecticut couple limited voting with “limited nominations,” which means that no political party can nominate enough candidates to win every seat. The two are a natural fit for each other, but limited nominations is distinct from limited voting. The two do not always go together, and limited nominations raises voter choice concerns that limited voting does not.

Limited voting creates an opportunity for fair representation, but only when political parties limit their nominees, when candidates campaign to emphasize the right strategies, and when voters vote strategically. That makes limited voting a weak form of fair representation voting: it does break open winner-take-all, but it does not ensure fair results to nearly the degree as ranked choice voting does. Nevertheless, the fact that these elections took place demonstrates that U.S. elections are not all stuck in the rut of winner-take-all voting rules, and that the U.S. has a rich history of fair representation in at-large elections.

Minority Party Representation in the City of Brotherly Love

Take Philadelphia. On November 3rd, the Republican candidate for mayor won just 13% of the vote to new Democratic mayor Jim Kenny’s 85%. Nine of the 10 ward races for Philadelphia’s city council ended with uncontested wins by Democrats. The lone Republican challenger in the 9th district won just 8%. This is par for the course in strongly Democratic Philadelphia.

What’s interesting is that, even with these massive margins, Republicans will hold two city council seats earned at-large. In Philadelphia’s case this is the result of a city council election system meant to encourage minority party representation. Philadelphia’s council is composed of 17 seats: 10 elected in single-winner districts and seven elected at-large. That at-large district caps party nominations at five candidates apiece, so Democrats, Republicans, and any other parties running can only earn five seats maximum. Voters then get five votes they must vote across five different candidates. The top seven vote-getters overall win election to the Council.

In Philadelphia that means Democrats ran their maximum five candidates and took the top five spots in the at-large election while Republicans brought up the rear, taking the two remaining seats. Democrats got, at minimum, 15% of the totals votes apiece for their five winners, while Republicans earned nearly 4% each. If there were no restrictions on number of candidates and number of votes, Democrats could run seven candidates and likely win all seven seats, shutting dissenting voices out of Philadelphia City Government entirely. However, the limited voting and nomination system in Philadelphia ensures at least some minority party representation on the City Council despite the strong Democratic lean in the city. (Note that a Green Party candidate and a Philadephia Party candidate tried to compete with Republicans for seats; they each had a candidate who won more than 1% of the total vote). This system has supported the minority party in Philadelphia for nearly a century, having been put in place in Philadelphia in 1919.

Pennsylvania County Commissions Gain Minority Party Representation

In Pennsylvania as a whole, County Commissioners are elected in similar voting landscapes. Every county governed by the Pennsylvania General Statutes (that is to say, counties that don’t have their own “Home Rule” Charter that they devise themselves) elects their three-member county commissions through limited voting, whose use in these elections in Pennsylvania dates back to its 1871 Constitution.

Voters get two votes, and must vote them for two candidates. In the more than forty counties using this system in Pennsylvania, this means two candidates from the majority party and one candidate from the minority party get elected. In contrast to Philadelphia, this generally means Republicans hold two to one majorities on many county commissions, with no party taking all three seats in any county. Take, for example, Susquehanna, Lebanon, York, Franklin, and Dauphin (home to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital) Counties: all elected commissions composed of two Republicans and one Democrat by sizable margins. Were it not for the limited voting structure in the County Commission elections, Democrats would be wholly shut out of many County Commissions in Pennsylvania.

Table 1: County Commissioner Results in Pennsylvania

County	R 1	% Return	R 2	% Return	D 1	% Return	D 2	% Return
Dauphin	23,849 votes	29.7%	21,528 votes	26.8%	19,166 votes	23.9%	15,731 votes	19.6%
Franklin	13,424 votes	36.2%	13,282 votes	35.9%	5,543 votes	14.9%	4,582 votes	12.3%
Lebanon	12,355 votes	32.6%	10,709 votes	28.3%	7,466 votes	19.7%	7,298 votes	19.3%
York	32,703 votes	31.6%	24,848 votes	23.9%	20,078 votes	19.3%	16,265 votes	15.7%
Susquehanna	4,685 votes	30.7%	4,541 votes	29.7%	3,178 votes	20.8%	2,839 votes	18.6%

Unlike Philadelphia’s City Council, County Commission races do not have any limits on party candidates. In theory, then, Republicans could run three candidates and take all three spots, but with limited voting, it would be very difficult for them to do so. The crux of this plan is that Republicans would need to organize their voters perfectly to vote their two votes across three Republican candidates, and Democrats would need to simultaneously fail to support a single candidate.

So far that has not occurred, but this potential for unfair results based on other voters’ strategies emphasizes a limitation to limited voting as a fair representation system. Unlike ranked choice voting, limited voting relies on limited voter choice and strategic voting to achieve fair results.

Connecticut’s History of Robust Minority Party Representation Continues

Connecticut has its own fair representation reforms, which apply much more broadly than those of Pennsylvania and derive from a 1959 minority party representation statute passed in the state. In general Connecticut limits parties to two-thirds of the seats (rounding up) in any partisan, at-large elected body in the state. This includes typical local bodies such as Town Councils, Boards of Education and Boards of Finance, and more esoteric ones like Zoning Boards (but excludes communities using town meetings, as opposed to town or city councils, for example). This system is used all across Connecticut, but a number of towns and cities are particularly indicative of the strengths of limited voting.

Consider, for example, the Bloomfield Town Council. Nine seats are up for grabs each year in Bloomfield, and under Connecticut’s laws each party can only put forth six candidates for those seats. In Bloomfield this means six Democrats win election to the council, and three Republicans earn the final three seats.

Table 2: 2015 Town Council Election Returns in Bloomfield, CT

Party	Votes won
Democrat	2259
Democrat	2258
Democrat	2112
Democrat	2060
Democrat	2059
Democrat	2007
Republican	793
Republican	737
Republican	659

As just seen in Pennsylvania elections, the minority party earns more seats than they would if these reforms were not in place. Democrats have a tidy handle on majority votes in Bloomfield: The smallest margin of victory is 1,214 votes. This pattern repeats on town and city councils, Boards of Election and Finance, and Planning and Zoning Committees throughout Connecticut. South Windsor’s three-member Planning and Zoning Committee is composed of two Republicans and one Democrat thanks to limited voting and limited nominations. Bristol’s Town Council breaks down just as Bloomfield’s. Southington’s Board of Finance has four Republicans and two Democrats. And just as in Bloomfield the majority party in each case wins handily, by hundreds or thousands of votes. These limited voting reforms ensure that minority parties are able to express their preferences and not be continually shut out as they are in typical winner-take-all elections.

