FairVote files amicus brief protecting the Voting Rights Act and proportional voting methods
In Rose et al. v. Raffensperger, FairVote urges the Supreme Court to overturn an Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision that would exempt multi-winner state bodies from the Voting Rights Act and foreclose the ability of courts to consider alternative, proportional electoral methods as remedies.
FairVote joined the Campaign Legal Center, Protect Democracy, and RepresentUs on a recent amicus brief in support of a petition for the Supreme Court to hear Rose et al. v. Raffensperger.
In Rose, the Eleventh Circuit held that a statewide elected body – Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC) – was effectively exempt from liability under the federal Voting Rights Act. According to the Eleventh Circuit, the state’s interest in holding statewide, at-large elections for the PSC meant single-winner districts could not be drawn, and therefore no remedy was available. FairVote and our amicus brief partners believe this decision should be reversed. State law cannot override federal law. If Georgia wants to maintain statewide elections, promising remedies other than single-member districts are available under the Voting Rights Act. Those remedies include proportional ranked choice voting, which creates more opportunities for communities of color to elect a candidate of their choice. For example, in an election with five winners, if any group makes up 17% of the electorate or more, the election cannot be decided without their votes.
Currently, Georgia elects PSC commissioners to five seats using statewide, block plurality elections; voters have as many votes as there are seats (i.e. 2 votes for 2 open seats), allowing the largest group in the electorate to pick every winner and lock other groups out of representation. Although Black Georgians make up almost one-third of the state’s population, as a result of the current voting method there has been only one Black commissioner in the office’s 145-year history. A trial court found that this method contributes to unlawful vote dilution under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race.
Traditionally, a finding of vote dilution would require the legislature to pass (or the court to impose) a remedy. However, in this case, the Eleventh Circuit Court cut that process off, holding that the VRA did not apply to Georgia’s PSC at all because the state has the authority to use statewide, at-large elections for state bodies like the PSC. This ruling is wrong twice over. First, there is no special exception under the VRA for state bodies: If the state’s chosen policy creates vote dilution under federal law, that state policy is unlawful and must be changed. Second, while the most common remedy to vote dilution is drawing single-member districts, there are also remedies that can work in at-large races, including proportional ranked choice voting, cumulative voting, or limited voting.
These proportional election methods have a long history of use in the United States, and can remedy vote dilution. As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas observed in a prior case, “there is no principle inherent in our constitutional system, or even in the history of the Nation’s electoral practices, that makes single-member districts the `proper’ mechanism for electing representatives to governmental bodies or for giving `undiluted’ effect to the votes of a numerical minority.”
Solutions like proportional ranked choice voting would allow Georgia to keep using statewide elections without leading to vote dilution. Because of the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling, exploration of potential remedies was cut short. FairVote’s amicus brief encourages the Supreme Court to reverse the Eleventh Circuit’s decision, and ensure that Georgia moves forward with selecting an appropriate remedy.
