Elections: The Oscar for Best Voting System Goes To...

There's a new method for choosing Best Picture: instant runoff voting, a system that would also make political elections more fair.

by Rob Richie (Yes! 2010-03-05)

In 1939, the Academy of Motion Pictures used
instant runoff voting to select from ten strong Best Picture contenders, including The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Of Mice and Men. Gone with the Wind was the consensus choice.

A growing number of Americans resent the constraints of our dominant two-choice, two-party electoral system. It contributes to political gamesmanship in Washington, reinforces the power of established parties, and restricts the impact of independent candidates and voters, since voters are encouraged to choose “the lesser of two evils” rather than their preferred candidate.

So where can we turn? Surprisingly, part of the answer lies in Hollywood. The Academy of Motion Pictures and the Producers Guild of America are using a new method for selecting 2009’s Best Picture: instant runoff voting.

Last year, the Academy decided to nominate ten movies for best picture rather than five, as it did until 1943. But it wanted to make sure the final winner was representative of majority opinion among Academy voters—theoretically, an unpopular movie could still win a simple plurality vote if only eleven percent of voters picked it.

Enter instant runoff voting (IRV, also known as ranked choice voting). Academy voters this year ranked the ten nominated movies from their favorite to least favorite in order of preference, one to ten. Those rankings are being tallied according to an “American Idol” kind of algorithm. Every voter has one and only one vote, but they indicate their backup choices in case their first choice can’t win. In each round, the movie with the fewest votes is eliminated, and that movie’s backers have their vote added to the totals of their next ranked choice. This continues in a series of “instant runoffs” until the winner gains a majority of votes.

For the Oscars, that means the best picture won’t go to a movie that might lead in first choices, but which most Oscar voters see as undeserving. Instead, a movie will need to do well enough in first choices to stay in the running, but also keep building support as weaker movies are eliminated. At the end of the day, the winning movie will be more likely to be the consensus choice.

Oscar elections are headline-grabbing—the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today (with an interactive animation) all ran profiles of the Oscars’ use of IRV—but what’s even more exciting is the prospect of similar changes in the way we choose our elected leaders. There, IRV can have a truly transformational impact, ensuring that a majority of voters actually support winning candidates and encouraging the growth of third parties by solving the spoiler problem (most famously illustrated by Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, which tipped the race away from Al Gore).

IRV is still a winner-take-all voting system that doesn’t represent political minorities; it won’t fully provide the fair representation we should keep fighting for. But IRV does allow darkhorse candidates a chance to make their case—and to demonstrate their real levels of support, without results being skewed by fears of spoiling elections.

It’s a proven system: major cities such as Oakland, Minneapolis, and Memphis use it, pro-IRV laws have passed in North Carolina and Colorado, and many major private associations use it, including student governments at nearly 60 college and universities.

City councils in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro, California recently voted to implement IRV in their November elections, including a highly competitive mayoral vote in Oakland. San Francisco will also hold its seventh IRV election, and with other California cities—including Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Jose—seriously talking about IRV, a change in statewide elections may soon be within reach. IRV has also made headway in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and Minnesota at both the city and state level.

IRV is gaining proponents around the world. It has been used for decades to elect leaders in Ireland and Australia. In February, the British House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to hold a national referendum in 2011 on adopting IRV (there called "the alternative vote") for its elections. The bill has to pass the House of Lords, but if it does, the United Kingdom will join New Zealand in allowing voters to decide how to elect their most powerful leaders (in the 1990s, New Zealanders voted to use proportional representation; in a referendum to take place next year they will choose between that system and IRV).

IRV has had to play defense as well. Frustrated losers in mayoral and county executive races in Pierce County, Washington, Burlington, Vermont, and Aspen, Colorado all led efforts in the past year to repeal IRV. With a state law change solving the “spoiler” issue in a different way in Pierce County, voters there repealed IRV in 2009. In Burlington, IRV was repealed by a narrow margin in a low turnout race that many saw as a referendum on an unpopular mayor who had been the only candidate ever to win an IRV election there.

Of course, IRV is not the only election reform that’s necessary; other ideas for fairer elections are also generating energy and excitement. Following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which opened the door for huge increases in corporate spending in politics, broad and influential coalitions working toward constitutional change. Meanwhile, the filibuster rule in the Senate looks increasingly vulnerable, universal voter registration is gaining growing support, and the National Popular Vote plan for president continues its state-by-state progress toward effectively sidelining the Electoral College.

Change breeds change, and the 2010s are promising to be a decade of reform. Stay tuned on Oscar night!

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Rob Richie wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Rob is the executive director of FairVote, a non-profit organization that researches and advocates election reforms that increase voter turnout, accountable governance, and fair representation.

