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Voter Choice for Massachusetts
Shauna Hamilton (left), with Joel Paul and Jim Henderson on July 1 before delivering their final boxes of signed petitions to the secretary of state in Boston.
The Fahey Q&A with Shauna Hamilton, who's working for more voter choice in Massachusetts
After organizing the Voters Not Politicians 2018 ballot initiative that put citizens in charge of drawing Michigan's legislative maps, Fahey became founding executive director of The People, which is forming statewide networks to promote government accountability. She interviews colleagues in the world of democracy reform each month for our Opinion section.
<p>A few years ago, Shauna Hamilton was working in hospitality management when she met a volunteer canvasser, which led to a change of career path. Now she's the deputy campaign manager for <a href="https://www.yeson2rcv.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Yes on 2</a>, the group behind a Massachusetts referendum on the November ballot that would switch to ranked-choice elections for most offices in the state. Her campaign was preparing for a second round of signature-gathering on ballot petitions when Covid-19 hit. Forced to abandon in-person canvassing, it won permission from the state's top court to go online — a national first — and ultimately got 129,000 valid signatures, a state record for a ballot measure.</p><p>Our recent conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.</p><p><strong>Fahey: </strong>What is ranked-choice voting?</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>You have the option to rank candidates in order of preference. You can rank as many or as few as you'd like, or still choose to vote for only one candidate. A candidate can win outright by receiving more than 50 percent of first-choice votes. If not, the one with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated, and those votes are reallocated to each voter's second choice, so no vote is wasted. This process repeats until one candidate has a majority. </p><p><strong>Fahey: </strong>Why do ranked-choice elections matter now?</p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>The current system has led to a lack of choice for voters, a lack of competition in elections and crippling political division. Ranked elections give voters more power, stripping power away from special interests and big-money donors. They expand voter choice and encourage more candidates to run without the fear of vote-splitting, and would make Massachusetts' government more representative of the state's diversity across ages, races and genders. In a climate with so much division, ranked-choice voting is needed to build consensus across the political spectrum.</p><p><strong>Fahey: </strong>Which elections would this reform impact?</p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>Primaries and general elections for many positions starting in 2022 — including county offices like district attorney and sheriff, statewide posts like governor and congressional and Senate seats. Ranked-choice voting would not be used in the presidential election, presidential primaries, or for city or town elections.</p><p><strong>Fahey: </strong>What are the voters telling you?</p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>Polling shows when people know what ranked-choice voting is, they like it and want to vote for it. We've known this, anecdotally, for a long time. There's a dead heat between folks who support ranked-choice voting and those who don't; <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/08/12/wbur-poll-ranked-choice-voting-ballot-question" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a poll in August</a> found 36 percent plan to vote "yes" and 36 percent "no" with the remaining 28 percent undecided. Of voters who understand ranked-choice voting "very well," 52 percent supported it and 37 percent didn't. That's a really big margin. These numbers tell us that educating voters should be our first priority.</p><p><strong>Fahey:</strong> How did you become involved with the campaign?</p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>I joined as a volunteer in January 2018. A canvasser approached with a clipboard and asked if I wanted to get involved with the ranked-choice voting movement. At the time, I was making a career shift and had been trying to get involved with something nonpartisan that could alleviate the division in our politics. I made the trip to the first meeting because all the volunteers I'd spoken to were so passionate — that's the power of volunteers connecting with folks!</p><p><strong>Fahey: </strong>What's the history of Yes on 2?</p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>After Maine in 2016 became the first state to pass statewide ranked-choice voting, a group in Massachusetts — including lawyers, professors, data analysts and activists — formed to say, "We're going to be next." Initially the questions were about how to connect with people and build a list of supporters and volunteers. At first it was purely an educational organization, volunteer-led for about a year and a half. As we brought on more volunteers and eventually hired a few staff, we expanded into a legislative effort as well as a push for a statewide vote. We filed two bills in 2019, one for ranked-choice statewide elections and the other to provide a ranked-choice option to municipalities. Through our volunteers' phone banking, we secured 86 co-sponsors for those bills.</p><p><strong>Fahey: </strong>How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted your campaign?</p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>We began circulating petitions last fall to get our reform on the ballot. The state Constitution required us to submit two rounds of signatures: a minimum of 80,239 in the first round, then at least 13,374 more. We completed our first round in December — and thought the second round would be a piece of cake. We didn't know we'd soon be operating in a very different world. Covid-19 meant that we couldn't stand outside a grocery store or on a street corner. Fortunately, the Supreme Judicial Court allowed us to gather signatures electronically. Then, our volunteers and organizational partners blew it out of the water.</p><p>We're not knocking on doors due to Covid-19, so connecting with voters through phone banking is more important than ever. People are voting earlier this year, in person and by mail, so we need to get ahead and inform them about our campaign. Social media, television ads and radio also broaden our reach significantly. <a href="https://youtu.be/fxhm9ob23uc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Our first TV ad</a> went out two weeks ago.</p><p><strong>Fahey: </strong>If you were speaking to a high school student or new immigrant, how would you describe what being an American means to you?</p><p><strong>Hamilton: </strong>To me, it means having the opportunity to participate in our political process, and that's something I had previously taken for granted. Working on this campaign, I've seen that when you speak out to your legislators, the good ones listen. Having the ability to disagree with what our leaders are doing, and to be able to freely voice that, is very special to me.</p>
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Civic Saturday
Organizer: Citizen University
Who better to join us in gathering people together, building culture, and inspiring reflection and joy than Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture! We're cooking up a special program featuring local artists in the MoPop community and a timely civic sermon from our very own Eric Liu. After our YouTube live, we invite you to join in conversation with others around the country in what we call civic circles.
