“The United States of America was founded as a great experiment in self-government,” said Chris Edes, Free and Equal New York Caucus Leader, and member of the Occupy Rochester (NY) Electoral Reform Working Group. “We believe the most exciting work remains to be done. We could not be more pleased to see people across this great nation discarding the shackles of apathy, and stepping forward to lead.”

Free & Equal Founder and Chair Christina Tobin added: “As we did two years ago when we began to engage members of the Tea Party, countless numbers of whom have demonstrated true grassroots activism, we now greet the Occupy movement with open arms. We believe in empowering people regardless of ideology or affiliation.”

As part of the outreach effort, Free & Equal will offer to educate activists about reforms such as Instant Runoff Voting, Proportional Representation, Term Limits, Initiative and Referendum, and other avenues of change.

In addition, Free & Equal will be offering advice and assistance to any Occupy group which wishes to run candidates for public office. “It is our hope that the Occupy movement will take their grievances to the ballot box, and hold their leaders accountable,” said Edes. “There are many cynical and unfair barriers which the establishment has put in place, to deny the people access to their ballot. We will help the Occupy movement overcome these barriers.”

Free & Equal does not endorse or favor any specific reform, and does not endorse candidates for public office.

After the first round, if no single candidate has a majority of “first choice” votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped, and the dropped candidate’s “second choice” votes are substituted (since the “first choice” i.e. that candidate has been dropped). This process is repeated until a single candidate has a majority. Thus, the “lesser of two evils” problem is eliminated and democracy thrives anew.

The following is reproduced with permission from the Californians for Electoral Reform website. See the original at:

http://cfer.org/outreach/pressreleaseSept2011.pdf

***

Second poll confirms Ron Paul strength among California Republican Delegates, lack of willingness of Ron Paul supporters to consider other candidates

An official “straw poll” released by the California Republican Party on September 17 showed U.S. Representative Ron Paul of Texas an overwhelming winner 44.9% support with in a crowded field of presidential candidates. That percentage was echoed with 45.8% of first place votes in a simultaneous survey taken by nonpartisan Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER).

The CfER poll shows a closer race for second place among California GOP activists, with 16.2% of first place votes for Rick Perry and 13.2% for Mitt Romney, compared with 29.3% and 8.8% respectively in the official straw poll. Michele Bachmann placed fourth with 7.2% (versus 7.7% in the straw poll), Newt Gingrich was fifth with 3.9%, Rick Santorum was sixth with 3%. Tied for seventh place with 2.4% each were Herman Cain and write-in candidate Sarah Palin. Seven other candidates shared the remaining six percent of first place votes.

What makes the CfER survey interesting is that participants were asked to rank as many candidates as they wanted, putting the number “1″ by their first choice, “2″ by their second favorite, and so on. Ranked Choice Ballots give each respondent the opportunity to express who they favor most and who else they are willing to accept in a fallback position.

Among the 76 GOP activists who ranked Ron Paul number one in the survey, 25 declined declined to mark a second choice, nearly one-third of those voting. The 91 ballots showing other first-choice candidates had only 3 GOP voters declining to make a second choice. This indicates a strong dedication of Ron Paul supporters for their candidate. Of 51 Paul supporters marking a second choice, 28 (54.9%) went to former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.

ROUND-BY-ROUND RESULTS OF
REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL SURVEY
Conducted at California State Convention, September 16-17, 2011

In this survey, 167 ballots were collected and tallied. 84 votes (the whole number of ballots larger than fifty percent) are required for a majority of the votes cast. Only number “1″ choices are counted in the first round. If no majority is achieved, the lowest ranked candidate(s) is/are eliminated in the next round, and each ballot is transferred to the next preference of each individual voter whose earlier choices had been eliminated. Only the highest ranking still active on any ballot is counted in any given round. To learn more about Ranked Choice Ballots, see www.cfer.org or www.fairvote.org