See, also: Electoral Reform: Instant Runoffs by John Gabree (Impractical Proposals 2004-12-29)

Democracy: More instant runoffs this November

On November 2, three cities in Alameda County -- Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro -- will join San Francisco in choosing candidates by a method known as ranked-choice voting or, more widely, instant runoff.

San Francisco has used instant runoffs since 2004 (see, Election Reform: Instant Runoffs, Impractical Proposals 2004-12-29). Under the system, voters may, if they wish, rank their top three choices from among the candidates. If no one achieves a majority in the first tally, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, that candidate's voters' next-ranked choices are distributed among the remaining contestants, and the ballots are counted again. Eliminations and recounting continue until a candidate reaches 50 percent, plus one.

Proponents of the instant runoff say that it saves money and resources by eliminating the need for conventional runoffs on another day. With an instant runoff, the eventual winner is guaranteed to have the support of a majority of people casting ballots. It also helps to advance democracy because, as a special election, a traditional runoff ordinarily will have a lower turnout than a general election.

Last December, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen approved a computer system developed by Sequoia Voting Systems for ranked-choice voting. In April, a challenge to San Francisco's instant runoffs was rejected by a Federal judge.

Alameda County has set up a website, Ranked-Choice Voting, to explain the new system to voters in English, Spanish and Chinese, with faqs, a newsletter and soon, inevitably, an iPhone app. Other county efforts to familiarize voters with the new system will go on throughout the summer and fall.

If instant runoffs work as well as predicted this November, other cities, possibly including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena, San Jose and Sacramento, can be expected to follow suit. And a successful reform of one kind makes it easier to contemplate others, such as proportional representation, weekend voting, consolidating elections to lower costs and increase turnout, and publicly-funded campaigns, that would also tend to make the system fairer and, in many cases, cheaper both for taxpayers and candidates.

Small "d" Democracy: Instant Runoffs

We've discussed instant runoffs at length in past posts (see, for instance, Impractical Proposals 2004-12-29) because the strategy makes voting more efficient and the outcomes more democratic. Instant Runoff Voting: The road to better elections is a website dedicated to advancing the cause.

According to the site, "voters have approved IRV by significant margins in nearly all municipalities and cities where it has been introduced to voters. IRV legislation is also rapidly gaining support in a number of state legislatures.

IRV is a voting system for single-winner elections that guarantees majority winners in a single round of voting. IRV allows voters to vote their hopes instead of their fears by ranking candidates in order of preference without worrying about spoiler dynamics or wasted votes. IRV also eliminates the need for low-turnout, high-cost runoffs.

The site includes info on how IRV works, where it is used, who endorses it, and how you can get involved in improving elections on the local, state and federal levels.

Linkage: InstantRunoff.com

Clip File: Enjoyed the Health-Care Debate? We'll Keep Chasing Our Tails Until We Start Taking American Democracy Seriously by Joshua Holland (AlterNet 2009-12-01)

Democracy: 23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution

I find myself unpersuaded by many of Larry Sabato's 23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution. Drawn from his book, A More Perfect Constitution, where they are well-argued, they are certainly worthy of consideration. To my mind, though, he gives too little emphasis to rebuilding accountable institutions (labor unions, political parties, community groups), and it strikes me that some of the ideas he embraces where adopted have turned out to have unintended consequences: term limts, for example, meant to encourage frequent rotation of office (the political value of that goal escapes me, but never mind) has in practice tended to increase the power of bureaucracies and lobbies, not an outcome Sabato desires, I think. I have no disagreement, however, with his basic premise that our political system is seriously in need of reform. Here's the list:

Congress:

1. Expand the Senate to 136 members to be more representative: Grant the 10 most populous states 2 additional Senators, the 15 next most populous states 1 additional Senator, and the District of Columbia 1 Senator. [See, Democracy: How do we achieve One Person One Vote? (Impractical Proposals 2009-10-09)]

2. Appoint all former Presidents and Vice Presidents to the new office of “National Senator.”

3. Mandate non-partisan redistricting for House elections to enhance electoral competition.

4. Lengthen House terms to 3 years (from 2) and set Senate terms to coincide with all Presidential elections, so the entire House and Senate would be elected at the same time as the President.

5. Expand the size of the House to approximately 1,000 members (from current 435), so House members can be closer to their constituents, and to level the playing field in House elections.

6. Establish term limits in the House and Senate to restore the Founders’ principle of frequent rotation in office.

7. Add a Balanced Budget Amendment to encourage fiscal fairness to future generations.

8. Create a Continuity of Government procedure to provide for replacement Senators and Congresspeople in the event of deaths or extensive incapacitation.

Presidency:

9. Establish a new 6-year, 1-time Presidential term with the option for the President to seek 2 additional years in an up/down referendum of the American people.

10. Limit some Presidential war-making powers and expand Congress’s oversight of war-making.

11. Give the President a line-item veto.

12. Allow men and women not born in the U.S. to run for President or Vice President after having been a citizen for 20 years.