These caps function much the same in towns without easily divisible boards. Consider Newington: their eight-member Town Council caps membership at five for any given party. In Newington’s case, that means Republicans earn five seats to the Democrats’ three.

Table 3: Newington Town Council Votes, 2015

[bolded indicates winner]

Republican	Democrat
3,400	2,758
3,385	2,502
3,206	2,452
3,081	2,377
2,884	2,113

Farmington’s Board of Education, a four-member board, gets three Republicans and one Democrat, and Middletown’s Planning & Zoning Commission gets three Democrats and one Republican. So the results seen above continue to hold in even imperfectly divisible boards, making clear the impact these structural reforms have on minority party representation.

These minority party representation structures even lead to instances where a candidate from the majority party wins more votes than the most popular minority candidate but does not win a seat on the board. Middletown’s Board of Education is a good illustration of this possibility.

Table 4: Middletown Board of Education Election Results, 2015

[bolded indicates winner]

Party	Votes
Democrat	4,812
Democrat	4,749
Democrat	4,597
Democrat	4,508
Democrat	4,404
Republican	4,074

Despite the least popular Democrat earning 330 more votes than the most popular Republican, the Republican wins a seat on the Board of Education. The Democratic Party is limited to four seats on the board, but chose to run five candidates knowing that only four could win seats on the board. This also happened in at least two other races: Middletown’s Planning and Zoning Commission and Southington’s Planning and Zoning Commission. This has happened in each of the last three local election years in Connecticut: not always in the same towns but accepted nonetheless. Connecticut’s minority party representation system, despite any flaws or quirks mentioned, has created a working system that has become part of the fabric of local Connecticut politics.

Third Party Representation in Hartford

Hartford had an even more diverse election than those described above. As usual, voters elected six Democrats to their nine-member city council, but no Republicans won seats. In their stead the Working Families Party took three seats on the city council. The Working Families Party is a party focused on economic justice issues, with chapters in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. They first won representation in Hartford in 2007, taking two seats. Before that the three non-Democratic seats in Hartford were filled by a Republican, and Green, and an Independent.

The WFP first won three seats in 2011, and have held on to all three this year. Their story of increasing representation is a perfect encapsulation of the benefits of limited voting for minority parties: a regional, narrowly-focused third party gained a foothold in Hartford eight years ago and now reliably holds three seats on the Connecticut Capital’s City Council. Even before the rise of the WFP in Hartford those three seats ensured minority party representation in Hartford, and made it possible for smaller voices in the City to be heard. Now the WFP will create dialogue around the issues of economic justice in Hartford thanks to the minority party representation requirements in Connecticut.

A More Representative Government

Limited voting’s long use in Pennsylvania and Connecticut has helped ensure that minority parties across both states are well represented at all levels of local government. Town, City, and County Boards experience richer representation and create greater engagement with the community because these systems are in place. The forms minority party representation can take under limited voting are varied and unique, but their impact remains the same: a more representative government that listens to more constituents and ensures they are heard.

New Jersey 2015 State Legislative Elections: The Predictive Power of Partisanship and One Party Rule

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 10:27:10 -0500

New Jersey’s 2015 state election is striking for the predictive power of partisanship and the proportion of voters who are locked out of representation by a state legislator of their preferred political party. In New Jersey, each of the 40 state districts elects two representatives to the General Assembly every two years. Every four years, the 40 state districts also elect a state senator. That means each New Jersey voter is represented by three state legislators.

Preliminary results indicate that Democrats have once again won a majority in the General Assembly of the New Jersey Legislature. In the elections last Tuesday, the Democrats won about 53% of the vote across the state but won 65% of the seats (including nabbing one seat from the Republican incumbent by 78 votes in the 16th District). Disproportionality like this is typical in New Jersey elections. In 2011, Republicans won 48% of the vote in the General Assembly, but won 40% of the seats, and in 2013 Republicans actually received 51% of the vote in the General Assembly, but won only 40% of the seats.

One clear advantage of two-winner districts was on show in the general election: encouraging competition. Unlike many other state legislative elections (see Haley Smith’s post on the Virginia elections) in which uncontested seats are the norm, only one of the forty New Jersey General Assembly districts was contested by less than four candidates. Multi-winner districts (in which three or more representatives are elected per district) would encourage even more candidates to run than two-winner districts.

The presence of contested elections notwithstanding, the New Jersey General Assembly 2015 highlighted two key phenomena: the predictive power of partisanship in modern American elections and the tendency, when using winner-take-all in two-winner districts, for one party to win all of the seats in a district.

Predictive Power of Partisanship:

Each and every one of the 12 districts that cast less than 50% of its vote for Obama in 2012 elected two Republicans to the General Assembly in 2015 (Table 1). Those 12 districts also elected a Republican state Senator in 2013. Similarly, with only one exception, every one of the 24 districts that cast 54.5% or more of its vote for Obama in 2012 (translating into an underlying partisanship of 53.2% Democratic) elected two Democrats to the General Assembly. Only two of those districts elected a Republican to the state Senate in 2013: Districts 2 and 7. Finally, only in those districts that cast 52.5% – 53.1% of their ballots for Obama in 2012, namely Districts 1, 8, and 16, was partisanship not a good predictor of the outcome.

These kinds of results, where partisanship is predictive of the outcome of elections at the state- and national-levels and in odd-year, mid-term, and presidential years, are becoming more and more common in the United States, as voters become less and less likely to split their tickets or vote for candidates outside their political party.

Table 1: Partisanship and Partisan Control in the New Jersey State Legislature after the 2015 Election

District	Vote for Obama in 2012	Candidates elected in 2015 General Assembly Election	State Legislative Delegation after 2015 Election
29	88%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
28	83%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
34	82%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
35	82%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
31	81%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
20	80%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
33	77%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
32	74%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
15	73%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
17	72%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
5	69%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
37	68%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
22	68%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
19	67%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
6	64%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
7	64%	Two Democrats	Mixed
36	63%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
4	61%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
18	61%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
2	60%	One Republican, One Democrat	Mixed
14	57%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
27	57%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
3	55%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
11	55%	Two Democrats	Mixed
38	55%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
16	53%	One Republican, One Democrat	Mixed
8	53%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
1	53%	Two Democrats	All Democrats
21	47%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
12	46%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
25	45%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
39	45%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
13	44%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
26	44%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
9	44%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
40	44%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
23	43%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
10	42%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
24	39%	Two Republicans	All Republicans
30	37%	Two Republicans	All Republicans

Figure 1: New Jersey General Assembly Election 2015, results by district (red districts elected two Republicans, blue districts elected two Democrats, and purple districts elected one from each party)

One Party Domination:

Although almost all districts are contested and a few are even home to competitive elections, most parts of New Jersey are firmly one party territory. All but two districts in the state elected two assembly members from the same political parties (Table 1 and Figure 1), and only two more districts elected assembly members from a different party than their state senator. So, while each New Jerseyan is represented by three elected state legislators, only one in ten is represented by state legislators from different parties. This means that, in 2015, around 30% of New Jersey voters cast a ballot for a General Assembly candidate from the party that is locked out of representation in their district. This includes the 39,000 (46%) Republican voters in District 1 down in the Southern Shore, who are represented by three Democrats in the state legislature, and the 30,000 (44%) Democrat voters in District 40, who are represented by three Republicans.

