Electoral Reform Issue Resource Exchange
The links below will connect you with some of the best resources from the leading groups, organizers, and thinkers working on the electoral reform the issue briefs and articles below to educate yourself, organize your community, and to broaden the scope of government electoral reform initiatives.
Clean
Money Elections
National
Voting Rights Institute’s creative legal and constitutional approaches
to challenging big-money dominance of American Elections.
http://www.nvri.org
Your Guide
to Money in the U.S. Election by the Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org
Common Cause's
" Soft Money Laundromat" is a searchable database of special
interest soft money contributions to the Democratic and Republican national
party committees. Who gives it, who gets it and what it all means!
http://www.commoncause.org/laundromat
National
Institute on Money in State Politics database analyses of the role of
campaign contributions in influencing key issues in the news.
http://www.followthemoney.org
Campaign
Finance Information Center will help you track cash flow across the nation
and features a collection of campaign finance stories.
http://www.campaignfinance.org
"The
Color of Money: Campaign Contributions and Race" and "20 Things
You Can Do" for Clean Money Elections. interest and the "Buying
of the President 2000."
http://www.publicintegrity.org
AFL-CIO's
Fair and Open System for Financing and Conducting Federal Elections
http://www.aflcio.org/publ/estatements/may2000/fedelect.htm
Big Business
Pays Big Bucks to Secure their Agenda
http://www.grannyd.com
Campaign
Finance Reform and First Amendment Rights of Legal Permanent Residents
http://www.napalc.org/programs/votingrights/pro_voting1_2.html
Campaign
Finance Reports and Data from the Federal Elections Commission. View actual
financial disclosure reports filed by House, Senate and Presidential campaigns,
Parties and PACs from 1993 to the present.
http://www.fec.gov/finance_reports.html
Take a look
at Mother Jones' "Coin Operated Congress" which features the
top
political donors in the 2000 Elections.
http://
www.motherjones.com/coinopcongress
Alliance for Democracy's Public Funding for all Federal Elections Campaign
including their Democracy Brigades Actions.
http://www.afd-online.org
The biggest
obstacle to equal representation for women in congress isn't sexism, it's
money.
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/electoral_reform/obstacle_to_reform.html
Campaign
Finance is a Civil Rights Issue.
http://www.flhp.org/
Democracy
for the People of Washington, DC
The
League of Women Voters statement of support for congressional voting rights
for the District of Columbia.
http://www.lwv.org/where/promoting/dc_hill.html
The Coalition
for DC Representation in Congress
http://www.dcvote.org/
DCWatch is
an on-line magazine that covers local city politics and public affairs
in Washington, D.C. DCWatch features resources for civic activists and
background material on legislation and current events in the District
of Columbia.
http://www.dcwatch.com/
Disability
and Voting
The Center for an Accessible Society's Disability and Voting Page
http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/voting/index.htm
http://www.nod.org/vote2000/lwvarticle.html
The Disability
Rights Education and Defense Fund decry Supreme Court intervention in
elections.
http://www.dredf.org/press_releases/gardecision.html
Facts about
the Disability Vote
http://www.nod.org/vote2000/votefacts.html
Most Voting Systems Are Inaccessible For People With Disabilities, compare
Voting System Accessibility.
http://www.nod.org/vote2000/vote2000.html
Disenfranchisement
of Former Felons
Florida's 'Disappeared Voters': Disfranchised by the GOP by Gregory Palast,
The Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&s=palast
Sentencing Project Resources:
Felony Disenfranchisement
Laws in the U.S. and the impact on democracy.
http://sentencingproject.org/news/fvupdate.pdf
An Assessment
of activity relating to Felon Disenfranchisement Laws by the Sentencing
Project, January 2000
http://sentencingproject.org/news/regainvote.htm
Losing the
Vote, The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States,
a 1998 report by Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project, estimated
that 1.4 million ex-felons were disenfranchised nationwide.