ROUND ONE
All number “1″ votes were counted with subsequent numbers ignored on this round. All ballots bearing just “X” or check marks were counted as a single vote shared fractionally by all candidates so marked. Tally shows votes in the following amounts: Ron Paul 76.5, Rick Perry 27, Mitt Romney 22, Michele Bachman 12, Newt Gingrich 6.5, Rick Santorum 5, Herman Cain 4, Sarah Palin (write-in) 4, Jon Huntsman 2, Gary Johnson 2, Fred Karger (write-in) 2, and with one vote each, write-ins Chris Christie, Jim DeMint, Rudy Guliani, and Alan Keyes. Ballot listed candidates Thad McCotter and Buddy Roemer received no first place votes.

ROUND TWO
Candidates Christie, DeMint, Guliani, Keyes, McCotter and Roemer were eliminated and b allots transferred to the second choice of each voter for eliminated candidates. Candidates Bachmann, Huntsman and Perry each pick up one vote, with one ballot exhausted (showing no further valid choices).

ROUND THREE
Candidates Johnson and Karger (lowest remaining with 2 votes each) eliminated. Candidates Huntsman and Paul each pick up two votes. Count now stands at: Ron Paul 78.5, Rick Perry 28, Mitt Romney 22, Michele Bachman 13, Newt Gingrich 6.5, Jon Huntsman 5, Rick Santorum 5, Herman Cain 4, Sarah Palin (write-in) 4, exhausted ballots 1.

ROUND FOUR
Candidates Cain and Palin (lowest remaining with 4 votes each) eliminated. Candidate Bachmann picks up 4 votes, while Gingrich and Paul each pick up one vote, and 2 ballots are exhausted. Count now stands at: Ron Paul 79.5, Rick Perry 28, Mitt Romney 22, Michele Bachman 17, Newt Gingrich 7.5, Jon Huntsman 5, Rick Santorum 5, exhausted ballots 3.

ROUND FIVE
Candidates Huntsman and Santorum (lowest remaining with 5 votes each) eliminated. Candidate Perry picks up 3 votes, Gingrich and Romney 2 each, with one vote each for Bachmann and Paul. One ballot is exhausted. Count now stands at: Ron Paul 80.5, Rick Perry 31, Mitt Romney 24, Michele Bachman 18, Newt Gingrich 9.5, exhausted ballots 4.

ROUND SIX
Candidate Gingrich (lowest remaining with 9.5 votes) is eliminated. Candidate Romney picks up 5.5 votes, Perry 2, with one each going to Bachmann and Paul. Count now stands at: Ron Paul 81.5, Rick Perry 33, Mitt Romney 29.5, Michele Bachman 19, exhausted ballots 4.

ROUND SEVEN
Candidate Bachmann (lowest remaining with 19 votes) is eliminated. Candidate Perry picks up 7 votes, Paul 3 and Romney one vote. Eight ballots are exhausted. The final count stands at: Ron Paul 84.5, Rick Perry 40, Mitt Romney 30.5, exhausted ballots 12.

ROUND EIGHT
Having surpassed the majority threshold of 84 votes, U.S. Representative RON PAUL of Texas is declared the winner of this survey.

RANKED CHOICE BALLOTS

Used in several countries, and in many organizations (including by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to choose the Oscar winner for Best Picture), there are numerous names for Ranked Choice Ballots. They include Alternative Vote, Enumerated Ballots, the Hare System, Instant Runoff Voting, Preference or Preferential Voting, and the Single Transferable Vote.

When only one candidate is to be selected, this vote-counting system requires that the winner achieve at least 50% of the vote from the active ballots. Usually that means a majority among the most popular candidates remaining after elimination of less popular candidates have been made in earlier rounds.
To learn more about Ranked Choice Ballots, see www.cfer.org or www.fairvote.org

Californians for Electoral Reform

CfER is a nonpartisan civic group which promotes only two reforms: use of Ranked Choice Ballots and Proportional Representation.