District 7 is the sole example of a district bucking the dual trends of voting by partisanship and one party domination. It voted 64% for Obama in 2012, and elected two Democrats to the General Assembly in 2015. However, Republican Diane Allen has served in the state Senate for the district since 1998, winning by impressive margins (60% - 40% in 2013) in a firmly Democratic district.

Table 2: The 2015 New Jersey General Assembly Election Modeled using Three-Winner RCV

Statewide Vote (2-party, House)	2015 New Jersey General Assembly Election (Actual Results)		Modeled Outcome in Three-Winner districts using Ranked Choice Voting (25%+1 needed to win)
Statewide Vote (2-party, House)	Parties Elected (percent)	Districts with Shared Representation (both major parties win a seat)	Seats Elected (by party)	Districts with Shared Representation (both major parties above 25% threshold)
54% Democrats; 46% Republicans	65% Democrats; 35% Republicans	2 out of 40	54% Democrats; 37% Republicans; 9% too close to call	34 out of 40

With fairer voting rules, district partisanship would not predict the outcomes of all three seats in each district and one party rule would no longer be the norm. If New Jersey elected its state legislators in three-member districts in the General Assembly, and used ranked choice voting (RCV) rather than winner-take-all, most districts would elect representatives from both political parties to the General Assembly. Table 2 shows a simulation of the results of the 2015 General Assembly election under three-winner RCV, in which a party would win a seat with 25% of the vote in a district. Using the underlying district partisanship to gauge results, only six districts would likely remain dominated by one party. Intraparty competition would occur in all 40 districts, and real competition for seats between the parties would occur in at least eight districts.

In an environment where voters rarely split tickets, New Jersey’s current winner-take-all electoral system ensures that district partisanship is highly predictive of outcomes and that most districts elect three state legislators from the same party. Supporters of the minority party in each district are often left without a candidate of choice representing them. This need not be the case. Under multi-winner RCV, most New Jerseyans would be able to cast a meaningful vote for a candidate of choice in the General Assembly and few voters would be trapped in a district without a representative from their preferred party.

Virginia Legislative Elections Highlight Problems with Winner-Take-All Elections

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 14:08:03 -0500

The most significant possible outcome for Tuesday’s election in Virginia was that the Democrats would win control of the state Senate, which would have made it easier for Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) to pass key agenda items. While the stakes in Tuesday’s Virginia elections were high, after the dust settled not much had changed. All 122 incumbents who ran won re-election and the Democrats were thwarted in their bid for the state Senate. With only a handful of competitive races, there was little reason for most Virginians to even turn out.

Republicans Retain Control:

Overall, Republicans maintained their supermajority in the Virginia House of Delegates, taking home 67 out of 100 House seats. Strikingly, more than two-thirds of races were uncontested. Seventy-one House seats had only one major party candidate running; and of the 33 seats Democrats won, 27 were won in the absence of any challenger (Table 1). Forty-four of the 67 seats won by Republicans were also won without opposition. Based on preliminary results, only six seats were won by less than a 10% margin, meaning that 94 percent of Virginia Delegate races were uncompetitive. Although a total of three seats changed party (mostly by narrow margins), in net, the Democrats only gained one seat from the 2011 elections. In all, the results were rather uninspiring.

In the state Senate, only 23 of 40 races were contested, meaning that 43 percent of the outcomes were guaranteed before Election Day. To take control of the state Senate, the Democrats needed to gain only one seat (to make it an even 20R - 20D, with the Democratic Lieutenant Governor breaking the tie). But they failed to do so,in part because, as the Washington Post observed, only two Senate races were thought to be toss ups that could possibly change party hands. Despite much anticipation about the outcome of the VA state Senate races, the Senate remained 21R - 19D, with no net change from the 2011 election.

With only two Senate seats hotly contested, few seats in the whole of the General Assembly that could even be considered a contest, and another predetermined supermajority in the House, the great majority of voters had no impact on the outcome. But this type of state election is nothing new in Virginia. The 2011 election was also similarly uncompetitive; with virtually the same results (67 R in the House and 20 R in the Senate, with a special January election that gave the Republicans 21 seats).

The Power of Partisanship:

In the 2015 Virginia state elections most single-winner districts were safe for one of the two parties by a large margin. And this partisanship is remarkably consistent. Partisanship, meaning the amount of Democratic or Republican voters in a district who consistently tow the party line, ensures sustained partisan control in uncompetitive and rather predictable election. It also manifests as a lot of candidates running unopposed.

As a demonstration of how consistent partisanship is in Virginia, we compared the provisional 2015 State Assembly results against the partisanship of the districts in the 2012 presidential election (presidential partisanship is an often-used marker of area partisanship in political analysis). This comparison shows that district partisanship is a powerful predictor of election results, even in Virginia state elections, which are held in off-years separate from any federal races. In the House, all districts with Democratic partisanship greater than 54 percent in 2012 elected a Democratic delegate in 2015 -- with just one exception. Likewise all districts that had less than 54 percent Democratic partisanship elected a Republican delegate in 2015 and supported Romney in 2012, with a single exception. That exceptional district, VA-H34, re-elected their Democratic incumbent, Kathleen J. Murphy, by a margin of less than one percent of the vote.

Partisanship was even more indicative of the success of candidates in the state Senate elections, where every district that voted for Obama elected a Democratic candidate and every district that voted for Romney elected a Republican. With such strong district partisanship, the results of the Virginia elections were unsurprising despite millions of dollars of campagn spending.

Are Gerrymandering and Redistricting the Real Problem?

With partisanship so predictive of outcomes, it is tempting to blame redistricting--and partisan gerrymandering-- for the chronic lack of competition in Virginia state legislative races. In an article in the Washington Post, Professor Stephen J. Farnsworth noted, “What’s really striking about the battle for control of the Virginia Senate is how few races could even plausibly be discussed as competitive. …It is a testament to the effectiveness of gerrymandering”. Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University shared similar sentiments, saying: “Things are less competitive now than they used to be… And …gerrymandering is a large part of it, and the competitiveness of any given year is going to be driven by primaries right now more than it’s going to be driven by general elections”.

