Katrina Vanden Heuvel, in the July 21, 2008 edition of The Nation, calls for a broad Just Democracy agenda. She lays out the challenges of our broken democracy and opportunities to revitalize our democratic process.

"A Just Democracy movement will require idealism and diligent organizing; it will demand a broad coalition committed to making these reforms a high priority. Working together, we can repair the broken system we've been handed and confront the crisis of disenfranchisement that has overtaken our democracy. We want 100 percent registration. We want increased participation. We want full representation with majority rule. We want the right to vote. We want to vote without fear--that our votes will not count, or be counted by hacked machines."

Instant runoff voting and proportional representation are central components of the Just Democracy agenda:

"If majority rule is to be more than a hollow slogan and third parties more than "spoilers," we need to experiment with more accurate ways to represent the diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and opinions of the American people. Proportional representation--in which 10 percent of the vote wins 10 percent of the seats--is one way. But the United States is an outlier when it comes to PR. We're one of the few "advanced" democracies that don't use it in national elections.

But PR isn't as alien as it might seem: Cambridge, Massachusetts, has used a proportional voting scheme to elect its City Council for seven decades. Illinois used a similar system to elect its lower house from 1870 to 1980, and it enjoys broad bipartisan support. As opposed to our winner-take-all system, in which a mere plurality of voters can carry an election, full representation allows for the expression of a broader range of interests.

The Democrats' use of proportional representation in their nominating process gives a sense of what it means: every vote counts, no matter how lopsided the result might be in any district or state.

Although not as radical a departure as proportional representation, instant runoff voting (IRV)--in which low-scoring candidates are eliminated and their supporters' second-choice votes are added to those that remain, until one candidate wins a majority--is another way to challenge the duopoly while protecting majority rule for all.

Backed by groups like FairVote and the New America Foundation, IRV also has the support of McCain and Obama, along with Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean and third-party candidates like Libertarian Bob Barr, the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader.

And instant runoff voting has begun to catch on with the public. IRV has won thirteen of the last fourteen times it appeared on a ballot, winning landslides in cities like Oakland (69 percent), Minneapo-lis (65 percent), Sarasota (78 percent) and Santa Fe(65 percent). San Francisco just held its fourth IRV election, and exit polls have found it popular there with every measurable demographic. This fall, Pierce County, Washington, with a population of nearly 800,000, will use it for the first time for a hotly contested county executive election. And new cities voting to adopt it will include Glendale, California; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Memphis, Tennessee. A bill instituting IRV for Congressional elections in Vermont was vetoed by that state's Republican governor but will be back next year. "

Read full article here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/kvh