Choice Voting is a form of proportional representation (PR) that is widely used by the world's established democracies. Under choice voting, representatives are elected from multi-seat districts in proportion to the number of votes received. Choice voting also assures that political parties or candidates will gain the percentage of legislative seats that reflects their public support.
The Maryland state senate today passed a proposed map for congressional redistricting that has been highly controversial for its gerrymandered district lines and disputes involving partisanship and race. State Senator Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor and former FairVote board member, made a well-received floor speech arguing that the best way to address the problem in the future was to put voters in charge over their representation. Raskin shared FairVote's plan for fair voting in super-districts with three and five members that would lead to nearly every voter being able to elect a favorite candidate.
Choice voting is a proportional voting system where voters maximize the effectiveness of their vote by ranking candidates in multi-seat constituencies.
Port Chester will use an at-large cumulative voting system to elect its trustees in 2010: “I think that all parties worked very well and very hard together to come up with a novel approach to a cumulative voting program,” said Randolph McLaughlin . . . a Pace University Law School professor. “The voter education program we put together is a model for the rest of the country.”
Saturday February 11, 2012 marked the 200th birthday of the "Gerry-mander." With 2012 redistricting plans taking shape, gerrymandering continues to be prevalent. FairVote advocates for an alternative reform to fundamentally change the way we draw district boundaries.
See more maps like this in FairVote's Mapping American Democracy series.