But are gerrymandered districts really causing the uncompetitive, uncontested and unexciting elections so common for the Virginia General Assembly?

Research tends to indicate they are not. Bipartisan redistricting commissions, independent redistricting commissions, and citizen redistricting commission are often seen as the solution to gerrymandered districts because they take district maps out of partisan (or even political) hands. Work by FairVote shows, however, that no matter how a state redistricts, single-winner districts tend to lead to partisan-driven outcomes that maintain the power of one party in a district.

The real source of the problem of non-competitive elections is the inherent nature of winner-take-all voting in single-winner districts. While better redistricting practices, which take the power of drawing district lines out of the hands of the legislatures, might help produce a little more competition in districts, these practices do not make elections much more competitive or representative for voters. In part, this is because redistricting for competitiveness is very difficult to achieve while also achieving the other primary objectives of redistricting such as compactness, respect for community boundaries, and racial group equality. But people also tend to sort themselves into similar-minded neighborhoods, in which most members of the community support the same party continually, making it almost impossible to draw districts that are competitive.

An alternative that would transform competition and representation is use of multi-winner districts and ranked choice voting (RCV). If current state legislative districts were combined into districts with three to five seats, elections would become more competitive, with more seats to win and lower thresholds for winning. More seats to run for and lower thresholds of winning also increases the number of candidates likely to run. RCV in multi-winner districts helps lessen partisan control of a district because candidates gain seats proportionally to their vote share, meaning that one party would no longer monopolize a district even if highly partisan voters continued to only vote for their party.

As an example , FairVote in 2011 drafted a multi-winner RCV plan for Virginia’s state legislature. By dividing the House of Delegates into 20 five-seat "super districts" and the state Senate into 10 four-seat districts for use with ranked choice voting, the plans ensure at least four in five voters will elect a preferred candidate. The threshold for like-minded voters to win at least one seat would be 17 percent of the vote in a five-seat house district and 20 percent in a four-seat senate district. That means fuller representation of each area's political left, center and right.

The partisanship of these districts would suggest that each party would have enough voter support to win at least two seats in nearly every district if they ran strong candidates, and third parties and independents would be better positioned to hold them accountable. While no plan can guarantee all political persuasions gain representation, multi-winner districts like those in FairVote’s 2011 Virginia plan would ensure greater representation for a greater number of people and greater diversity of representation within the major parties, including urban Republicans and rural Democrats.

As the 2015 Virginia state elections show, single-winner districts reduce competition and disincentivize citizens from turning out. By contrast, RCV in multi-winner districts creates elections where members of both parties have legitimate opportunities to win seats. RCV in multi-winner districts can improve Virginia elections in ways redistricting reforms can not.

Seven Ways Ranked Choice Voting is Empowering Voters in 2015

Wed, 04 Nov 2015 16:53:08 -0500

Election Day 2015 has come and gone, and voters in cities in six states again found that they were not limited to marking only one candidate, but had the ability to rank the candidates in order of choice. Voters had the chance to vote with ranked choice voting in the following city elections:

San Francisco, CA
Telluride, CO
Saint Paul, MN
Takoma Park, MD
Portland, ME
Cambridge, MA

That expansion of voter power is not a miracle cure-all for our democracy, but has clear positive impacts. Here are seven ways RCV worked around the country this year.

1. Choices and accountability in San Francisco, California

San Francisco has elected its Mayor, Board of Supervisors and most other city offices by ranked choice voting since 2003, allowing the city to eliminate high cost, low turnout runoff elections. San Francisco routinely outperforms other cities in turnout, with most voters saying they understand and like the use of RCV. Over 99.5% of voters cast valid, ranked ballots.

This November, six races used RCV. Of the three incumbents facing at least two opponents, two lost and the third experienced a clear warning from voters. Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi lost to Vicki Hennessy, the Board of Supervisors’ Julie Christenson lost to Aaron Peskin, and Mayor Ed Lee fell far short of expectations in facing several poorly financed challenges. With California always slow to count ballots, vote totals are still coming in, but Mayor Lee may receive less than 56% of first choices and was far outpaced by challenger Francisco Herrera in picking up votes from defeated candidates. (San Francisco has a laudable practice of running the RCV tally to reduce the field to two even when a candidate surpasses 50% of first choice.) Still, Lee easily won the instant runoff by 68% to 32%, and has a mandate for another term -- albeit one that should make sure he listens to voters.

2. Giving small town voters a big voice in Telluride, Colorado

Telluride only uses RCV if more than two candidates run for mayor -- which has now happened in both mayoral elections in 2011 and 2015 since the city adopted RCV in 2008. This time, the value of RCV was obvious, as there was a razor thin margin between the top two candidates in first choices, with a third trailing candidate winning a substantial number of votes.

In the first round, candidate “Glider” Bob Saunders had 495 votes, compared to Sean Murphy with 491; Todd Brown trailed with 112. No candidate had a majority of votes in the first round, so Todd Brown was eliminated. Sean Murphy was the second choice for most of Brown’s supporters (79 of his 112 voters had their vote count for Murphy in the instant runoff), making him the clear majority winner and the town’s first openly gay major. Ranked choice voting allowed the will of the voters to show through in this small town election. “A new Telluride majority rocked the vote,” said Murphy in his victory speech, announcing “a new era of collective problem-solving.”

Saunders apparently was heavily outspent, and some of his allies are experiencing frustration about that aspect of the election. But RCV at least meant the election did not have to be spread over two rounds of voting where having campaign money matters even more.

3. Positive campaigning in St. Paul, Minnesota

In Saint Paul, Minnesota, seven city council district seats were up for election. In two 2011 elections and a 2013 special election, RCV had a clear role, but most of the 2015 races included a popular incumbent who easily won re-election. The lone race without a first-round majority winner was the open seat race in Ward 2.

Saint Paul conducts hand counts for elections that must go to an “instant runoff,” so the final results will not be available until after Monday. Nonetheless, RCV did seem to impact the campaign, as the candidates in person sought to promote their positive messages,although there still were some negative attacks by mail. That finding of relatively increased civility was consistent with the major study of RCV elections in seven cities in 2013-2014.

4. Boosting turnout in Takoma Park, Maryland

Takoma Park held RCV elections for six council seats and the mayor, but only one council race drew more than two candidates, and all were won in the first round. The city elected its second-ever woman mayor, Kate Stewart.

Takoma Park is FairVote’s hometown, and we applaud its efforts to engage voters. Using innovations like mobile early voting sites and public outreach, voter turnout nearly doubled over the last city elections in 2013. Takoma Park also is notable on who could vote: any resident at least 16 years old. Turnout among teens appears to be relatively high; in two previous uses, more 16 and 17 year olds voted than all voters who were 18 to 30 combined. City residents also overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to explore consolidating city elections with those held in November of even-numbered years to further boost turnout while preserving RCV and its suffrage innovations.

