The United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld the district court’s remedial plan in the case of Cottier v. City of Martin (SD) to implement culmulative voting for electing city council members. The lower court had found the City’s redistricting plan to dilute the Native American vote and therefore violated Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act. The initial suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two Native Americans against the City of Martin. According to the 2000 census, Native Americans were 44.7% of the total population constituting 36% of the voting age population. Since 1981, the city has elected only four Native Americans winning a total of seven city council elections of 80 elections for city council (8.75%). To read the Court of Appeal’s decision please visit: Cottier v. City of Martin

Under the Help America Vote Act mandate, the Electoral Assistance Commission administers a biennial survey to capture information and review of procedures with respect to the administration of Federal elections. The 2004 and 2006 Election Day Surveys provided extensive tabular data on a broad range of issues related to election administration, including voter registration, turnout, absentee and provisional ballots, voting machines, disability access, poll workers and polling places. State administrators and local election officials in the 50 states and territories provide the data for the survey.

Last week, the Election Assistance Commission help a public meeting to solicit public comments on the 2008 Election Day Survey. Several election officials, university professors and non-profit organizations submitted in-person or written testimony to the commission. Many of them emphasized the importance of instating questions about voting machine technology and performance into the Survey and empowering the EAC as a meaningful clearinghouse for information relating to voting systems certification, performance and security. In addition, other testimonies, notably FairVote’s (based on its survey of nearly 400 local election officials during the summer), highlighted the lack of uniform standards regarding the allocation of voting equipment and polling locations and the readiness of rough and final drafts of the ballot. FairVote recommended an increased standardization and transparency in these areas as well as a rule-making or enforcement authority for the EAC.

Rob Richie is director of FairVote. See his page at fairvote.org for more information.

The remarkable story that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been arrested for exploring how to trade his selection of a candidate to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat for favors or money simply underscores the remarkable undemocratic nature of so many state laws giving governors this remarkable power.

No U.S. House Member has ever served without being elected. Even though U.S. Senators are more powerful than House Members and are no longer appointed by state legislators when serving a complete term, far too many states have have this odd anachronim of governor selections– leaving us with two of our largest states (NY and IL) soon to have Senators only accountable to the governors in NY and IL who appointed them.

My colleague David Moon had a good oped in The Hill on this issue last year.

We also did one of our Innovative Analysis series on the issue of Senate vacancy procedures last year.

New Zealand held general elections on November 8^th, 2008 using Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP-PR), which has been the election system used in the country since the traditional single-member plurality system was abandoned in the 1990. And once again the electoral cycle highlighted how the shift to Winner-Take-All to PR has allowed a better representation of women and minorities and a dramatic increase in voter satisfaction.

According to Ron Woodman, president at Fairvote N.L., New Zealand’s change to MMP represents a shift towards less wasted votes. “Before they changed their system they had 48 per cent wasted votes and after they changed they had 1 per cent wasted votes, so almost everyone’s vote went to electing someone”, Woodman says to The Muse Online.

MMP is a mixed member proportional voting system, which claims to take the best from both worlds: Winner-take all and PR. It provides geographical representation and close ties to constituencies of single-member plurality voting with the benefits of proportional representation. The system uses double ballots where voters cast votes for both a district representative and a party list. Half of the seats are filled with representatives that are elected from single-member constituencies.

The move towards electoral reform started in 1985, when Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, Geoffrey Palmer (Labour), established the Royal Commission on the Electoral System. In the 1985 elections the Labour Party got more votes than the National Party, but because of the First-Past-the-Post system (FPTP), the National Party received more seats. A report released by the commission in 1986, Towards a Better Democracy, recommended a system of Mixed Member Proportional Representation. But the report did not catch attention outside of academic circles.

In 1992 an initial referendum was held and nearly 85 per cent of voters opted ‘for a change to the voting system’. 14 months later, the new electoral system was adopted after a second referendum in which 54 per cent favored MMP (while 46 per cent voted to retain FPTP).

New Zealand has changed from being a country ruled by single-party majority governments to being a country governed by coalitions.

As the Royal Commission on the Electoral System envisaged, with the change to MMP the Parliament now more effectively represents the Maori, women, Asians and Pacific Islanders. In the last FTPT Parliament only 7 per cent of the members were Maori, now they account for 16 per cent. The proportion of women has risen from 21 to 29 per cent (in the first three MMP Parliaments) and the percentage of Pacific Islanders rose from 0 to 2 per cent. The November 8^th election left The National Party with 59 seats out of a total of 122, the Liberals gained 43, The Green Party 9 seats, The ACT Party and The Maori Party were left with 5 seats each and The Progressive Party with 1 seat. http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/esy/esy_nz

MMP was originally invented in West Germany right after World War Two and has since been adopted by several countries, such as Scotland, Wales, Hungary, Bolivia and Venezuela. Because of the system compromising between rivaling electoral designs, MMP is increasingly popular within electoral reform.

Even though MMP is a compromise between systems, it is still considered a form of Proportional Representation. Vernon Bogdanor, a professor of government at Oxford University once said the following about PR: “PR is a transparent electoral system. The outcome is a reflection of society. If one does not like the result, it is pointless to blame the mirror.”