The Center for Election Science is a nonpartisan nonprofit that studies and advances better voting methods. We believe you deserve a vote that empowers you to impact the world you live in.
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Organizer: Center for Election Science
In recent years, reformers have sought to heal the partisanship that divides our nation while making our elections fairer and more representative. Two important reforms that have gained steam are redistricting reform and open primaries with a top-two runoff. Proponents argue that each of these reforms would take power out of the hands of the legislators, established political parties, and special interests and return it to the people.
Dr. Christian Grose, associate Professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California will talk about his research on these reforms for the Schwarzenegger Institute. We'll explore his analyses of gerrymandering, false majorities and the impact that both redistricting reform and open primary systems have on our elections.
Location: Webinar
Peña is operations director and Raleigh is advocacy director at the Center for Election Science, which advocates for the alternative election method known as approval voting.
Straightforward. Practical. Just trying to do the right thing. That's how we would describe the people we've met in Fargo.
North Dakota's largest city, with just above 120,000 people, has a small-town feel. The people smile at you as you walk down the sidewalk, and it seems that everyone knows everyone else. They love hotdishes, knoephla and community street festivals. They have pride in their city and pride in their identity as people from the Plains.
And it seems like that small-town, Great Plains attitude is part of what led Fargo citizens to overwhelmingly vote to implement approval voting in 2018. Voters could see that approval voting was just like them — straightforward, practical and trying to get it right.
The people of Fargo — people like Reform Fargo leader Jed Limke — knew there was something wrong with their elections. They saw candidates winning without broad support. They saw the voices of many people not being heard. And they knew this was wrong. So they didn't stop until something was done about it. They didn't stop until approval voting was passed.
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A year and a half later — six week ago, on June 9 — Fargo voters participated in the nation's first-ever approval voting election. They got to experience first-hand just how straightforward, practical, and able-to-get-it-right approval voting is. It's no longer just a good idea. We now have real-world data to show the power of approval voting and why it can and should be used by everyone.
Approval voting proved itself to be straightforward. With approval voting, voters simply voted for all the candidates they supported, none they didn't, and the two candidates approved by the most voters won. That's it. No multiple rounds, formulas, or complicated ballots.
Approval voting made it clear who won and what the people wanted — the two winning candidates for the city council received approvals from 55 percent and 53 percent of voters. That's a far cry from the days when members of the City Commission were elected with small fractions of the vote. This time, the winners have a clear mandate to lead and implement needed changes for their city. What's more straightforward than that?
Even better, voters agree that approval voting is straightforward. In a poll we commissioned, 71 percent of Fargo voters said that approval voting was easy to use. That means that voters were able to have their voices truly heard, and it only required a small, easily understandable change. As our friends at Reform Fargo have said: Small change, big impact.
Approval voting is also practical. When the Fargo Elections Task Force looked into alternative voting methods to improve city elections several years ago, one of the reasons they eventually recommended approval voting is because implementing it wouldn't cost the city a cent. Their voting machines were already equipped to use approval voting — as are any other voting machines anywhere across the country. This is not the case with all voting methods, as some more complicated alternatives can require costly upgrades.
Strong democracy shouldn't be reserved for cities with big budgets. Voters in cash-strapped cities shouldn't have to wait for a software upgrade to have their voices heard. Approval voting is the practical, democratic option that's open to everyone — with no deep pockets required.
Finally, just like the people of Fargo, approval voting tries to get it right. We can see that in the results from last month. Voters were able to elect candidates who had broad support — more than half the voters cast votes for each winner from a field of six, incumbent John Strand and challenger Arlette Preston.
Approval voting allowed newcomers with new ideas to enter the race without fear of being a "spoiler." In the poll we conducted, 69 percent of voters said that approval voting helped them vote for their favorite candidate without worrying about spoiling the election. This means that more underdog candidates can have their voices heard and have a real shot at being elected.
Approval voting gave power back to voters by allowing them to share their opinion on each and every candidate on the ballot. Traditionally, political power lies with the candidates who are able to cater to the smallest possible base of support and squeak by on the margins. Not with approval voting. Now, voters are in charge.
And because approval voting gives power back to the people, it empowers communities who have historically been marginalized by our voting system to elect leaders who represent their interests. In St. Louis, where we're helping activists to implement nonpartisan, approval voting primaries, 74 percent of Black residents said they would be more likely to vote in city elections under approval voting. They see that approval voting will allow them to concentrate — not split — their political power, hold winners accountable, and make sure that elected officials represent their interests.
It may not have gotten a lot of attention, but people in our 223rd biggest city just did something historic. They held the first-ever approval voting election in United States history. They took an enormous step toward a stronger, more just democracy. A city that many of us don't think about outside of the universe of Coen Brothers movies just revolutionized the way their elections run.
And how'd they do it? They did it by sticking to their roots — straightforward, practical, and not stopping until they got it right. Maybe the rest of the world needs to be a bit more like Fargo.
Organizer: Open Primaries
Join our call to hear about the movement for change in St. Louis. St. Louis is one of only a few remaining major cities that conduct partisan municipal elections. Candidates regularly come into office with a minority of the vote. The STL Approves Campaign is hoping to change that. STL Approves' "Proposition D for Democracy" has recently been certified for the 2020 November ballot This comes after organizers collected 20,000 signatures, twice as many as were needed to qualify. 72% of voters now support the measure. Prop D would accomplish two important goals for voters:
Please join us to hear about how this important campaign is hoping to dismantle barriers and build a better future for St. Louis. We'll be joined by Campaign Chair Benjamin Singer, local civil rights leader and supporter Reverend Darryl Gray, and campaign partner and national expert on approval voting Aaron Hamlin, the Executive Director of the Center for Election Science.
Location: Webinar
The people of St. Louis will get to decide whether to elect city officials using approval voting, by which voters support as many candidates as they want.
St. Louisans will vote this year on a new method for electing city officials.
Advocates of approval voting, which allows people to vote for as many candidates as they find acceptable, announced Wednesday they had more than 20,000 signatures to place their Proposition D for Democracy on the ballot. That is more than twice the number they needed.
The coming vote in one of the nation's more prominent cities presents a breakthrough opportunity for this alternative election method. Those who say American democracy isn't benefiting from the traditional system — voters select one candidate, and the one with the most votes wins — have rallied behind ranked-choice voting much more often.
That somewhat more complex system (with instant runoffs eliminating candidates not listed first on enough ballots until one person has majority support) has now been embraced by New York and a score of other municipalities as well as all of Maine.
Under the St Louis initiative, the nonpartisan primaries for mayor, city comptroller and aldermen would be conducted using a form of approval voting. The two people endorsed on the most number of ballots would move on to the general election, which would be conducted using the traditional choose-one method.
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Fargo, at 125,000 the biggest city in North Dakota, is the only place with approval voting so far. St. Louis is approaching three times as big.
STL Approves is the democracy reform organization pushing the idea. It is supported by the Center for Election Science, the main national advocacy group for approval voting.
Advantages of switching to the new system, advocates say, would be an end to the election of people with only plurality support and a greater chance for grassroots candidates with new ideas to get elected.
Proponents of the change point out that in the last five years St. Louis has had eight elections in which the winner received less than 37 percent of the vote.
The measure will likely go before the voters sometime this year but the exact date will be determined by city officials, who like all officials nationwide are having to work around the coronavirus pandemic in scheduling elections.