5. No spoiler effect and real competition in Portland, Maine

When Portland passed a charter amendment to switch from an appointed to an elected mayor in 2010, it also decided to elect that mayor with RCV, rather than an expensive and unnecessary primary/runoff system. Although incumbent Mayor Mike Brennan -- himself a supporter of RCV -- won handily in 2011, voters replaced him with challenger Ethan Strimling this year in a three-way race.

While Strimling won a majority of votes in the first round, the Green Party affiliated candidate was able to run a serious campaign without any fingers pointing to him as a “spoiler.”

Portland voters overwhelmingly support the continued use of RCV. An informal exit survey conducted by FairVote at one of the city’s highest turnout precincts revealed that more than nine in ten voters describe ranking candidates as “easy,” 84% of voters ranked at least two candidates, and 91% of voters with an opinion said they support keeping RCV in Portland. Next year, Maine will vote on whether to extend the use of RCV to the entire of the state, in an initiative organized by a grassroots group of Maine voters.

6. Fair representation brings new voice to Cambridge, Massachusetts

Since 1941 Cambridge has elected its nine-member city council and six-member school committee in citywide ranked choice voting elections. Multi-winner RCV has helped ensure that voters have a full range of choices and political and ethnic minority groups earn their fair share of representation in Cambridge. Yesterday’s election was no exception.

In 2013, a new slate of candidates challenged the city council incumbents and managed to win two seats. This year, challenger Jan Devereux managed to unseat vice mayor Dennis Benzan, and the “Slate for Change” leader Nadeem Mazen, a former Occupy Boston activist and Cambridge’s first Arab American city council member, won more votes in the first round than any other candidate. As we reported after the 2013 election, the use of multi-winner RCV was critical for Mazen’s election the first time around, and as a result, the growing minority of voters hoping to shake up Cambridge city politics will have representation on the council in 2016 and beyond.

The School Committee election also saw newcomers win election for the first time. The new committee remains reflective of the city’s diversity, with four of six seats held by women, and two by African Americans. Multi-seat RCV continues to help women and people of color in Cambridge achieve higher levels of representation than would be likely under winner-take-all rules.

7. Supporting the voices of overseas and military voters in Louisiana

Louisiana held its first round of elections to state legislature on October 24th, and it will hold runoff elections for races in which no candidate received a majority vote on November 21st. Overseas and military voters are able to participate in both rounds using RCV ballots. Each overseas voter received a ballot for the first round along with a “special absentee” ranked ballot. This ensures that overseas voters have their voices heard in runoff elections when their votes are counted for whichever remaining candidate they ranked highest. Last year, five states used RCV ballots to ensure their overseas and military voters could fully participate. Four states now use them on a permanent basis: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and South Carolina.

What could an independent run by Jim Webb mean for 2016?

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 11:02:08 -0400

On Tuesday, former Virginia U.S. Senator Jim Webb ended his bid for the Democratic nomination for president, while also leaving the door open for an independent run. Webb, a former Republican whose views are more conservative than many Democrats, never found momentum as a Democratic presidential candidate. He indicated his interest in running as an independent however, stating, "Poll after poll shows that a strong plurality of Americans is neither Republican nor Democrat. Overwhelmingly they're independents."

It remains to be seen whether Jim Webb will run as an independent--he said he would consider his options in the coming weeks--and it's hard to tell how much support an independent campaign could muster in the general election. It is important to note, however, that he would not have to establish too much support to have an impact on the 2016 presidential race.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Take the simple fact that he’s from Virginia, one of the few true swing states in recent presidential elections. Since most states give all of their electoral college votes to the presidential candidate that wins a plurality (the most votes, not a majority of votes), candidates that garner a relatively small share of the electorate can have a big impact on highly competitive elections. Voters need only remember the photo-finish in 2000 in which Al Gore lost the presidency by a very small margin in a few states (most notably Florida)-- even as Green Party candidate Ralph Nader won over some would-be Democratic voters in those crucial swing states. Similarly, Republicans often lament the role Ross Perot’s independent candidacy played in Bill Clinton’s victory over incumbent George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Even a few percentage points in Virginia could prove significant in a closely contested presidential race in 2016. For example, in 2012 incumbent President Barack Obama won by only three percentage points over challenger Mitt Romney with a slight majority of 50.8 percent -- and the state would likely have been near a dead heat if Obama and Romney had tied in the popular vote. In an even tighter race in 2014, incumbent Senator Mark Warner defeated challenger Ed Gillespie by just 0.8 percentage points, garnering only 49.2 percent of the vote. In that election, 2.5 percent of voters chose Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis, who also won far more than the Democrat’s margin of victory in the 2013 election for governor. One could easily make a claim that had Sarvis not run, Gillespie, a Republican, would have likely captured most of that 2.5 percent and won with a majority of the vote, and Terry McAuliffe might not be governor.

When candidates can win with the most votes rather than a majority of the votes, independent and third party candidates can have a big impact on the outcome with just a couple percentage points. Should Webb run as an independent, there’s a real chance he could peel away just enough of would-be Democratic voters to change the outcome in Virginia. And given his history of appealing to some populist conservative voters, his candidacy could cut the other way and hurt the Republican nominee.

The problem isn’t Jim Webb, but rather our elected leaders who maintain a system that breaks down in elections with more than two candidates. In doing so, they are essentially playing a game of chicken with would-be candidates and voters rather than simply changing the rules to better accommodate more choice at the ballot box.

Earlier this year Virginia’s state senate backed establishing runoff elections for certain statewide races, however runoffs would force the state to hold expensive, big-money elections in the middle of the holiday season. For that reason, and because we are having more primary and general elections with more than two candidates, ranked choice voting (RCV) is gaining support across the country. It’s being used in more than a dozen U.S. cities, in Democratic and Republican internal party contests in Virginia and Utah, and will be on a statewide ballot measure in Maine in 2016. RCV allows voters to rank candidates in order of choice. That way if no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the voters who supported that candidate have their vote instantly count for their next choice. It’s the best way to uphold the principle of majority rule in an election with more than two candidates.

It’s time to take on the structural flaws in our electoral system, rather than bury our heads in the sand. A system that allows candidates to win without a majority leaves the door open for “winners” that a majority of voters oppose. With a better electoral system, we could be talking about what issues and voters Jim Webb might bring to the presidential debate as an independent, rather than simply calculating how he might affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential race.

Try out ranked choice voting at the new FairVote-Civinomics Ranked Choice Voting App. You can vote in this year’s presidential contests and soon will be able to set up contests of your choice.