The website is oscarvotes123.blogspot.com . Please give it a visit to learn more about the Oscars and Instant Runoff Voting. If you watch the Academy Awards tomorrow with friends or family, why not take the opportunity to educate them in a fun way about IRV?

In the US District Court of Northern Illinois on August 2, Judge John Grady issued a decision outlining the procedures that Illinois should use for the second election of the temporary US Senator. Judge Grady ordered that the same candidates will be on the ballot for both elections. Senator Roland Burris appealed that decision.

“Sen. Burris has a case,” said Christina Tobin, CEO and Founder of Free and Equal Elections Foundation. “These are two separate elections and they should be treated as such. Everybody in Illinois should be given an equal opportunity to run for that temporary US Senate seat, including Sen. Burris. Free and Equal will have a debate for the 6 year US Senate term next week, and we’ll have one for the 2 month term too. But first, Governor Pat Quinn needs to be a leader and immediately call a special session and fix this mess.”

“Speaker Michael Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross have both demonstrated they can put together massive teams of petition checkers and lawyers to literally go through over a hundred thousand signatures in one week in an effort to kick competition off the ballots,” said Tobin. “If they can do that, surely they can spare a couple days right now to do actual public service work by fixing Illinois election laws that are among the worst in the US.”

Dane Placko had an excellent article on Fox News titled “‘Madigoons’ Investigated: Where Does State Work End, Politics Begin?” that every voter in Illinois should read.

FOX Chicago News examined three years of legislative payroll records, and then compared them with political campaign expenditures. We found 34 Democratic House employees under the control of Speaker Madigan taking off from their jobs for weeks, sometimes months at a time.

“Where are Madigan’s minions right now?” said Tobin. “Madigan refused the public outcry for a special election in early 2009 because Madigan was playing politics trying to keep a US Senate seat in Democratic hands. Madigan obviously put his political party ahead of the voters of Illinois and that is what created this mess. He needs to go to Springfield tomorrow and do his job.”

Media coverage of Illinois’ backwards ballot access system from Charles Thomas at ABC 7 in Chicago, News Director Jim Anderson’s “Eye of Illinois” from the Illinois Radio Network, Doug Ibendahl at Republican News Watch, and Fox Chicago Sunday is helping to educate every Illinois voter about the flawed system they have.

Illinois Republican staffers have a history of using the same tactics. The chief of staff to Republican leader Lee Daniels, Michael Tristano, went to jail for having state employees do political work on the state clock. There was also George Ryan’s political operation in 1998 being run out of his Secretary of State office. In 2002, most of Judy Baar Topinka’s staff from her Treasurer’s office in Chicago all took the same day off to work on Jim Ryan’s failed challenge against Cal Skinner, the Libertarian candidate for Governor.

“Tom Cross could probably call some of his staffers back from the challenges to the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party candidates going on right now and help solve some of the problems he is perpetuating in Illinois,” said Tobin. “Tom Cross and John Fogarty know each other well. Fogarty is playing games along with Bill Brady, Bill Brady’s niece Brittany, and Andrew Heffernan trying to kick the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party candidates off the ballot. How about putting those lawyers and policy analysts to proper use fixing bad election instead of trying to fix elections by abusing those bad laws?”

Illinois election laws are constantly being taken to court, as is the case with this special election for US Senate and Sen. Burris’ appeal. In 2006 the case Lee v. Keith in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ballot access requirements for independent candidates were in violation of the US Constitution. Lisa Madigan’s Attorney’s General office was on the losing side of that lawsuit, just like she was wrong about this special election. Republican Cedra Crenshaw was just put on the ballot in the 43rd State Senate district because a law passed last year by the General Assembly was sloppy and created conflicting statutes.

