Our Approach

Understanding that reform solutions only come after successfully defining problems, FairVote pursues innovative but objective research into local, state, federal and international elections to demonstrate and explain flaws in America's electoral rules and how to reform them.

Recent examples include Presidential Elections Inequality, which lays out in convincing detail the basis for the shrinking number of presidential swing states and its negative impact on voter participation, racial fairness and accountability, as well as a series of related reports that address such questions as the unlikely frequency of the need for national recounts in national popular vote elections and flaws with other state-based Electoral College reform proposals.

We also have produced: a report on a range of ways the parties could improve their presidential nomination processes by party rule; a bi-annual report on how runoff and primary elections affect voter turnout; congressional election analyses that provide state-by-state details on lack of competition and fair representation over the past 14 House elections; and an exhaustive review of preparation (and lack thereof) on ballot design and prevention of long voting lines in hundreds of counties during the 2008 elections.