Anything but Fair: The Sad Tale of the Canadian Election System

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 11:21:17 -0400

If the current predictions are on the mark, there will be a new minority Liberal Party government in Canada on Monday evening (19 October 2015). Eric Greiner’s Poll Tracker at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation currently (13 October) projects the Liberal Party will win between 110 and 150 seats, likely besting the incumbent Conservative Party government. While such a result in Monday’s election will be a relief for some, including those who have adopted the mantra of “Anyone but the Conservatives” (ABC) and created ABC Facebook pages left,right, and center, the results will likely once again highlight the inadequacies of a system that uses winner-take-all in single-winner districts.

Wreaking Havoc with Winner-take-all

Called “first-past-the-post” in Canada (although my colleague Rob Richie prefers "top of the heap" as a more accurate metaphor), winner-take-all in single-winner districts is responsible for a multitude of perverse and unfair phenomena. It awards seats to parties in proportions that bear little semblance to their overall vote share. It locks many voters out of a meaningful vote on account of where they happen to live—especially for those who live in Alberta, where the Conservative Party easily won 27 of 28 ridings (the Canadian term for “electoral district”) last election. Even though drawn by independent boundary commissions, in 2011 more than a third of the districts in Canada were uncompetitive and won by a margin of more the 25%.

Most significantly in Canada, winner-take-all in single-winner districts results in vote splitting and enables the spoiler effect to wreak its havoc in competitive districts where more than two candidates run. In the 2015 Canadian election, all but one riding (Labrador) is being contested by at least four candidates, which is surely a good sign for democracy.

With multiple candidates, however, winner-take-all in single-winner districts often elects candidates who win with much less than 50% of the vote. Candidates who appeal to similar voters divide the vote, often leading to the election of a candidate that the majority of the electorate dislikes. For example, in 2011 in the riding of Vancouver South, Liberal Party incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh was defeated in a five-way race by the Conservative Party candidate, Wai Young. While Young was the only right-of-center candidate to run in Vancouver South, the left side of politics was split between four candidates, including Dosanjh, who collectively won 56.8% of the vote. This cuts across both sides of politics; indeed, the leader of the Liberal Party Justin Trudeau himself was elected with only 38% of the vote in his riding, Papineau.

The susceptibility of winner-take-all in single-winner districts to vote splitting and the spoiler effect forces voters into an unacceptable “catch-22”-like position of having to decide whether to vote according to their conscience or strategically choose the lesser of two evils.

A Risky Plan: Strategic Voting

The problems of vote splitting and the spoiler effect are so extreme in Canada, that a series of organizations have sprung up encouraging Liberal and NDP voters to vote strategically for the non-Conservative candidate with the best chance of winning and, even, to “pair off” and swap votes with voters in other strategic ridings. More than 80,000 people have signed a pledge declaring that they will vote strategically for the non-Conservative candidate with the best chance of winning. This movement is understandable but most unfortunate because strategic voting, rife in winner-take-all with single-winner districts, is a risky task. As the Globe and Mail observes, “to cast their ballots strategically, those voters first must determine which party has the best chance of winning – a difficult task that involves more than a little guesswork.”Voters should not find themselves forced into deciding either to weather the risk voting strategically or see their least preferred candidate win.

Vote splitting affects results in many individual districts, with over half of seats up for election in 2011 being won with less than 50% of the vote. In the aggregate, winner-take-all elections increasingly catapult a government that the majority of Candidate voters did not vote for (and, perhaps, had voted against) into power. In the 2011 Federal Election, the Conservative Party obtained only 40% of the national vote, but won 54% of the seats in parliament. Voting splitting among voters on the right, with the emergence of the separatist Bloc Quebecois in Quebec and the breaking away of the Reform Party from the Progressive Conservative Party in western Canada, helped ensure unbroken Liberal Party rule between 1993 and 2006. Similarly, the left is increasingly split between the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Liberal Party and the Greens, which has helped ensure the victory of a right now more united under the Conservative Party.

Whichever party—the Liberal Party, Conservative Party or, in an upset, the NDP—wins the 2015 election, they will take the reins of government without having won a majority of the vote. If the Conservative Party beats the odds and emerges victorious again in the 2015 election, Ipsos polling indicates we will see not only a government for whom most did not vote, but one that is not wanted by a majority of people.

Identifying Voter Preferences

The most recent Ipsos poll asks voters to nominate which party they prefer and then goes on to ask voters, “assuming you can't vote for your first choice, which party would you support as a second choice? Using this data, we can see that, of the three political parties with a shot at forming government, the Liberal Party comes out ahead. In a two-way race, the Liberal Party wins 55% to 45% against the Conservative Party and 55% to 45% against the NDP. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are the least popular party, losing to the NDP in a two-way race 47% to 53%.

Clearly, winner-take-all in single winner districts is not working for Canadian voters. As Robert Buderi recently discussed, both the NDP and the Liberal Party have promised reform if elected. The Liberal Party would likely include ranked choice voting, in which voters rank choices so that most votes end up counting even if a voter’s first choice loses. This single reform would go a long way to fixing what ails Canadian elections and relieving so many Canadian voters from the impossible situation they now face between conscience and strategy.

The Paradox of Fairness and Competition in Virginia Redistricting

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 09:14:45 -0400

The most recent scuffle over congressional redistricting in Virginia illustrates how poor a job single-winner districts do at achieving meaningful elections with fair results.

The maps and tables above present the impact of four approaches to congressional districting in Virginia. As part of an amicus brief submitted in federal court, Common Cause analyzed these maps: the first two (on top) it describes as partisan gerrymanders, giving the Intervenor’s plan a grade letter of “F.” Common Cause gave the bottom two plans “A’s” and described them as not being partisan gerrymanders.

Virginia is evenly split in terms of overall partisanship. A fair outcome in its 11 districts would be the election of five Republicans, five Democrats, with one seat plausibly going to either party’s candidate. By this standard, the Petersen plan does seem to do the best job of achieving fair representation, and both the “A” plans outperform the two other maps. In that sense, Common Cause is right.

However, achieving fair representation through single-winner districts is inherently top-down: in the bottom two maps, and especially the Petersen plan, fair representation is imposed on Virginia voters. The two “good” maps work by taking one or two of the competitive districts of the “bad” maps and making them safe for the Democratic nominee. The end result is that at most two out of 11 seats will be competitive, with more safe seats than in the current plan.

Competition in congressional elections matters for meaningful participation. Shortly after the 2014 election, FairVote released projections for 85% of 2016 U.S. House races. Based on the success rate of our projections in 2010 and 2012 (more than 99.9% accurate), we expect every projection to be accurate. That paints a stark picture of how meaningful our votes can be in deciding who will represent us in Congress. Without a meaningfully competitive general election, incumbents can sail to re-election without fear of any opposition. These legislators lack accountability once in office, except to the increasingly small and unrepresentative group of primary election voters.