“The conflicting legislation they passed last year to create the Cedra Crenshaw situation shows Madigan and Cross are still incompetent when it comes to election laws,” said Tobin. “Illinois voters can not trust Madigan or Cross to come up with a fair plan to hold a free and equal special election for the temporary US Senate seat, so we have a plan for them. Madigan and Cross need to listen to this plan, have their Legislative Reference Bureau write it up, and then go implement it tomorrow for this special election instead of letting a judge decide which candidates are on the ballot. Burris might win his lawsuit and they need to be ready to act.”

Institute a filing fee of $500 in lieu of 500 petition signatures due on or before August 30, 2010. The same requirement for everyone. There will be no private petition challenge process by having the state board of elections automatically check the signatures. Since it is too late to hold a partisan primary, the election will have to be a winner take all free for all. That is the only realistic choice left that will give everyone in Illinois an equal opportunity to run for the temporary US Senate seat and that protects voter choice.

The three established parties, Democratic, Green, and Republican can have their central committees select their party’s official candidate for the special election. Those three candidates must pay the $500 filing fee or submit 500 petition signatures and they will be identified on the ballot as Democratic Party, Green Party, and Republican Party. Any other candidates from those three parties may file and run with the ballot labels Prefers Democratic Party, Prefers Green Party, or Prefers Republican Party.

For example, if the Democratic Party state central committee chooses Alexi Giannoulias as their nominee and he properly files, his name would appear on the ballot as Alexi Giannoulias, Democratic Party. If Sen. Roland Burris does not receive the state central committee endorsement but still wants to run and properly files, his name would appear on the ballot as Roland Burris, Prefers Democratic Party.

If Illinois voting machines could handle instant run-off, or ranked choice voting we would recommend those choices be considered but that is not possible for this election. Another realistic option would be to hold the special election similar to method California used in November 1946 to elect a US Senator to a special term. In that case, they used a write-in election and no names were printed on the ballot.

“Illinois can do better than a write-in election but only if they act now to implement our filing fee winner take all election,” said Tobin. “A court may stick us with a write-in election if Burris’ lawsuit is successful. Quinn needs to respect the voters of Illinois and call a special session to provide them a free and equal election with our filing fee plan.”

Michael White starts off the show. He is the Constitution Party candidate for Governor of Illinois, and participated in Free and Equal’s debate for IL Governor. Their petitions are being challenged. Michael will update us on his campaign and how the Constitution Party candidates are doing in Illinois.

Steve Chessin, a plaintiff in the lawsuit against California Senate Bill 6 will join us, along with the attorney that is representing the plaintiffs in that lawsuit Gautam Dutta.

Steve Chessin is an election reform activist in California and a member of Californians for Electoral Reform who has supported successful efforts to use IRV elections in CA.

Guatam Dutta has an extensive background in the law and currently practices in California. He was recently the Deputy Director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation working on government reform and election law issues.

Chris Edes, Free and Equal staff member from NY, may also join us to fill us in on the happenings there.

Democracy is under attack. Revolution at the ballot box must be a possibility. Tune in and do your part. Call in at 347-633-9636 to get your two bits in.

Listen to the show live with chat right here:

As usual with IRV, after each round the lowest vote-getter is removed, and his or her votes redistributed to each voter’s second choice pick. What makes New York’s IRV bill exceptionally good is that voters would rank all candidates — not just their first, second and third choices, as is the case for IRV in California.

With the recent passage of Proposition 14, I wonder what’s happened to California, which once led the nation in pioneering reforms such as initiative and referendum. On June 8th, questionable claims and large piles of cash eked out a narrow victory for Prop 14, establishing a Top Two Primary, limiting debate and increasing the influence of money in elections.

Both IRV and Top Two elections are, in a general sense, runoff elections. Yet when you examine the practical details IRV emerges the clear winner.

Top Two creates one big primary with candidates from every political party. Every voter can choose from among all the candidates. Then, the top two vote getters face off in the general election five months later. Write-in votes would be prohibited to limit voter choice to those two candidates.

