This week’s big electoral story is America’s midterm elections and the failure of the predicted ‘Red Wave’ to materialise. However, an underreported story has been the high number of cities that accepted proposals to introduce fairer voting systems. A ‘Fair Voting’ wave is rolling across the United States.

The United States is one of the few countries that still use Westminster-style First Past the Post (FPTP) voting. Most democracies use some form of proportional representation. But, things are starting to improve in the USA.

American cities adopt the Alternative Vote

Unencumbered by the politics of the 2010 coalition, the Alternative Vote (or Ranked Choice Voting as it is known in the United States) has proved popular when judged on its own merits in America.

The Alternative Vote (AV), like FPTP is still a ‘winner takes all system’ and is not proportional. However, it does mean that voters aren’t punished for picking candidates who aren’t from the big two parties – something important when independent candidates are standing.

In 2016 only 10 cities in America used the Alternative Vote, now over 50 American cities use AV and that number is only growing.

At the mid-term elections on the 8th of November Multnomah County (the largest County in the state of Oregon), Evanston (Illinois), Fort Collins (Colorado), Ojai (California) all voted yes to propositions to ditch the antiquated FPTP system and towards the fairer AV. We are also awaiting the results of the Seattle proposition on AV; it can take quite some time to count up results in American elections.

Additionally, voters in three cities Corvallis (Oregon), Albany (California) and Palm Desert (California) all used AV for the first time in this November’s elections.

Whole state votes to scrap First Past the Post

Not only have all these cities abandoned FPTP but the entire state of Nevada voted to flip to AV. As this is a constitutional amendment, it will have to be confirmed again in 2024 to take effect, but the momentum is clearly with AV and this vote is definitely a step in the right direction.

Nevada will be joining Maine and Alaska as states that use the Alternative Vote for statewide and federal general elections.

Major American cities adopt the Single Transferable Vote

The AV results are all fantastic news, but it gets better. The cities of Portland (Oregon) and Portland (this time in Maine) have voted to introduce the Single Transferable Vote (or as the Americans call it, Proportional RCV). The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a proportional voting system which aims to produce a city council that reflects the way the electorate voted. We use this system in the UK to elect Scottish and Northern Irish local councils, as well as the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Fairer voting systems are gaining salience across the US as the polarising impact of First Past the Post makes itself clear. In the past two years, Congress and more than half of American states have considered legislation to introduce fairer voting. Countries saddled with First Past the Post nearly always have groups of activists trying to scrap the system.  Fairvote, the leading proportional representation organisation in the US, is fighting hard to build momentum nationwide.

Add your name to our call for fair votes in the UK

As the world analyses the result of the US Presidential election, there’s one result you might have missed.

On Tuesday one state made a symbolic breakthrough: Maine became the first US state to scrap First Past the Post.

The northern New England state passed an initiative to introduce ‘ranked voting’ – the Alternative Vote system that allows people to pick candidates by order of preference.

With 88% of precinct results in, it looks like Maine citizens have backed reform by 52-48%.

‘Question 5’ was put forward by the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, and backed by FairVote – our US counterpart.

Ranked voting is already used in San Francisco and Portland, and has helped to seed the idea of electoral reform among the public, but this is the first successful state-wide effort for a fairer voting system. So far, that is.

It means that Maine is set to adopt AV for all its 2018 elections for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, the governor and the state legislature, following a series of elections where governors and other individuals have repeatedly won on under 50% of the popular vote.

There’s more good news. Benton County, Oregon, has also voted to adopt ranked choice voting in what the campaign described as a ‘landslide’, while four California cities used it last night for their mayoral and city council elections.

And it could be a springboard for further reform pushes across the country. Indeed, FairVote has just launched FairVote California – in the largest state – so that could be the place to watch next.

Kye Bailey, who ran the campaign in Maine, said “Voters are feeling like they have to vote strategically for the lesser of two evils, and this system gives voters more choice and more voice.”

Will Brett, our Head of Campaigns, was there for the campaign and reports that ‘The messaging was clean, simple and effective. “More voice, more choice”‘. It clearly went down well.

FairVote has backed the push for ranked voting in Maine and elsewhere while continuing to campaign for proportional in state legislatures and Congress. We look forward to following the next steps in the US-wide push for fair votes!

Katie Ghose is a member of FairVote‘s Board

For more information on Maine’s vote, see here