Candidates elected in safe districts also tend to have more polarized voting patterns than those in swing districts. The diminishing number of swing districts matches the pattern of the disappearing congressional bridge-builders who work across party lines.

The “grade A” maps that correct for partisan gerrymandering in Virginia exacerbate all of this. Fewer voters would have a meaningful vote in the general election, fewer candidates would be accountable to their district’s voters, and fewer Members of Congress would have incentives to work across party lines for sensible, cross-partisan legislation.

In the context of single-winner districts, that is the price to pay for fair representation of voters’ viewpoints. That is because the single-winner district system can only ensure fair representation when it is imposed from the top down.

Fortunately, there is an alternative that combines the best of what Common Cause is right to promote (an independent redistricting process) while still achieving a level playing field for parties and an equal playing field for voters in the Ranked Choice Voting Act.

By simply combining districts into multi-winner super districts and electing officers with ranked choice voting, Virginia could have fair representation and universally competitive elections.

With ranked choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of choice. Those rankings ensure that as many voters as mathematically possible will help elect a candidate they support. In a three-winner district, for example, if more than a quarter of voters support one candidate, that candidate will be sure to win; if more than half of voters support two candidates, both will be sure to win. At the end of the count, more than 75% of voters will nearly always help elect a candidate they support, and nearly every voter will rank a winning candidate first, second or third. In a five-seat district, even more voters will typically help elect a candidate they support.

Consequently, every district will include meaningful competition both within and between the two major parties in the general election. With larger districts covering diverse areas, it becomes nearly impossible to gerrymander such a system to create safe districts – and under the Ranked Choice Voting Act, which would institute this system, independent districting commissions would draw lines according to criteria that would be prohibited them from trying. Instead, every district would feature meaningful two-party competition, and it would even elect both Republicans and Democrats in every part of the state. At fairvoting.us, we demonstrate that this can be accomplished by combining existing districts in literally every single state that elects at least three Members to Congress.

This approach is strong for upholding the Voting Rights Act as well. Under each single-winner district plan above, African American voters in one district (district three under the current map) have the power to elect a candidate of choice, but more than 70% of the African American population lives outside of that district. Under the fair voting plan, over two-thirds of African Americans in Virginia would be able to help elect a candidate of choice in super district C, and Asian and Latino voters would be able to elect a candidate in coalition in super district B, which is not the case in any of the current map’s 10 majority-white districts. Further, with ranked choice voting every voter will gain influence because candidates will seek to be their second or third choice.

The above super district map was drawn by combining districts from the current congressional map. Super district A is composed of districts 5, 6 and 9; B is composed of 8, 10 and 11; and C is composed of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7.

However, the fairness and competitiveness of this map does not rely on that particular configuration. In fact, combining similarly situated districts from the other three maps pictured at the beginning of this article renders the following results:

As these tables demonstrate, four very different maps, two partisan gerrymanders and two “fair” maps, all render the same results when combined into three and five-winner super districts with ranked choice voting. Each of them would render fair results and universally competitive elections.

That is because, in contrast to single-winner districts, ranked choice voting in multi-winner super districts allows representation to be determined bottom-up by the voters, not imposed from the top down. More voters gain representation regardless of the overall makeup of their districts, so the lines matter less.

With single-winner districts, we get results that may or may not be fair, may or may not be competitive, and result in a paradox under which they cannot be both fair and competitive.

With ranked choice voting, we have results that reflect voters and result in competitive general elections in nearly every case.

Seventh Circuit on the Right to "An Effective Voice in the General Election."

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 09:36:11 -0400

The Court of Appeal for the Seventh Circuit recently struck down the use limited nominations in judicial elections in Indianapolis, Indiana. It held that the law substantially burdened "the right of voters to have an effective voice in the general election."

The law required that no political party could nominate more than half the number of candidates to be elected in an at-large election. In practice, this meant that half of those elected were Republicans, while the other half were Democrats, in every election so far.

Although the Seventh Circuit incorrectly equates the two, this case involved the use of limited nominations, and not the use of "limited voting." Limited voting is what some call a "semi-proportional voting system" (albeit one with an unfortunate name) in which voters have fewer votes than the number of seats to be elected in a multi-winner contest. The fewer votes allowed, the more groups of voters have the power to elect a preferred candidate, with the "single vote" form having the greatest impact in that respect.

It is unfortunate that the Seventh Circuit only refers to "limited voting" without mentioning "limited nominations," as the two are not the same (curiously, the court also says Indiana uses closed primaries, but as we note on our page listing primary election methods, Indiana is best characterized as an open primary state). Limited voting was not at issue in this case, and it has been upheld regularly. In fact, it has been used to remedy two cases brought under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by the Department of Justice in recent years: in Lake Park, Florida and in Euclid, Ohio. FairVote publishes a booklet on how the single vote and other fair voting methods can help resolve such cases.

Limited nomination involves multi-winner elections for partisan offices in which each party has fewer nominations than the number of seats to be elected. It is a relatively common practice that was, in fact, established by Congress for the four at-large city council seats in Washington, DC - two are up each cycle, and each political party can nominate only one candidate.

In Indianapolis, there are either 18 or 20 judges being elected each cycle, but each political party can nominate only 9 or 10 respectively. If there are no third party or independent candidates, that means the general election has 20 candidates for 20 seats: an uncontested race. The Seventh Circuit seemed to assume that independent and minor party candidates cannot realistically win office, and so the case responded to what have been meaningless general elections in which the only contest takes place in the primaries.

Limited nominations do not always result in meaningless general elections. In Washington, DC, independent and minor party candidates regularly (and often successfully) challenge Republicans for the "second seat," and the Working Families Party has had some success in Connecticut elections with limited nominations in cities like Hartford.

Limited voting and limited nomination often go together in partisan elections in the United States. Indeed, it's the law for at-large city council elections in Connecticut (76 Connecticut jurisdictions using limited voting), and it is established by law for most county commission elections in Pennsylvania (affecting 47 county elections). Limited voting has been adopted to settle dozens of cases brought under the Voting Rights Act in jurisdictions like Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.

See FairVote's list of jurisdictions with fair representation voting.

The Seventh Circuit's ruling may have significant implications. Indianapolis's current law recognizes that in partisan elections for judges, partisan voters often "vote the ticket" and wipe out one side. That makes the primary the determinative election, with the general election at most contested on paper. FairVote's analyses have pointed out that most state legislative elections have general elections with no meaningful competition; several whole legislative chambers are represented by state representatives with party affiliations that match up perfectly with the partisan affiliation of the presidential nominee who carried their district.