If you started wondering at “five months later” you’ve noticed the first problem. The primary is in June and the general election in November. Any number of things can change in that time, and history is replete with examples. For instance, Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” swept the Republicans to control of Congress in 1994, and was introduced only six weeks before the election.

With Instant Runoff Voting, the “runoff” takes place automatically. If no candidate gets a clear majority, the lowest vote getter is dropped from the ballot, and his or her votes redistributed to each voter’s second choice. Repeat until a clear winner emerges. Full public discussion and debate can proceed right up to Election Day.

The ban on write-in votes marks another clear difference. With Top Two, if you don’t vote for one of the top two candidates, your vote is essentially thrown away, and you are forced to pick from only those two.

With Instant Runoff Voting, you can rank your choices, so if your first choice doesn’t make it, your vote still counts for something. This also makes campaigns more positive — if you attack a candidate unfairly, his supporters wont make you their second choice!

Finally, a Top Two Primary involves more voters and is therefore more expensive to win. More importantly, you can no longer launch an independent or “third party” campaign to avoid an expensive primary. This dramatically increases the cost of running for office, expanding the influence of money in politics.

As well, the early date of the June primary favors well-funded special interests with permanent organizations, over grassroots activists who require more time to mobilize and be effective. Whereas Instant Runoff Voting costs nothing, beyond that necessary to reprogram the voting machines, which Top Two also requires.

Instant Runoff Voting is real, positive reform. IRV gives you a greater voice by asking your second choice, third choice and so on. There is no such thing as a “wasted vote” with Instant Runoff Voting. IRV eliminates the “lesser of two evils” problem, encourages positive campaigns, and empowers grassroots activists.

Top Two is fake reform. Top Two cuts off most of the debate five months before the election, and raises the money barrier for winning elections, making it easier for wealthy special interests to drown out the voice of average citizens. Top Two reduces your voice by banning write-in votes, and forcing you to pick from only two choices in the general election.

The right choice is clearly Instant Runoff Voting. Starting in 2012, California will find itself using both systems. I am committed to promoting IRV and fighting Top Two. With your help California will once more lead the nation, and the world, in expanding popular government and empowering its citizens.

yours in liberty,

Christina Tobin
Founder and Chair
Free & Equal Elections

At the end of last year, we sounded the alarm about Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s misuse of state employees, thereby state tax dollars, to further his purely political attempts to knock otherwise legitimate candidates off the state’s election ballots. Former Republican Chief of Staff Lee Daniels got busted for essentially the same thing just five years ago. He’s now in jail.

Madigan, however, thought he could get away with it by having his cronies take a leave of absence to do his dirty work. Apparently Madigan thinks it’s okay to knock people off the ballot as long as it’s done off the clock. Thanks to Dane Placko of FOX Chicago News for digging up the truth! Read the story here or watch the video below:

Part Two of this story, featuring Madigan’s Republican counterpart Tom Cross, also aired on FOX Chicago News station WFLD. Free & Equal also had a direct hand in exposing Cross’s antics and bringing them to the media’s attention. Watch it below:

On Friday, Christina Tobin, our founder and CEO, will tape a six-minute segment with Placko for FOX’s Sunday political show, FOX Chicago Sunday. The segment will air at 8.30 a.m. this Sunday. Topics will include the Madigan/Cross investigations and general ballot-access reform efforts in Illinois.

____________________

In other news:

Christina Tobin today made her candidacy official for California Secretary of State. Her campaign’s already getting national attention. The Pew Research Center on the States linked to her official announcement on the Independent Political Report. Read it here.

Tobin has accepted the Libertarian Party endorsement and will appear on the California ballot with the party’s label; however, she is standing by her promise to embrace all small parties, independents and everyone who feels marginalized by the two-party establishment.

As Secretary of State, Tobin will stand by her legacy, working to ensure fair treatment of all parties and independents. She will relentlessly pursue electoral reforms that protect voter choice, such as Instant Runoff Voting, while opposing those that threaten it, such as Proposition 14, the “Top Two Primaries Act.”

