If Civil Rights leaders are serious about empowering African-Americans politically, economically, and socially then there are three items that should be added to the national civil rights action agenda. They are needed to help expand and enhance representative democracy. They will also help increase voter turnout and African-American political influence and power.
The first thing that needs to be done is to eliminate “safe” partisan legislative and congressional districts in order to stop excessive partisan political gerrymandering. New districts in which the partisan identification of voters is as equally divided as possible between the two major political parties should replace the old partisan districts. The new districts should be drawn consistent with the Voting Rights Act and protecting communities of interest.
Second, state legislators (Legislatures) in the forty-eight states that award electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis should be lobbied to replace that system. The states should award electoral votes based on which presidential candidate wins a congressional district in combination with the statewide result,[1] or on a proportional basis based on the percentage of the statewide vote each candidate receives.[2]
Finally, Congress and the states should be lobbied to create election lotteries at the state and national level. Each cycle, voters would have a chance to win millions of dollars based on the number on their voting receipt. [3] Private donations should be used to fund and endow these lotteries. [4]
If these three ideas are implemented, they will increase voter turnout among all Americans, eliminate partisan political gerrymandering and in a presidential election year, make every state a purple battleground state. All together, the three ideas would help improve representative democracy.[5]
[1] This is known as the districting model and is currently being used by Maine and Nebraska.
[2] This was the model proposed by Colorado Amendment 36 that was defeated at the polls in the November 2004
election. Mitch Frank, The Florida of 2004?, Time, October 18, 2004, pg. 49; and H.W. Brands, Deadlocked
democracy: What would Teddy do?, Houston Chronicle, October 24, 2004, pg. E6.
[3] Matt Miller, Rock the Vote and Win $10 Million!, Fortune, November 1, 2004, pg. 56.
[4] During the 2004 campaign cycle, both political parties and 527 groups combined spent over a billion dollars. Ten
percent of this total for election lotteries would be an endowment of over $100 million dollars. John Frank, GOP
527s finished campaign strong, Houston Chronicle, November 6, 2004, pg. A5.
[5] David S. Broder, Can’t Blame Bush or Kerry for the state of elections, Houston Chronicle, October 31, 2004, pg.
E4.
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