Location: Virtual
Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
"The complex reality of force is that its use by our government is sometimes necessary — but sometimes illegitimate and destructive of the just aims of government," write Kelly and Eyre. Above, police engage in standoff with protesters in Portland, Ore.
Citizens must demand the middle ground on the use of domestic force
Kelly is a senior fellow focused on improved governance at Georgetown University's Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. Eyre runs a consulting firm in California focused on helping clients deal with social, organizational and political change. They recently wrote a guide to facilitate civic discourse on use of force issues.
<p>It is time for Americans to confront a fundamental question: Who, ultimately, controls the use of domestic force in our democracy?<br></p><p>Across the political spectrum, our nation has a long history of concerns about government overreach in the use of force against citizens. Recent events in Oregon, Wisconsin and elsewhere have again brought these concerns to broad public consciousness. </p><p>Yet most citizens normally pay little attention to the complex and contentious issues involving the use of force in our democracy. That leaves us ignorant and disempowered. We have relegated this vital matter to the politicians and the professionals at our peril. This lapse in our collective performance of our civic duty has become urgent. We must act now to refresh our collective memory and to reassert citizen control over the use of force by the government. </p><p>We're living in a highly polarized season. Members of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the associated effort to "defund the police," have concluded that an aspect of our current governing system has become so unjustified and destructive that it needs to be fundamentally altered if not abolished. At the same time, millions of other Americans support the more extreme rhetoric of the Trump administration — that it's time to invoke the rarely used Insurrection Act, written two centuries ago to permit presidents to deploy the military to suppress insurrection and rebellion, so the federal government can "dominate the battlespace" and "impose" control on "mobs" in order to pacify what they see as an anarchic threat to democracy. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>Many of us feel a deep unease. Could one of today's aggressive, angry flashpoints become a conflagration? What can we do now to prevent escalation? How can we better ensure that the legitimate use of force by our government to prevent injury or wanton destruction doesn't become repression of legitimate protest? </p><p>The coronavirus pandemic has exposed just how fragile our public institutions may be. In order to prevent a terrible outcome, we must build resilience by educating ourselves about use of force and the law, and by making sure our voices are heard by those acting on our behalf. Resilience is the essence of prevention. It is the ability to make competent decisions in the midst of a crisis. </p><p>How can we pivot? Is it possible to transform what looks like confrontation, mayhem and confusion into a positive step forward for American democracy? Can we step back a minute and find a way to re-establish functional and effective citizen control over the use of force by our government, in our name? "We, the people" need to be the central players in this conversation about what's next. </p><p>The complex reality of force is that its use by our government is sometimes necessary — but sometimes illegitimate and destructive of the just aims of government. Protesters say the most emphatic forms of civil disobedience are required to put an agenda for justice in the public eye. Colin Kaepernick's peaceful kneeling protest, they point out, did not generate a national focus on policing practices. The massive and nationwide disruptive protests after George Floyd's death did. </p><p>Our concern, as citizens, is not with those who protest. It is with our collective understanding of, and influence on, the use of force by our government. Protestors speak for themselves and are responsible for their actions. But the use of force by the government — done on our behalf, in our name — is justified only when it preserves and enables the larger democratic rights of the citizenry as a whole. </p><p>Though our views of individual cases of government use of force and violence may be shaped by our political views and loyalties, our rules for the use of force cannot be partisan. We must actively engage in building a common understanding of the limits of angry protest and the limits of state violence against citizens. Civil disobedience cannot be allowed to overwhelm legitimate democratic processes, and government use of force cannot become repression of legitimate voices in a vigorous and loud debate. </p><p>Force, though sometimes necessary, does not "insure domestic tranquility" — one of the reasons for a national government identified in the Preamble of the Constitution. Only genuinely democratic governments can do that. Force is only justified to the degree that it enables peaceful dialogue and protest.</p><p>Continued polarization on this issue will diminish our democracy. We citizens must regain our common understanding and united voice on this vital topic. Traditionally, law enforcement has resisted civilian oversight, claiming that professionalization and bureaucratic accountability is sufficient. But this method has clearly failed us. To be sure, use of force is a citizen's problem and subject to citizen input and oversight. </p><p>This problem is alarming and overcoming it will be a significant challenge. Yet ignoring it will not make it go away. Citizens must engage. We can do so in various forums and formats, and we must include those who use force. </p><p>We call upon a wide range of community groups — protest movements, business associations, ROTC programs, civic organizations, high schools and colleges — <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hp6gnqdFpND6i_jyhYgQJvPw1gi-V1Gwae_ZC_obnwU/edit#heading=h.ak9l8pfspch9" target="_blank">to engage.</a> And we call upon police departments, sheriffs offices and National Guard units to accept invitations, and practice the openness and accountability demanded by our democratic ideals. </p><p>These organizations must understand that accountability to citizens is not a threat. And that transparency serves them as well as the rule of law in a democracy. We call upon political leaders — mayors and governors, House members and senators — to use their power to convene meetings, study the topic and to lead this process starting at the local level. We, the people, must reassert our voice on this critical issue. </p><p>Failure to do so will weaken the most fundamental tenet of our democracy: That "we, the people," are the source of power and that in a democracy, the government only succeeds with our consent. </p>
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Caroline Brehman/Getty Images
Many states have seen voter registration rates plummet due to Covid-19.