For more info on the campaign, visit www.tobinforca.org.

So now it’s official. The voters of Oakland will get their first crack at this increasingly popular voting system in time for the city’s hotly-contested 2010 elections.

Two other Alameda County jurisdictions, San Leandro and Berkeley, very well may also use IRV in the near future.

In case you aren’t familiar with IRV, it lets voters rank all candidates on a ballot by preference, which is why the method is sometimes called Preferential Voting. After that, the voter’s job is done.

The process of counting the votes is handled by special voting equipment, which, by the way, was developed for Oakland and neighboring San Francisco by a vendor that also furnishes many cities and counties nationwide with traditional “one person, one vote” plurality elections.

Votes are counted in an IRV election based on the first choice, or number 1 choice, indicated on each ballot. If no candidate has a majority of votes (50.1 percent) after every ballot is counted, then the candidate with the fewest first choices is eliminated and the second choice indicated on those ballots is counted. This processes is repeated until someone emerges with a majority.

The vote in Oakland is a big victory for electoral fairness. IRV will ensure a more accurate sampling is taken of the will of the electorate. The ancient method of “one person, one vote” is regularly responsible for electing candidates who fail to receive a majority, but a simple plurality of votes. That means the majority isn’t represented by that candidate. How much sense does that make for the healthy function of representative government?

Specifically, Oakland had a two-step runoff system where if no candidate won a majority in low turnout elections in June, it would have a runoff five months later in November. Now with IRV the election always will be decided in one, higher-turnout election in November, meaning the candidates don’t have to campaign twice and the city saves the money of the first round held in June.

Opponents argue that IRV is too confusing to voters and too expensive. A blog on the site A Better Oakland raises this very concern, then says,

There are plenty of other ways to have November-only elections and get the voter participation gains IRV advocates are so worked up over without using such a ridiculously complicated system. We could do like some other cities do and just have November elections anyway, and require a lower threshold, like 40% to win outright, and only have run-offs on the rare occasions when nobody manages to beat it.

I am baffled by this statement. It sounds to me like the same old logic we’re trying to correct with IRV. No majority winner equals no majority rule. Hold a special election to get a majority winner, which time and again have proven costly and to have lower turnouts.

Voters in Burlington, Vermont a city that has used IRV since 2005 will get a chance to revert back to a plurality system when an initiative comes to a vote of the people later this year. Backed by candidates who’ve lost with IRV, the proposal suggests a 40-percent threshold, followed by a runoff if all candidates fail to hit that mark.

Again, at 40 percent, the other 60 percent of the electorate is unhappy with the outcome. Perhaps that’s why so many Americans have a hard time finding the motivation to even register to vote, let alone take the time to cast a ballot.

The other problem, as we see it at Free & Equal, is the lack of choices we have on Election Day. This is the part that gives the two establishment parties their juice to fight IRV. (Note: The major-party origin of the Burlington initiative is no coincidence.) The duopoly doesn’t want voters to have choices. They are perfectly content with labeling those choices as “spoilers” a thing of the past with IRV.

Read about the Burlington proposal here and you’ll see how IRV actually worked like it was supposed to.

IRV makes multiple-candidate elections simple and affordable. Let’s take a look at the numbers on Oakland:

* Oakland’s June elections cost about $800,000. All of that money would be saved when runoffs are eliminated with IRV.
* Oakland’s share of the bill to implement IRV this year is expected to be roughly $947,000, and city documents say that’s an over-estimate. That number covers the one-time cost of the “necessary hardware, firmware, software upgrades, special mailings to voters regarding RCV, voter education, voter outreach by the County, and poll worker training attributable to RCV only,” according to a report filed by the Oakland city attorney’s office.

As more jurisdictions in Alameda County adopt IRV, that price tag for Oakland will go down. That’s why Oakland city officials know IRV will help their city save money in the long run.

