A Local Approach to Electoral Reform

Christopher T. Gates

In the wake of last year’s presidential election, proponents of democratic renewal have stepped up efforts to advocate voting systems change and electoral reform. At the federal level, proposals range from abolishing the Electoral College to implementing uniform polling practices. These proposals are worth considering, but experience suggests that national reform proposals often proceed at a glacial pace.

Take, for example, the age-old debate over the Electoral College. There have been numerous failed attempts to pass a constitutional amendment to abolish this means of electing presidents. Any new endeavor would probably take years of painstaking effort to build state-by-state support for a change, with no guarantee of success.

At the state level, however, reformers are already taking action and seeing results. In Colorado, for instance, State Senator Ron Tupa has introduced a bill to change the system for apportioning electors from a winner-take-all system to one based on congressional districts. Following the practice of Maine and Nebraska, the Tupa bill would allow the winner of the statewide popular vote to be assigned two electors, with the remaining electors determined by the winner in each congressional district. This method has the advantage of allowing electors to represent the diversity of opinions that may exist within each state.

Several states – Alaska, California, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington – are considering proposals for instant runoff voting (IRV), which allows voters to choose their candidates in order of preference. With IRV, if no candidate receives a majority after the first tally, the candidate with the fewest first place votes is eliminated. IRV offers several advantages, including allowing voters to choose a minority party candidate without fearing they may be “wasting” their votes or "spoiling" the chances of a mainstream candidate.

Other state governments are experimenting with new ways of voting. Last March, Arizona’s Democratic Party held the country’s first binding presidential primary election using the Internet. According to Cortland Coleman, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, this increased voter turnout by more than 600 percent. Oregon became the first state to rely exclusively on mail-in ballots for general elections and experienced a 10 percent increase in voter turnout during the most recent election.

Adopting electoral reforms on a state-by-state basis might not satisfy those who would prefer to make a decisive and immediate change in the way we elect presidents. However, incremental reforms allow individual states to experiment with new ideas, without radically altering the dynamics of presidential politics. A useful parallel is the current state of campaign finance reform. While national reformers have been stymied in Congress, grassroots activists in states, cities and counties all over America have been successful in passing a wide variety of local reform measures. These local innovations provide the groundwork for eventual reform at the national level.

In last November’s election, voters in San Francisco passed an ordinance providing partial public financing for local candidates who agree to abide by spending limits. The city of Tucson has had a partial public financing system for city council races since 1985, and local observers believe the law has reduced candidates' reliance on TV advertising and created a more grassroots campaign culture. Other cities have adopted innovative conflict of interest laws, time limits for fundraising, and systems for publicizing candidate compliance with voluntary spending limits.

In addition, some local jurisdictions are experimenting with proportional voting systems that create more opportunities for representation. According to the Center for Voting and Democracy, proportional representation is being used in Amarillo, Texas; Peoria, Illinois; Chilton County, Alabama; and Sisseton, South Dakota; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Community School Board elections in New York. These systems can help provide a broader range of racial, ethnic and ideological representation than the more prevalent winner-take-all plurality voting system.

Undeterred by the powerful interests and formidable obstacles that exist in Washington, local and state reformers are testing these new ideas and creating new case studies for future reference. The health of our political institutions requires that we think openly about the many ways our democracy can be strengthened, and state and local government are leading the way.

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