FairVote Blog
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Presidential Tracker: New Evidence of our Shrinking Battleground
President Obama's travel patterns over the past months have been leaning toward battleground and fundraising states. How does the whole of 2011 shape up? We summarize the past year and look at what is to come as the 2012 presidential election year comes into full swing.
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The Supply Side: Alternative Reform Approaches to Campaign Finance
by Tyler Sadonis, Joe Witte // January 26, 2012 //Last Saturday marked the two-year anniversary of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Citizens United overturned decades of campaign finance law by extending First Amendment protection to political expenditures by corporations and unions. Most reformers focus on how to affect the supply of money in politics, whereas FairVote focuses on electoral reforms that will reduce the demand for money in politics by reducing the impact of money.
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South Carolina Primary: One Candidate May Easily Win All Delegates
by Elise Helgesen, Rob Richie // January 20, 2012 //South Carolina's primary is on the horizon. Though the state has not played by the rules - and has been penalized by the Republican National Committee - the primary promises to be an exciting one. South Carolina's system of delegate allocation may potentially award all of the state's delegates, as well as a much-needed upswing in momentum, to the winning candidate as the race continues on toward Florida.
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South Carolina voters better enjoy it while it lasts
by Katie P. Kelly, Rob Richie // January 20, 2012 //With the South Carolina primary just around the corner on Saturday, the preferences of South Carolina voters are of intense interest to the nation -and of course to the candidates swarming the states. Events, polls, debates and the media are all focused on South Carolina voters. But after Saturday? Forget it.
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RCV for the GOP: Mitt Romney, Fractured Conservatives, and the Importance of Rules in Determining Election Outcomes
by Sheahan Virgin // January 20, 2012 //Some conservatives wonder how Mitt Romney has become the favorite for the nomination in a Republican party moving rightward. Others embrace Romney. One problem for believers of both views is the plurality voting rule that means winners don't have to secure a majority. Plurality voting arguably has been negative for all parties involved in the nomination race—whether Romney or his more conservative challengers. The solution, FairVote argues, lies in the adoption of an alternative framework: ranked choice voting.
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FairVote Tracks GOP Primaries: Understanding Proportional Representation in NH
by FairVote // January 12, 2012 //The New Hampshire GOP allocates its delegates proportionally. How exactly do they allocate their delegates? And, how do different methods change the results?
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The Role of Proportional Representation in the New Hampshire Primary
by Elise Helgesen, Rob Richie // January 10, 2012 //Today New Hampshire will hold its primary. New Hampshire's 12 delegates are up for grabs. These delegates will be allocated proportionately, and not by a winner-take-all system of allocation.
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Texas Redistricting in the Hands of the Supreme Court Yet Again
by Lindsey Needham // January 9, 2012 //Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for three cases pertaining to Texas redistricting. In recent decades, Texas has been unable to pass a congressional redistricting plan with paying a visit to the high court. With a redistricting process that forces partisan interests to battle racial minority communities for power over a district's single seat, there is little surprise regarding these recurring controversies.
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No More Gerrymanders: Congressional Representation in the Seven At-Large States
by Fair Voting Plans, Sheahan Virgin // January 3, 2012 //Though spared the controversies of congressional redistricting, winner-take-all rules still plague the seven at-large states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming). Nowhere are the shortcomings of our voting system more acute than in at-large winner-take-all races, where one individual is - rather astonishingly - responsible for representing the political and demographic diversity of an entire state. Read our latest critique of winner-take-all elections and our analysis of congressional elections in these at-large states.
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Down the Rabbit Hole of Party Primary Rules
by Elise Helgesen // December 22, 2011 //The time has almost come for all eyes to turn to Iowa and the rest of the states as they begin to hold their caucuses and primaries leading up to the 2012 election. But the world of primaries and caucuses is one of confusion, centering on party rules and overlapping state laws. My recent update of the Congressional and Presidential Primaries page on our website showed me just how complicated open, closed, semi-closed, and everything in between could be.