E-Newsletter November 5, 2012

Released November 5, 2012

 


Greetings!

It's Monday, November 5: one day to Election Day, the culmination of a presidential election marathon that started well before the Iowa caucuses last January. We obviously hope every eligible voter on this list participates -- and joins us in a lasting commitment to the right to vote by participating in our Promote Our Vote campaign, building a movement to establish an affirmative right to vote in the Constitution, grounded in local efforts to protect voting rights and boost participation.

FairVote has had a busy fall, with high-profile news coverage, important new research and preparation for what we think promises to be our most successful reform year in our history next year. As we head to the election, I wanted to highlight a few links I hope you'll be able to click on before election night.

 

 

FairVoting.Us and Representative Elections for Congress: Our interactive USA map at www.fairvoting.us allows you to get detailed information about U.S. House elections as they are and then toggle over to see how they could be with simple changes in statute to establish American forms of proportional representation. Read our recent blogpost, and watch our chair Krist Novoselic's recent CSPAN interview focused on our fair voting plans. 

Presidential Election Scorecard: We've created a presidential election scorecard  that will allow you to see which candidate is likely to win the national popular vote as the first results come in. Of course the national popular vote winner can still lose the election; for that, we must adopt the National Popular Vote plan  by getting involved in this exciting effort that has every promise of winning by 2016. FairVote's analysis about what's wrong with presidential elections was featured in the New York Times on Sunday, and we've been building the case for what's broken in the system with our Presidential Election Tracker series.

Eliminate "Spoiler" Fear with Instant Runoff Voting: In Maine, the Democratic Party has become the "spoiler" third party in statewide elections, as explained in our board member John Anderson's recent commentary and a follow-up commentary . Four California cities  are holding elections using the instant runoff voting form of ranked choice voting. Voters in Pomona (CA) may adopt instant runoff voting in a ballot measure this week, as has happened in at least one city in eight of the last nine November elections around the nation. Free and Equal has a final presidential debate with Gary Johnson of the LIbertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party tonight, with the two candidate chosen last month for this debate through an instant runoff vote.

Let's Vote - and Promote our Vote: Check out Promote Our Vote to be part of a new suffrage movement. And if you experience any problems at the polls, call election specialists at 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Democracy Fellows: Please get to know FairVote's great new team of Democracy Fellows  -- read their biographies and watch them explain on video what they're working on. With their help we're unveiling several new exciting projects soon, including FairVote Action, new legal challenges to winner-take-all voting, Representation 2020 to promote rule changes to boost representation of women and a comprehensive policy guide for elected officials.

Election Night Tweets and Facebook Updates:  FairVote will be regularly tweeting and updating our Facebook page on election night on the many election stories we're tracking. By Thursday, our site will be chock-full of updates and news. We hope to be engaging with many of you during that time.

 

Thanks for reading. Stay turned, and happy voting!

 

 

 

 

Rob Richie

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