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/
Facts About
Prisons and Prisoners
http://sentencingproject.org/brief/facts-pp.pdf
Electoral
College
Winner
Take All: A Report on the Presidential Election Process by the Twentieth
Century Fund Task Force on Election Reform.
http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Detail.asp?ItemID=131
History of
the League of Women Voters' position and action on the electoral college.
http://www.lwv.org/where/promoting/electoral_college.html
Frequently
Asked Questions about the Electoral College- Prepared by The Office of
the Federal Register.
http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/faq.html
Global Exchange
brief on Electoral College.
http://www.globalexchange.org/democracy/electoralCollege.html
Instant Runoff
Voting
The Center for Voting and Democracy is the Nation's best resource for
IRV education and action.
http://www.fairvote.org/irv/
A guide to
Instant Runoff Voting and State Campaigns
http://www.instantrunoff.com/
Improving
Access to the Ballot
Reform America's analysis on ballot barriers and ideas for reform.
http://www.reformamericainc.org/issue-ballot.shtml
Ballot Access
News newsletter reports on the hurdles and successes of trying to put
candidates on the ballot in the US.
http://www.ballot-access.org/
Media
and Elections
Study of Local TV Coverage of the 2000 General Election and how the broadcast
industry treats elections as an opportunity to profiteer rather than to
inform. http://entertainment.usc.edu/publications/campaignnews.PDF
Gouging Democracy:
A report on how the television industry profited on Campaign 2000.
http://www.public-i.org/commentary_01_083000.htm
Open the
Debates A Blueprint For Fair And Open Presidential Debates by The Appleseed
Citizen Task Force for Fair Elections.
http://www.fair.org/articles/appleseed.html
History of
The Commission on Presidential Debates and ideas for Reform by Reform
America. http://www.reformamericainc.org/issue-debate.shtml
Explanation
of the Commission on Presidential Debates, run by the former chairmen
of the Republican and Democratic parties.
http://www.fair.org/debates.html
Proportional
Representation A source of information on proportional representation
elections including beginning readings, in-depth articles by scholars
and activists.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm
The Center
for Voting and Democracy's fact sheet and briefing on Proportional Representation.
http://fairvote.org/pr/index.html
A collection
of PR-related articles by journalist and activist Steven Hill.
http://www.igc.apc.org/enVISION/rep.html
Washington
Citizens for Proportional Representation.
http://fairvote.net/washington/
Californians
for Proportional Representation. Much useful information about the recent
attempt to bring PR to San Francisco, and news about local activities.
http://www.fairvote.org
Illinois
Citizens for Proportional Representation.
http://www.reformamericainc.org/issue-edem.shtml
Voter Registration
and Empowerment Efforts The National Coalition for the Homeless' Voting
Rights Campaign.
http://nch.ari.net/voting.html
Information
about the National Voter Registration Act or "Motor Voter" by
the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consotium.
http://www.napalc.org/programs/votingrights/pro_voting1_3.html
Find information
about expanding the right to vote including including a law suit filed
seeking to overturn the constitutional and statutory provisions in Florida
which prevent ex-felons from voting. http://www.lawyerscomm.org/
Find information
on the National Lawyers Committee on Civil Right's project on defending
majority-black legislative districts.
http://www.naacp.org/voterempowerment/index.html
Voting
Rights Act
NAACP Plaintiff’s vs. Katherine Harris, Secretary of State of FL
http://www.naacp.org/communications/press_releases/florida_lawsuit.asp
National
Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium highlights Section 203 of the
Voting Rights Act which requires jurisdictions to provide language assistance
if the number of voters qualifying for such assistance meets certain threshold
tests.
http://www.napalc.org/programs/votingrights/pro_voting1_1.html
Information
on how the Supreme Court restricted Section 5 of Voting Rights
Act by the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights.
http://www.lawyerscomm.org/
Resources
on the Voter Rights Act from Center for Voting and Democracy.
http://www.fairvote.org