Voter Registration Day combats a sharp decline in signups thanks to Covid
Tuesday marks six weeks until Election Day and is National Voter Registration Day, a moment to turbocharge sign-ups before it's too late. But the significant blow the coronavirus has dealt to civic engagement this year leaves in doubt how many millions of eligible but still unregistered Americans can be found and converted on the unofficial holiday.
Fresh national numbers from the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive think tank which does some of the most extensive research on democracy's challenges, confirm the drop in registration compared to the last presidential election. The organization's analysis of 21 states found 17 have watched registration rates plummet since four year ago.
With the first deadlines coming the first week of October in 15 states, a bevy of groups with sometimes similar sounding names have refocused — or been formed — to push the uphill goal of finding millions more willing first-time voters, with an emphasis on younger people.
<p>The <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/directory/brennan-center-for-justice" target="_self">Brennan Center</a> analyzed records of the 21 states that compile monthly registration data to compare how sign-ups are trending this year compared to 2016. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>The most severe drops, 87 percent, were in reliably blue Maryland and Oregon. Battleground Wisconsin had the smallest dip in registration, just 2 percent. The average decline among the states was a whopping 38 percent.</p>
<p>Just four states have seen increases in the past two years compared with the runup to 2016. </p><p>Another presidential tossup, Michigan, has seen a 23 percent boost in registrations. The others are reliably Republican Alaska (an astonishing 85 percent), Utah (31 percent) and Idaho (5 percent).</p>
<p>While it's not obvious why some states saw more success in registration than others, Covid-19 has certainly <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/coronavirus-impact-on-voter-registration" target="_self">impacted the ability of many Americans to register</a> this year. All but nine states offer online registration, which has been helpful at a time when in-person "get out the vote" events are not feasible.</p>
<p>Since the start of the pandemic in March, civic engagement groups have had to switch to a more digital approach for voter outreach. On <a href="https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National Voter Registration Day</a>, these groups largely used social media, text and email blasts, virtual events and other online efforts to promote election participation.</p>
<p><a href="https://thefulcrum.us/representus" target="_self">RepresentUs</a>, one of the most prominent political reform advocacy groups, is hosting a <a href="https://unrigsummit.com/unrig-roundtable/?akid=109075.775301.eS87JW&rd=1&t=3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">virtual roundtable</a> Tuesday night with activists and celebrities discussing issues of democracy and racial justice. <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/when-we-all-vote" target="_self">When We All Vote</a>, a progressive voter engagement group, is hosting an <a href="https://www.whenweallvote.org/voteready/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">all-day event on Instagram</a>, featuring former first lady Michelle Obama.</p>
<p>Efforts to uplift the youth vote are also being made. Student PIRGs is enlisting its volunteers on more than 100 college campuses nationwide to help with outreach for its <a href="https://studentpirgs.org/campaigns/new-voters-project/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New Voters Project</a>. The Alliance for Youth Action is supporting voter engagement efforts on more than 400 campuses through its <a href="https://allianceforyouthorganizing.org/campus-takeover/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Campus Takeover</a> campaign.</p>
<p>Social media platforms have been involved in boosting voter registration as well. Facebook and Instagram <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/facebook-voting-information-center" target="_self">launched a voter resource tool</a> last month, and Twitter has promoted registration with the #VoteReady hashtag and other messaging on the platform. Users are also encouraged to share voting resources with friends and family to help increase participation.</p>
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