Supreme Court:

13. Eliminate lifetime tenure for federal judges in favor of non-renewable 15-year terms for all federal judges.

14. Grant Congress the power to set a mandatory retirement age for all federal judges.

15. Expand the size of the Supreme Court from 9 to 12 to be more representative.

16. Give federal judges guaranteed cost of living increases so pay is never an issue.

Politics:

17. Write a new constitutional article specifically for the politics of the American system.

18. Adopt a regional, staggered lottery system, over 4 months, for Presidential party nominations to avoid the destructive front-loading of primaries.

19. Mend the Electoral College by granting more populated states additional electors, to preserve the benefits of the College while minimizing the chances a President will win without a majority of the popular vote.

20. Reform campaign financing by preventing wealthy candidates from financing their campaigns, and by mandating partial public financing for House and Senate campaigns.

21. Adopt an automatic registration system for all qualified American citizens to guarantee their right to vote is not abridged by bureaucratic requirements.

Universal National Service:

22. Create a Constitutional requirement that all able-bodied young Americans devote at least 2 years of their lives in service to the country.

National Constitutional Convention:

23. Convene a new Constitutional Convention using the state-based mechanism left to us by the Framers in the current Constitution.

Although intended to advance democracy, some of these proposals strike me as anti-democratic.  Why should former leaders who have lost the confidence of the citizenry, a Jimmy Carter, say, or a George W. Bush, be restored to a degree of power by lifetime appointment to the Senate? (And vice presidents?  Makes you wonder for a minute if Sabato is kidding.) Unless you adopt other "reforms"  -- regional qualifications?  race and gender quotas? -- it's difficult to see why additional  justices would make the Supreme Court any more representative. Term limits actually limit the power of voters to decide who will represent them. A balanced budget amendment would restrict the ability of future generations to deal flexibly with crises like the current financial meltdown (and why not deficit-finance infrastructure projects, if it is intended that future generations will reap the benefits?). The line-item veto is a direct attack on representative democracy.

In making his case, Sabato, who is founder of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, is a good deal more subtle, cogent and persuasive than he comes across in outline. The reforms he suggests reflect the values he believes are already present in the Constitution: pragmatism, flexibility, fairness, the quest for equality and for justice. Whether his particular suggestions are the best ones to achieve a more perfect constitution, they are commendably thoughtful and well articulated.

Maybe, eventually, a constitutional convention will be needed to get the American experiment back on course. In the meantime, there are more limited actions -- serious campaign finance reform, an amendment to retire the electoral college, weekend voting, instant run-offs, proportional representation -- that will tend to make the system more responsive and accountable. The struggle for reform has just begun. The debate will continue. The road to go is long. A More Perfect Constitution makes a good start.

Source: "23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution," from A More Perfect Constitution: Ideas to Inspire a New Generation by Larry J. Sabato.

Reform: Permanent majority? What permanent majority? I got your permanent majority right here.

The following quote from Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research is being widely circulated on the Left, for obvious reasons. Me, I have déjà vu:

The Republican party is obviously in disarray as it faces the threat of becoming a permanent minority party. Its hold on power prior to 2008 was based on a fake "populist" appeal to white working class voters - the biggest block of swing voters in most presidential elections during the last four decades. But issues such as gay marriage, guns, abortion, and whether "liberal elites" shared "our values," have lost resonance since the economy collapsed.

Weisbrot's comments were brought on by "the right's rapid and persistent response to Obama's remarks" about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates and the subsequent efforts by Republicans to consolidate their base yet again around an issue involving race. "They don't have much else to run with right now."

You could say as credibly that they haven't had anything to run on for decades. This hasn't kept them from winning policy fights, and it doesn't keep them from controlling the debate. Obama is a tax and spend liberal. Health care reform is too big, too ambitious, too expensive, too rushed; it will take away your current coverage and lead to health care rationing.The budget is the most radical in our history. The budget is the most reckless and irresponsible in our history. This is the most politically obsessed White House in our history. Obama is not a Christian. Obama is not a real American, literally: he's not native born. Health insurance reform is a plot to save money and cull the herd by persuading the elderly to commit suicide.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This is where a reasonable, intelligent, ethical person, say your typical blue-state Democrat, is at a disadvantage. Take health care for the elderly. First the conservatives attack the majority for spending too much keeping old folks alive, then they turn around and bash their opponents for coming up with a plan to kill them.  If you don't care what you say, you can always say something, even if it's nonsense, a tissue of lies, or dead wrong.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
[Full disclosure: The forgoing video was not provided by Saturday Night Live]

When Bill Clinton entered the White House, many progressives thought they saw the birthing of a new era. Two years later, in the face of a relentless assault from conservatives, disappointment with government by triangulation, and the health care debacle, the Republicans seized Congress under the flag of the Contract With America. From gays in the military through Monica Lewinsky to stealing the furniture on their way out the White House door, for eight years the Democrats were hammered with non-issues.

