Defeating Tr*mp and the Republican party: how you can help
So as you've probably heard, there is a presidential election coming up in the US this November. You may even be experiencing some concern about the outcome of that election -- given both the high stakes and the active efforts by Republicans to suppress the vote -- and wondering what more you can do to stave off the possibility of a literal fascist takeover of the United States.
The good news is: you're not helpless. There are wonderful organizations out there -- staffed by knowledgeable, talented people with their feet already on the ground -- and they could use your help.
Here are a few of them:
VoteBeat offers deeply-researched local reporting about elections, which is both valuable and rare in the current news environment. A spinoff of ChalkBeat, it was founded and is run by journalists from ProPublica.
Spread the Vote is an organization that works on the ground to help every eligible voter secure the documentation and the access they need to make their voices heard. In particular, StV runs a program called Vote by Mail in Jail to help ensure that incarcerated persons also have access to these rights.
VoteRiders, like StV, works to ensure that every American has the opportunity to vote. In particular, they provide financial and practical support to trans people so that they can get hold of the documentation they need and can vote safely and confidently.
FairVote advocates for ranked-choice voting, a system in wide use outside the US which far more effectively captures the will of the electorate. (we don't have an individual feature page for them, but FV was one of FTH's supported orgs in 2020.)
(This is just a short starter list of amazing organizations, pulled from FTH's supported orgs list in past years; there are plenty of others. Please feel free to add them in reblogs!)
Ways you can help
Donate to one (or more!) of these organizations. These are all fairly small operations, even if their goals and their impact is large; they could use the help!
Volunteer your time. Many of these organizations rely on volunteers to make their day-to-day operations work. Sometimes it's necessary to do this volunteering in person, but often there is a remote option for volunteering if that's what works for you.
Run a fanworks auction to raise money. FTH recently rolled out a full and detailed playbook, sharing all of our organizational materials and step-by-step guides for how to use them and adapt them to your needs. This is a great moment to put that to work!
Whether you want to raise money for one of the organizations listed above, or for some other nonprofit, or even for a progressive local candidate that could use the support (FTH doesn't do individual candidates, but you shouldn't let that stop you!) you can make a real difference while also helping to put more fanworks into the world.
Ranked choice voting is a simple but meaningful change to elections.
Ranked Choice Voting 101
Ranked choice voting (RCV) makes democracy more fair and functional. It works in a variety of contexts. It is a simple change that can have a big impact.
RCV is a way to ensure elections are fair for all voters. It allows voters the option to rank candidates in order of preference: one, two, three, and so forth.
If your vote cannot help your top choice win, your vote counts for your next choice.
Benefits of Ranked Choice Voting
Promotes Majority Support
Too often, candidates win elections despite being opposed by most voters. In elections with more than two candidates, candidates can and do win even when less than half of voters support them. For example, in Maine, nine of the eleven gubernatorial elections between 1994 and 2014 were won with less than 50% of votes. (This was one factor in Maine's adoption of RCV beginning in 2018.)
With ranked choice voting (RCV) for single-winner offices, if no candidate has a majority in first-choices, the candidates in last place will be eliminated one-by-one. If a voter's first choice is eliminated, their vote instantly goes to their second choice. That way, we can find out which of the top candidates has real majority support.
Discourages Negative Campaigning
In non-RCV elections, candidates benefit from mudslinging and attacking their opponent instead of sharing their positive vision with voters. This can lead to increasingly toxic and polarizing campaigns.
With RCV, candidates also compete for second choice votes from their opponents’ supporters which lessens the incentive to run a negative campaign. In RCV contests, candidates do best when they reach out positively to as many voters as possible, including those supporting their opponents.
Voters in RCV cities report more positive campaigning and greater satisfaction with their elections. See our Research on RCV page for more on campaign civility.
Provides More Choice for Voters
Democracy is strongest when more voices are heard.
Often, to avoid “vote splitting” in which candidates win with very little support, efforts are taken to limit the number of candidates who compete. This can manifest in several ways.
In some places, a low-turnout preliminary election eliminates most of the candidates
In other places, restrictive ballot access laws keep out challengers
Candidates are sometimes pressured to stay out of the race for fear of splitting the vote with another similar candidate. This can be particularly true for candidates from groups under-represented in elected office, such as people of color and women.
RCV allows more than two candidates to compete without fear of “splitting the vote” among like-minded individuals.
Saves Money When Replacing Preliminaries or Runoffs
Many local offices are elected in two rounds of elections. In some cases this is a preliminary election which winnows the field to two followed by a general election. In other cases it is a general election followed by a runoff election if no candidate won a majority.
In either case, the election that takes place on a day other than the general Election Day often suffers from weak and unrepresentative turnout, while raising issues of vote splitting in the first round and the possibility of disenfranchising military and overseas voters.
With RCV, a jurisdiction can enjoy the benefits of two rounds of voting in a single, more representative, higher-turnout election. This is why single-winner RCV is also known as “instant runoff voting.”
In this context, RCV can save the jurisdiction a lot of money - the entire cost of a second election - while helping promote majority rule and civil campaigning. This has been the motivation for the adoption of RCV in places like San Francisco (replacing runoffs) and Minneapolis (replacing primaries).
See our Research on RCV page for more on the benefits of RCV over two-round runoffs.