Even worse, more than four in ten state legislative elections are not even contested on paper today.

Here is what the Seventh Circuit panel had to say about the right to vote:

"When an election law reduces or forecloses the opportunity for electoral choice, it restricts a market where a voter might effectively and meaningfully exercise his choice between competing ideas or candidates, and thus severely burdens the right to vote."

If there really is a constitutional right to meaningful choices in November, we could be in for some creative legal challenges ahead!

Smart Ranked Choice Polling in the Presidential Race by PPP: New Poll Clarifies Nature of Donald Trump’s Support

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 17:32:58 -0400

After a fiery first Republican Presidential Debate on August 6th, the GOP primary field has continued to shift and change, leaving many pollsters struggling to catch up. To the surprise of many observers, Donald Trump has continued his surge – but new polling techniques helps clarify the nature of his support.

While most polls ask for second choices, few report the full breakdown of first and second choice support that allows more precise matching of candidates. In failing to do so, they give only a portion of the information needed to accurately understand the field as it may evolve in the coming months. Especially as candidates start to drop out, pollsters must ask voters to provide more information on their preferences and report that information with greater detail. Second-choice polls reveal what connections and crossovers exist among different groups of supporters.

As a start, polls can do something quite simple – and indeed something most polls are already doing in a limited manner. They should ask voters for their second-choice candidates and, ideally their third-choice as well. With that additional data in hand, better analysis of it can provide a wealth of insight.

PPP Excels in Presentation of Second Choices

As we recently blogged, Public Policy Polling (PPP) continues to show leadership in their collection and presentation of second choice data. Not only does the firm present the aggregate second-choice percentages, PPP reports the full breakdown of who each candidate’s supporters would select as their second choice.

Take PPP’s August 25 poll on New Hampshire. Part of its finding was that businessman Donald Trump is dominating the field – he is at 35% in New Hampshire, with John Kasich far back at 11%, followed by Carly Fiorina with 10% and Jeb Bush and Scott Walker tied with 7%. Trump finishes third among respondents for second-choice votes with 8% – only slightly behind Ben Carson (11%), and Carly Fiorina (10%). In other words, Trump is either the first- or second-choice of 43% of respondents, while former frontrunner Jeb Bush is the first- or second-choice of only 14%.

PPP presents its second-choice polling data in a simple one-page table form that provides a more detailed picture of the field than polls only asking for first choices or only reporting aggregate first- and second-choice data. For example, these results tell us that not only is Carly Fiorina one of the more popular first-choice and second-choice but she has broad appeal among other candidates’ supporters -- with sizable percentage of the second-choice support from Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. If Fiorina keeps rising and any of these candidates falter or drop out, she stands to gain.

The real emerging winner of these second-choice results however, is Donald Trump. Over the past few months, expectations of Donald Trump’s impending implosion have been almost as persistent as his rise in popularity. Political commentators and candidates alike have repeatedly predicted his departure from the race, insisting that his following among the Republican electorate is deep but narrow. That may have been true earlier in the summer, but the new numbers from PPP show a more complex story: a candidate who is starting to draw support from both establishment and anti-establishment voters in New Hampshire, but is far more polarizing in North Carolina.

Trump’s Impressive Breadth of Support

In New Hampshire, Trump is the leading second-choice option among the supporters of almost every establishment candidate including Jeb Bush and John Kasich. Trump earns the second-choices of 19% of Jeb Bush supporters, easily beating more moderate candidates like Kasich (9%), Walker (6%), and Rubio (1%). This trend continues among John Kasich supporters, 16% of whom would chose Trump second, ahead of all the other candidates.

Among other establishment candidates, Trump only narrowly trails Jeb Bush as the most popular second choice. Twenty-four percent (24%) of Rubio supporters listed Jeb Bush as their second-choice, compared to the 22% who listed Trump as their second-choice. Trump also earns a sizable 20% second-choice support from Scott Walker, just 1% behind Marco Rubio and Fiorina.

Interestingly, the reverse of this trend does not hold true. Trump’s large number of first-choice supporters show notably little interest in selecting establishment candidates as their second choice. Instead, fellow outsider candidate Ben Carson emerges as the most popular second-choice for Trump supporters, with similar outsider candidates Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina trailing close behind him. Trump’s supporters remain as pleased as ever with their varied outsider second-choice options – and if his campaign indeed does fade, the establishment candidates may not gain.

So, with data limited to just first- and second-choice numbers, one-on-one comparisons make Trump’s lead all the stronger. Here are a few examples:

Contrast with New Hampshire: Trump May Hit Ceiling

PPP on August 19th released another state poll from North Carolina. Here again, Trump leads in first-choices with 24%, ahead of Carson (14%), Bush (13%) and Cruz (10%). But his second-choice support is far smaller – he is the second-choice of only 2% of backers of the other candidates, trailing eight other candidates and far behind Ben Carson (21%), Bush (13%) and Fiorina (12%). Note the same one-on-one comparisons here.

In short, while Trump clearly has a hold on the anti-establishment vote and is building new support from backers of establishment candidates in New Hampshire, he is facing a very different scenario right now in a more socially conservative state. He certainly could win a plurality in such a state, but right now would likely lose on-on-one to several other candidates. That’s not to say that if primaries were held next week that he couldn’t win the nomination – Mitt Romney lost his share of primaries in 2012, for example—but his success will depend on building the kind of depth of support he is showing in New Hampshire.

More Information with Second-Choices, Well Presented

Capturing and showing this more specific second-choice data reveals, the true breadth of Trump’s support beyond his first-choice base. When pollsters take advantage of this method, the data offers a timely and unique ability to estimate which candidates will rise and fall as the primary season continues and the field inevitably narrows. Trump’s substantial second-choice support among a wide range of establishment and anti-establishment candidates could foreshadow a growth rather than a reduction in his popularity throughout the fall.

Polls that don’t ask participants for their second-choices or only show aggregate data are limited to an incomplete picture of a dynamic and shifting Republican Primary field. To really understand how the field will adjust to drop outs, and which candidates have sturdy support, we must start asking voters to rank the field. We hope PPP’s leadership will inspire other polling firms to expand their reporting practices, and contribute to a more accurate and more reflective understanding of voter support.

FairVote is seeking to make this easier for pollsters. Working with Civinomics, we have developed an innovative ranked choice voting app that, in its beta form, allows users to rank candidates in the Republican field. Then, in showing the results, users can manually eliminate candidates to see where their second support goes, or run a ranked choice voting tally to see who would win under that system designed to test the two strongest candidates one on one. We soon will be able to import pollsters’ ranked choice data into the app, so that it can be analyzed more fully. Stay tuned!