As part of our commitment to understanding electoral systems and electoral reform in the United States, FairVote conducts large research projects. The significant recent projects are listed below.
With the support of the Women Donors Network, FairVote has launched two ambitious research projects that explore the impact of electoral systems on the representation of women, people of color and women of color:
In 2013, FairVote received a generous grant from the Democracy Fund to conduct a comprehensive two-year study of the impact of ranked choice voting (RCV) on campaign cooperation and civility in local elections in the U.S. The project involves two large public opinion surveys, content analysis of media coverage and candidate communications, and analysis of voter turnout and error data, for the 2013 and 2014 elections.
As part of the project, the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, with Professor Caroline J. Tolbert (University of Iowa) and Professor Todd Donovan (Western Washington University), conducted two rigorous independent opinion polls exploring voters' experiences in local campaigns and elections.
For more information on how the surveys were conducted, download our survey methodology document.
In the second stream of the RCV Civility Project, Professor Martha Kropf, at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, used content analysis techniques to explore the sentiment--the levels of positivity, negativity, anger etc--expressed in local newspaper coverage of elections in RCV and non-RCV cities. Professor Kropf also examined the content of candidate tweets to explore the sentiment and the manner in which candidates communicated with other candidates on Twitter in cities using RCV compared to cities that used plurality voting.
In the third stream of the RCV Civility Project, Professor David Kimball, at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Ph.D. candidate Joseph Anthony studied voter turnout in 26 American cities across 79 elections. Using a difference-in-differences research design, the study compares cities that adopted RCV against those that did not adopt RCV to observe how voter turnout changed over time in general elections and primaries. They also explore how the proportion of residual votes changed in the two types of city.
Kimball and Anthony also delve deeper, using the case-study of Minneapolis, Minnesota to investigate the impact of RCV on voter turnout inequities.
Reports and detailed findings from the RCV Civility Project are available on the "Ranked Choice Voting - The American Experience" page.
FairVote’s Comparative Structural Reform project took place in 2015 and is reported on in our final report page. It entailed an extensive survey of 14 prominent political scientists about the likely impact of 37 electoral reforms. The participants in this project were leading authorities on electoral reform and legislative functionality, with extensive collective expertise and mastery of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to the study of American legislatures, elections and electoral rules. Participants included:
Each of the 14 participants was asked to assess each reform’s impact on 16 different criteria fitting within four topline categories:
The participants were provided with background documents and annotated bibliographies to inform their opinions and completed eleven surveys, grouped by reform category. A sample survey instrument is provided for reference. Participants rated the likely impact of each reform on a scale of 1 - 5, with a score of one indicating no impact (or a negative impact), a score of three indicating a moderate impact, and a score of 5 indicating that the reform would, on its own, have a profound, “game-changing” impact on the criterion in question. In conjunction with impact ratings, participants were also asked to rate the certainty of their rating for each reform on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 indicated low certainty and 5 indicated high certainty. Participants were also asked to provide additional comments about the potential impact of each reform on each criterion.
Participants were compensated for their participation. All participants responded to all eleven surveys and provided a wealth of insightful comments, new sources, and useful information in addition to their well-considered ratings of each reform.
The responses of the participants were then aggregated and analyzed. Results are presented in our Comparative Structural Reform Report.
We need your support. Help us spread the love by pitching in $5 today!