As for IRV being confusing to voters, the story from Burlington I mentioned earlier cites a 2006 survey conducted by students from the University of Vermont which found that only 8 percent of respondents said they found IRV confusing. More than 63 percent, meanwhile, said they liked the method.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that change is always going to be difficult for some. Call it growing pains. IRV is not too difficult for America. I’m confident that with a little help from the increasing number of IRV proponents, such as Free & Equal, New America Foundation, Californians for Election Reform, FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy, and others that helped make the dream possible in Alameda County, this is the kind of change we can make happen.

Yours in liberty,

Christina Tobin
Founder, CEO
The Free & Equal Elections Foundation

It was a tough day for Independent and Third Party candidates in nationally watched races in New York and New Jersey.

It was also a very tough day for Instant Runoff Voting.

The voters of Pierce County, Washington voted overwhelmingly to repeal Ranked Choice Voting in their municipal elections.

In a blog post, supporters of RCV in Pierce County placed the blame for the defeat squarely on the shoulders of an Elections Department that didn’t want to put forth the effort to make RCV work:

“It appears as if the Election Department’s poor implementation soured the voters on RCV to the point, they did not want to use the system any more. The Elections Department far over spent on systems implementation and blamed RCV for the high expenses. The Elections Department did not look for ways to leverage the investment in RCV software/hardware and thus ended up costing the county more money. The Elections Department did a poor job of educating the voters as to the benefits of RCV in terms of more candidates in November and eliminating the primary. The Elections Department understaffed the polls in 2008 and blamed the long lines at the polls on RCV.”

Another Instant Runoff Voting measure failed in Lowell, Massachusetts, although by a much closer margin.

There was one bright spot on Tuesday: The voters of St. Paul, Minnesota voted to implement Instant Runoff Voting.

And now, of course, opponents of IRV in St. Paul have filed what could be described as a frivolous lawsuit to overturn the will of the voters.

We here at The Free & Equal Elections Foundation are disappointed in the results in Pierce County, Washington and Massachusetts, but we are also happy that the voters of St. Paul recognize an improvement in voting when they see one.  We will be sure to keep you up to date on the status of the St. Paul lawsuit. We’ll also have much more on this past election day next week.

If this election has told us one thing, it is that we need to dig in and work even harder next year! Why not send us a donation so that this time next year, we can be celebrating the successes of Independent and Third Party candidates nationwide?

Donate to the Free & Equal Elections Foundation today, and ensure that you have a real choice on the ballot tomorrow!

Today, Christina Tobin, Founder and Chair of The Free & Equal Elections Foundation has written a letter to the editor of the Seattle Times urging the voters of Pierce County to continue using RCV:

Free and Equal Elections supports election reform efforts throughout the United States. Pierce County with its Ranked Choice Voting system is a leader in the country for opening up its elections to a diversity of candidates. The seven 2008 county level races in Pierce County “with 22 candidates” was a landmark example of open elections.

For example, the County Executive race featured four solid candidates debating the issues providing voters with a more diverse set of choices and a broader range of opinion than any other race in the state of Washington. Kudos to Pierce County!

Mike Lonergan was able to participate effectively in the Executive race despite having to run as a third party candidate. Lonergan was treated with the respect he deserved and received 15% of the first choices while facing three very well funded opponents.

Despite receiving a much higher vote percentage than Ralph Nader did in 2000 running for President, Lonergan was not called a spoiler like Nader was.

Why not?

The ability of voters to list their second and third choices prevented Lonergan from being a spoiler.

Free and Equal Elections salutes Pierce County for its election systems. Incumbent politicians are trying to take Pierce County back to the dark ages by putting charter Amendment 3 on the ballot.

Please reject Amendment 3 as a step backwards. A step away from free and equal elections.

Sincerely,

Christina Tobin

The Free and Equal Elections Foundation

More Information on Ranked Choice Voting in Pierce County, Washington can be found here:

Ranked Choice Voting in Pierce County, Washington

News & Notes from Free & Equal: October 20th, 2009

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