Research Reports

11 - 20 of 123 results

  • The Effect of Fair Representation Voting on 2013 Cambridge, Massachusetts Municipal Elections

    Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only municipality in the United States to elect its city council through the at-large form of ranked choice voting, a form of fair representation voting. This report examines the effects of this system on the city’s 2013 city council and school committee elections, with a particular focus on comparing the outcome of the city council contest with the results of a simulated election using an alternative system: winner-take-all block voting.

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  • The State of Women's Representation 2013-2014

    The State of Women's Representation 2013-2014 is a report by FairVote's Representation 2020 project. It is the first in a series of annual reports leading to the year 2020, the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment. It summarizes and analyzes women’s representation in elected office, and monitors progress for each of the six areas of our 2020 Pledge. It also establishes Representation 2020's unique Parity Index, which measures the level of women's representation in each state. As we will show, while some progress is being made in getting more women elected to public office, the progress is slow and could benefit from Representation 2020's key reforms. 

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  • Monopoly Politics 2014 and the Fair Voting Solution

    FairVote's Monopoly Politics 2014 and the Fair Voting Solution report includes projections for every district in the country in the 2014 midterm House elections, in-depth analysis of the problems with American congressional elections as they are, and our 50-state plan for electing Congress under a fair representation voting system that could be enacted by Congress.

     

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  • Pennsylvania's Proportional Electoral Vote Allocation Proposal: A Nationwide Analysis

    FairVote's analysis shows that Pennsylvania state Sen. Dominic Pileggi's proportional electoral vote allocation plan would do little to make presidential elections fairer if implemented nationally.

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  • Top Two in Washington State

    Update: This report has now been updated to include additional analysis from the results of the 2012 general election, more details on FairVote's proposed solution: Top Four with ranked choice voting, and analysis based on comparison to California's use of Top Two in 2012.

    The Top Two primary system has drawn increasing attention as a way to reform our elections. Rather than have parties nominate candidates who then face off in a general election, it establishes two rounds of voting: the first a "preliminary" to reduce the field to two candidates and the second a final runoff between the top two finishers. Candidates pick their own party label, and that label has no impact on which candidates advance.

    Louisiana for years was the only state using a form of the system for both state and federal elections. Washington State started using the system in 2008. California implemented it in 2012, and Arizona voters may adopt it in a November 2012 ballot measure. This report looks at the impact of the Top Two primary in Washington State in the two and a half election cycles in which it has been used. The report focuses on state legislative elections, but also summarizes results to date in congressional and statewide elections.

     

     

     

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  • A Constitutional Right to Vote

    It is widely believed that “the right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected.” Many are surprised to learn, then, that the right to vote is not explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution. Amending the Constitution to include an explicit right to vote would make it clear that this right is in fact fundamental. It would ensure that voter challenges to election rules would force governments to justify practices that curtail access to the ballot.

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  • Fixing Top Two in California

    In 2010, California adopted the "Top Two" primary system. In this Policy Perspective, we outline some of the issues with how Top Two operated in California in 2012. We then describe how the system would operate under a simple modification: a "Top Four" system in which four candidates advance to the general election instead of two, and in which the general election is conducted by ranked choice voting.

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  • Following the Money: Campaign Donations and Spending in the 2012 Presidential Race

    As we’ve shown at FairVote in study after study, the great majority of people and states are ignored during the election for our country’s highest office. But in the 2012 election, every state was invested at least in one way – they all had residents who donated to and financed the two major party candidates’ campaigns. However, when it came down to the stretch run, the candidates did not reciprocate this national effort.  Instead, candidates concentrated their efforts in a small number of states and left the others as net exporters campaign contributions relative to campaign spending. This report takes a state-by-state look at the data.

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  • Presidential Elections State-by-State: Hardening Partisanship

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  • Legal Analysis of Alternative Single Winner Election Methods

    There are many alternatives to the plurality voting system currently employed in most elections in the United States.  Some of those alternative voting methods have the potential to elect a candidate with the most widespread support, as opposed to plurality voting which may elect a candidate whom the majority of the electorate voted against.  Given their potential for a positive impact on voter choice, it is important to analyze the legal and practical viability of those alternatives.

     

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