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Fair Representation Voting FairVote advocates for more fair and proportional voting methods informed by American, candidate-centered values, called fair representation voting. Unlike European systems, which generally focus on party lists, FairVote's fair representation voting methods are American solutions using American ideas. Under fair representation systems in the United States, voters vote for individual candidates and have representatives tied to their communities. Ranked choice voting, cumulative voting, limited voting, and Districts Plus are all types of fair representation voting advocated for by FairVote. To learn more about these types of fair representation voting, explore this page further, and watch our video below to learn more about what fair and proportional representation mean to us.

The Fair Representation Act Our country is ready to reform our elections. Now is the time for Congress to act. The Fair Representation Act (H.R. 4000) is the bold, comprehensive solution that solves our problems with partisan gerrymandering and uncompetitive elections, and encourages politicians to represent everyone, not just their base. Partisan gerrymandering has only gotten worse in an era of sophisticated technology and polarized voting patterns. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that partisan gerrymandering was a political issue beyond the ability of federal courts to decide, the justices encouraged Congress to consider a national solution. An act of Congress is the only way to deliver fairness to all Americans in all states. However, our problems go beyond gerrymandering: The problem is districting itself. A winner-take-all system in which only one person is elected to represent each district no longer works in this era of hardened partisanship, across both geographic and racial lines. It locks most voters into congressional districts that are increasingly skewed toward one party, and leaves too many voters unrepresented and powerless to affect outcomes. Single-winner districts no longer work well for American democracy. Almost 90 percent of them are completely safe for the party that holds them. Millions of Americans -- whether urban Republicans, red-state Democrats, independents, women and communities of color -- are dramatically underrepresented, with little chance of fixing this at the polls. The Fair Representation Act helps fix this. Multi-winner districts allow every voter to elect someone from the major party they support. Ranked-choice elections are proportional, so today’s skewed outcomes -- or parties winning more seats with fewer votes -- become a thing of the past. Larger districts defeat gerrymandering because the district lines simply matter less.

With proportional outcomes and a wider variety of candidates advancing to the general election, the Fair Representation Act will create more fair opportunities for women, people of color, urban Republicans, rural Democrats, and independents. We must open elections to reflect our full diversity. The Fair Representation Act is the strongest commitment and most complete solution to voter equality, equal representation and greater choice. It’s how we make our democracy work again -- for everyone. For more information, click here.

Preferred Fair Representation Voting Method: Ranked Choice Voting Ranked Choice Voting FairVote has identified ranked choice voting as our preferred fair representation voting method. RCV offers the following benefits. promotes majority support

discourages negative campaigning

provides more choice to voters

minimizes strategic voting

promotes minority representation

saves money on primaries and runoffs. RCV is the method used in the Fair Representation Act for the U.S. House of Representatives. We also advocate for RCV in other multi-winner contests, like city councils elected at large and state legislatures elected in multi-winner districts. How are votes counted with multi-winner RCV? Find out here. Other Fair Representation Voting Methods We continue to work on variety of fair voting reforms outside of ranked choice voting, such as the open ticket method, cumulative voting, and Districts Plus. The methods discussed here are more susceptible to gaming or tactical voting than ranked choice voting is, and are less effective than RCV at promoting minority representation and improving voter choice. While each of these methods provides greater proportional representation to voters in the cities, states, or countries where they are used, we recommend them only as steps toward the use of ranked choice voting. Open Ticket Voting The open ticket method, or "unordered open list system" combines the benefits of proportional representation with simplicity for voters and administrators. Voters cast a single vote for a single candidate in a partisan election. Candidates are elected if they pass the same threshold used in ranked choice voting. Additionally, remaining seats are filled by looking at what proportion of voters voted for candidates of the same political party. For example, in a three-seat district in which a majority of voters favored candidates running as Republicans, two seats would be awarded to Republican candidates. To learn more about the open ticket method, see FairVote's innovation page for open ticket voting. Cumulative Voting Cumulative voting is a variant of bloc voting in which voters may cast a number of votes equal to the number of candidates to be elected, but they may cast them freely; for example by casting all of their votes for one candidate, or splitting them evenly between two. Illinois elected its State House of Representatives from three-seat districts with cumulative voting from 1870 to 1980, with a number of important benefits. Voters have cumulative voting rights in at-large elections in several jurisdictions in Alabama, New York, South Dakota, and Texas. Additionally, cumulative voting rights are often extended to shareholders in corporate elections to prevent a single majority shareholder from controlling the entire board of elections. Single-Vote Method & "Limited Voting" The simplest fair representation voting method is a variant of "limited voting" (so-called because voters have fewer votes than the number of seats to be elected) called the single vote method. Each voter has one potent vote, and the candidates who receive the most votes are elected. When electing at-large, counties in Connecticut and Pennsylvania are required by state law to use limited voting with limited nominations, meaning that political parties must nominate fewer candidates than the number of seats to be filled. Local jurisdictions in Alabama and North Carolina have adopted the single vote or other variants on limited voting in response to lawsuits brought under the Voting Rights Act. Districts Plus Districts Plus is FairVote's improvement upon single-winner districts: a mix of Mixed-Member Proportional systems used in countries such as Germany and New Zealand with American-style, candidate-based elections. For those who like local, geographic-based representation, Districts Plus is a particularly attractive fair representation voting system. It makes every vote in every district meaningful in every election, and ensures that the party that receives the most votes wins the most seats. Districts Plus preserves the current system in which most representatives are elected from single-member districts. It also adds "accountability seats" to the legislature to guarantee that when one party's candidates gets the most votes, that party will win the most seats. As a result, every contest in every district is meaningful in every election. Parties will have an incentive to field strong candidates in every district, no matter how imbalanced that district may be. To learn more about Districts Plus, see FairVote's innovation page for Districts Plus.