By the time George the Younger beat Al Gore, conservatives were confident enough to talk plausibly about a permanent Republican majority. There may be a teachable moment in how that worked out for them.

But if lessons therein reside, there is precious little comfort for progressives in conservative disarray. Fun as they are to watch, Republican pratfalls mask the fact that, in terms of policy, not much has changed: no matter which party nominally is in control, the permanent conservative majority holds sway; cash money, not ideas or morality, remains the chief currency on Capitol Hill; and militarism is strikingly resistant to reform. To make matters worse, as Clinton's presidency demonstrated and Obama's is reaffirming, when the White House is inhabited by a moderate Democrat, the fight goes out of progressive legislators (this is not to say there no differences between the parties: the Republicans under Bush and Gingrich had plenty of opportunity to take care of veterans, for example, but it was Democrats who advanced the new GI Bill that went into effect last weekend). But though the government may be better run under Democrats, the so-called party of the people is only marginally interested in making things more democratic and more accountable.

You can mock the Right's "fake 'populist' appeal," but it doesn't mean it won't be effective against the Democrats' fake populist appeal. It's the Democrats, after all, who run every election on the promise of economic justice, and then after they win say, what, you thought we were serious? The Republicans don't care what comes out of their mouths. Gay marriage not threatening anymore? Forget about it: Health care reform is a socialist plot. Abortion not getting the juices flowing? Time to move on: Obama hates cops. Laugh as you will at Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future, but you're whistling past the graveyard if you think his mantra of "Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First" has no traction.

It is important to remember that it took the political equivalent of a perfect storm for Barack Obama to win the presidency. He was astonishingly lucky. Lucky in his predecessor. Lucky in his opponents. Lucky in the timing of the economic collapse. Lucky that so many voters  wanted change so passionately they were willing to project their hopes and dreams on the blank screen of his candidacy. And yet, on their way to winning, the Democratic ticket didn't manage to crack 53%.  If the Democrats couldn't crush broke, crazy John McCain and Sarah Palin like bugs, what chance do they have against the plague of lobbyists, reactionaries, lockstep idealogues, corrupt politicos, corporate shills, fear-mongers, race-baiters, charlatans and thieves who have descended on the administration like locusts on a field of new corn?

That the Democrats will emerge weakened from the 2010 election is incontestable; they could even lose the House, just as they did in 1994.  The Democrats will "own" everything: the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan; bad, or no, health care; chronic unemployment; a paralyzing deficit.Why should we care, not about these problems but about the fortunes of the Democratic Party? If the Democrats can't provide universal single payer health care insurance, if they won't bring the troops home and rein in military spending, if they don't support the labor movement and aggressively attack joblessness and poverty, what will they have done to deserve support? A new poll by RasmussenReports finds that Republicans are prefered over Democrats 43% to 38. Since Democrats usually fare better in the polls than at the polls, the situation is likely worse than it appears. The perfect storm has passed.

The Democratic Party shows little interest in systemic change, beyond the occasional nod in the direction of campaign finance reform; but without profound changes in the ways our leaders are chosen and function, the hopes and dreams we fabricated for the Obama campaign will never come true. Particular proposals -- to dump the electoral college; to make the Senate more democratic - or get rid of it; to restrain executive power and return the legislative branch to its place as first among equals; to put an end to the influence of money on electing and on governing; to impose term limits on unelected judges; to introduce mechanisms like instant runoffs and proportional representation that tend toward democracy -- are not immediately at issue: the broader question is, are we ready to commit ourselves full bore to making this country more democratic?

It is past time to take another run at forming a party of the Left. Labor, environmentalists, rights advocates, educators, small business people, cash-strapped parents and home owners, and their ilk have more in common with each other than they do with Wall Street, the insurance parasites, agribusiness, oil and gas exploiters, and the rest of the profiteers and political camp followers grabbing at the public tit, to say nothing of the likes of Joe Lieberman and the Blue Dogs.  Let's stop wasting time servicing either of the corporate parties, except in relation to particular legislation we favor, and build a new one.  Let the Republicans hold up the banner of the Right, and make sure the Blue Dogs can find the sign-up sheet. Cede the center to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. And on the left, create a political home for politicians willing to fight for progressive ideals. If they came from a secure, independent power base, the Lynn Woolseys and Maxine Waterses and Pete Starks and Dennis Kuciniches would be courted by congressional leadership instead of being taken for granted. Parties that stand for nothing are unaccountable (and a party that, say, embraces both Arlen Specter and Russell Feingold can't fairly be said to stand for anything). With clearer choices between ideologically defined parties, voters would be in a better position to get what they want or toss the bums out.