Promotes Reflective Representation
Compared to winner-take-all elections, RCV in multi-winner contests allows diverse groups of voters to elect candidates of choice. This promotes diversity of political viewpoint as well as diversity of candidate background and demographics. Even in single-winner races, RCV can promote the representation of historically under-represented groups.
See our Research on RCV page for more on reflective representation in single-winner contests.
See our Fair Representation Voting section for details on how RCV improves representation in multi-winner contests.
Minimizes Strategic Voting
Voters should be able to vote for candidates they support, not just vote against candidates they oppose most. In elections without RCV, voters may feel that they need to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” because their favorite candidate is less likely to win.
With RCV, voters can honestly rank candidates in order of choice. Voters know that if their first choice doesn’t win, their vote automatically counts for their next choice instead. This frees voters from worrying about how others will vote and which candidates are more or less likely to win.
Increased Participation from Military and Overseas Voters
Protecting the right to vote for men and women serving overseas in the armed forces or living abroad is of the highest importance. Deployed military and other overseas voters encounter particular challenges during runoff elections and presidential nominating contests, largely because of their timing.
Federal law requires states to provide military and overseas voters with ballots at least 45 days before any federal election, but runoff elections require a new set of ballots. Sending a second set of ballots requires an enormous delay, driving down turnout in the runoff election.
In presidential primaries and caucuses, many candidates withdraw quickly after the first few primaries, before military and overseas ballots can be counted. Subsequent primaries may receive military and overseas ballots cast for candidates no longer in the race because those voters mailed their ballots before learning that their favorite candidate left the race.
With RCV ballots, a military or overseas voter can rank the candidates on a single ballot. If a runoff occurs, or if candidates drop out of a presidential contest, the ranked ballot is counted for whichever candidate in the runoff the overseas voter ranked highest.
Five states use RCV ballots to include overseas and military voters in runoff elections: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. In addition, Springfield, IL has adopted this reform for local races.
For more information, see FairVote's Policy Guide for RCV ballots for military and overseas voters.
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams talks about why she is leading the battle against voter suppression.
THIS IS MUST WATCH VIDEO
Stacey Abrams is incredible. This woman has taken on Voter Suppression. I cannot express how amazing I think Ms. Abrams is. She has dedicated herself to take action against the widespread actions, across the country, to increase the difficulty to both register and to vote, to disenfranchise eligible voters and take action even before candidates have been announced. Voting is The Most Important Right for each and every American. The Republican Party has worked to undermine the vote and our democracy for many years. Stacey Abrams has chosen to stand up and fight back.
WATCH THE VIDEO and, if you can, GET INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT.
“In most parts of the United States, voters select a single candidate for each position on their ballot, and the candidate with the most votes wins. This is known as single-choice, winner-take-all, which can sometimes result in the election of a candidate who earned only a small percentage of the vote. But that’s not the only way of electing our leaders. Ranked choice voting is another voting method which allows voters to rank their favorite candidates in order of preference. Learn more by visiting www.fairvote.org.”
Cooper Political Campaign Advisor Orchestrated Strach Ouster
Cooper Political Campaign Advisor Orchestrated Strach Ouster by @APDillon_
Lady Liberty 1885 by A. P. Dillon
Legislators who called Strach’s replacement “hand-picked” may have been correct after a recent media report linked Roy Cooper’s political strategist to the firing of Kim Strach.
“With Cooper’s handpicked Democrats controlling the Board and Cooper’s handpicked Executive Director controlling the office, the Board of Elections has a crisis of legitimacy, said…
REMINDER: Chong and May Coming to Guelph for Fair Vote Event
===
Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, and Wellington-Halton-Hills Conservative MP, Michael Chong, are coming to Guelph on October 10thto discuss Electoral Reform and Parliamentary Reform. Chong recently edited a collection of 10 essays published under the title, “Turning Parliament Inside Out” and Saanich-Gulf-Islands MP, Elizabeth May, is one of the contributors.
During the 2015 Federal Election, Justin Trudeau promised repeatedly that it would be the last “first-past-the-post” (FPTP) election. However, in February of 2017, electoral reform was decisively taken off the Liberals’ agenda when Trudeau wrote in a letter to the new Minister of Democratic Institutions, “Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate.” This has not made the issue go away for many Canadians. After the recent BC provincial election, Elizabeth May observed, “Seventeen per cent of the popular vote is a breakthrough in any democracy using FPTP”.
Moreover, each of the candidates in the current NDP leadership race has articulated a position on Electoral Reform. We can expect it to be a central issue in the 2019 Federal Election.
“Canadians are losing faith in their democratic institutions”, says Michael Chong. In the last session of parliament, Chong drafted a private member’s bill, the Reform Act (2014) to distribute power in Parliament more equitably. Chong will update us on the implementation of the Reform Act, how it works, and changes we can expect to see in Parliament and the Canadian electoral system.
Liberal and NDP representatives have been invited to reflect on the main presentations and audience members will be invited to participate in question and answer sessions.
“Turning Parliament Inside Out” will run from 7 – 9 pm at Harcourt United Church at 87 Dean Avenue. Donations are welcome to offset the costs of the event. Copies of “Turning Parliament Inside Out” will be available for sale.
This event is hosted by Fair Vote Guelph. Fair Vote Canada(FVC) is a grassroots multi-partisan citizens’ campaign for voting system reform. FVC promotes the introduction of an element of proportional representation into elections for all levels of government and throughout civil society.
