Leadership
Robert Richie
Executive Director
An expert on international and domestic electoral systems, Robert Richie has directed FairVote - The Center for Voting and Democracy since its founding in 1992.
Richie is a frequent source for print, radio and television journalists and has published commentary in such publications as New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Roll Call, Nation, National Civic Review, Boston Review, