What Philanthropy Can Do to Improve Elections

To the Editor:

Jennifer Moore and Grant Williams provide an important overview of how grant makers are seeking to stir voter interest and fair elections (“Philanthropy and the Ballot Box,” August 10).

Given our shrinking voter turnout, especially among young people, I applaud each of the projects discussed and strongly second the point made by Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Geri Mannion, who was quoted as saying that improving the electoral process would have a positive impact on many issues of concern.

But the article misses an important area of focus for a growing number of foundations: the voting system and its impact on who runs, gets attention, and, as a result, has a chance to mobilize new voters and win seats.

For example, the Arca Foundation and the Stern Family Fund support my organization’s efforts to replace “one-choice-only,” plurality voting systems with full-choice ballot systems that would allow insurgent, voter-mobilizing candidates to run without fear of being called a spoiler.

The Ford Foundation, Joyce Foundation, HKH Foundation, Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust, Open Society Institute, Solidago Foundation, and Tides Foundation have provided generous support to our center and other organizations to weigh the merits of proportional representation, cumulative voting, and other alternatives to “winner-take-all” systems that deny representation to political minorities and, often, racial minorities.

There is no substitute for efforts to reawaken civic spirit in the United States and to make elected officials more responsive to ordinary citizens than to sources of campaign cash. At the same time, perhaps nothing would have as tangible an impact on the face of electoral politics as voting-system reforms that would directly translate into new candidacies — and the new voices and better choices they would provide.

Rob Richie
Executive Director
Center for Voting and Democracy
Takoma Park, Md.

To the Editor:

I enjoyed reading about the initiatives taking place around the country to try to get more of our citizens interested and participating in the election process, at both the local and the national levels. And Ms. Mannion at Carnegie is absolutely right about the need to “engage childrenlong before they become eligible to vote.”

One project that concerned me, however, is the possibility of “using” children to support particular positions. I refer specifically to the Youth-e-Vote, where children, guided by their teachers, cast a vote for president, with the results announced nationwide a week before Election Day.

Call me what you will, but it would not surprise me to see “Nation’s Children Support Gore” in headlines around the country. But even if we insert Bush’s name instead of Gore’s, I still believe that timing the announcement for before the election serves no useful purpose.

Why not announce the results November 8 so a comparison could be made between the kids and grown-ups, even to the point of comparing exit polls between the two groups on a local level? That would be much more educational and engaging, plus it would eliminate the suspicion by folks like me who think this is a backdoor effort to (heaven forbid) make a partisan political statement.

Lawrence E. Gill
Grants Administrator
Dodge Jones Foundation
Abilene, Tex.