John, 

2022 promises major progress for FairVote’s electoral reform vision. Thanks to the hard work of supporters like you and our tenacious allies across the country, ranked choice voting will reach 55 jurisdictions with 10 million voters across the nation. For the first time, Alaska will hold its federal and state elections using RCV – joining Maine which first used RCV in 2018. We have two webinars in the coming week, and our partners have more. Also read on for the new “Rob’s Corner” from our president and CEO Rob Richie.

We can’t figure out where we’re going until we know where we’ve been. So I hope you’ll take a look at our 2021 Year in Review report that captures the important strides we made together last year. Because of successful elections in a record 33 cities – places as varied as New York City and Vineyard, UT – more people used ranked choice voting than ever before. Five more cities passed ballot measures to use RCV, and city councils in 23 Utah cities signed up to elect city leaders with RCV.

It wasn’t just states and municipalities that showed RCV momentum is growing! Just before the holiday recess in December, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Protecting Our Democracy Act that provides funding for cities and states as they first implement ranked choice voting. At the same time the House also passed The Voter Choice Act as an amendment that would provide up to $40 million in matching grants for cities, counties, and states adopting RCV. This show of strong support for RCV in Washington was an important milestone for the fastest growing voting reform with bipartisan support. 

With the new year well underway, FairVote has been tracking and supporting RCV’s progress in statehouses and you can too, using our RCVState Legislation Tracker. Updated regularly, this tracker is your one-stop-shop for bill information and status updates across the country. You can see what’s unfolding for 2022 ballot measures, which could include at least one state as well as a number of local governments.

And for more context on the biggest local, state, and national news, follow our FairVote blog. 

Upcoming FairVote Events

In honor of Black History Month, we’re hosting a “Twitter Space” on The Future of Voting Reform for Black Voters. We’re excited for a great conversation with guests Alexi McCammond of Axios, Jessica Pierce, co-founder of Piece by Piece Strategies, Stefanie Brown James of The Collective PAC, and FairVote’s own Khalid Pitts. 

Join us on Thursday at Noon ET to listen in and ask your questions. 

Then on Monday, February 28th at 5 PM ET, join FairVote staffers to hear how we will capitalize on the momentum in 2021 to make 2022 even more meaningful. We’ll preview our 500 Cities Campaign, discuss our research pipeline, and talk about our long-term movement strategy for winning ranked choice voting and proportional representation nationwide. 

We hope you’ll tune in for “How We Will Win in 2022” next Monday at 5 PM. Together, FairVote, our partners, and supporters like you will make important strides this year. Learn more about what FairVote has planned to advance our shared goals and hear directly from our staff about priorities and opportunities. 

Partner Event Spotlight

Represent Women Solutions Summit  

Our partners with RepresentWomen are bringing together experts working for fair access, fair elections, and fair representation for a 3-day virtual Solutions Summit, March 8–10 (3-5PM EST). On March 10th, we’re excited to tune in for a live conversation between three widely respected women experts on the Fair Representation Act, House Expansion, and Independent Redistricting Committees as solutions to the representation crisis in our current system, including our own Angela Kouters, FairVote Director of Government Affairs. 

Click here to reserve your spot!  

 

Rob’s Corner:

As we approach the 30th anniversary of FairVote’s founding meeting in Cincinnati - where grassroots reformers from more than a dozen states gathered to launch an organization with a bold dream that I was asked to lead - it’s humbling to consider how far we’ve come. Consider that:

• In 1992, former Congressman John B. Anderson wrote our first op-ed for the New York Times making the case for ranked choice voting in presidential elections. A decade later, we led the campaign for San Francisco to become the first city in the modern era to enact RCV. Now it’s the law for presidential and congressional elections in two states and in more than 50 cities. 
• In 1993, I found my voice in the national press while defending law professor Lani Guinier’s writings about proportional voting after she was nominated to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Lani became a friend and ally. She sadly passed away earlier this year, but her vision about voting rights is more relevant than ever - and more than 60 localities have adopted proportional representation since then to resolve voting rights challenges.
• In 1997, we released the trailblazing Monopoly Politics to project congressional winners based only on past election results. Now our partisan index has become the norm for projecting an even greater share of outcomes - and the one reform that would truly change this reality, the Fair Representation Act, has passionate backers in Congress and editorial backers like the New York Times.

Such progress couldn’t happen without our remarkable national and state reform partners. We'll feature these allies regularly in these newsletters. We also plan to launch a “Substack” newsletter to share lessons from our history along with ongoing insights that together make the case for why this is the decade to realize our founding dream: the Fair Representation Act for Congress and ranked choice voting as the norm in American elections. 

With determination and a belief that this is our time,

Rob Richie
President and CEO
http://www.fairvote.org/