2012 Congressional Elections Demonstrate Need for Fair Voting

FairVote has analyzed the 2012 congressional elections, and the results are conclusive: it's time to get rid of winner-take-all and elect Congress using fair voting methods. Here are some highlights from our coverage of the recent election:

  • Partisan Bias in U.S. House Elections: In a Washington Post op-ed, FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie argues that House elections have a significant structural bias in favor of Republicans as a result of winner-take-all elections
  • The Vanishing Congressional Moderate: Moderates in Congress have all but disappeared, and fair voting is the best way to bring them back 
  • Most Voters Wanted a Democratic House: FairVote's unique analytic methods show that although the Republicans won the House, 52% of voters preferred Democratic candidates
  • FairVote Correctly Predicts 333 House Races: In July, FairVote made projections for 333 of the 435 congressional races in the 2012 election, all of which proved to be correct
  • Monopoly Politics 2012: Detailed state profiles and analysis about the 2012 House elections, including election projections 
  • Fair Voting 2012: Comprised of the Fair Voting Interactive Map, Fair Voting Plans for 50 States, and supporting analysis and documentation, Fair Voting 2012 presents a new way of electing the U.S. House of Representatives that aims to correct the political impasse reinforced by our current winner-take-all system by instituting fair voting systems of proportional representation, grounded in our American electoral traditions
  • Examples of Fair Voting Systems: A description of four fair voting proportional systems that could be implemented under the Fair Voting 2012 plan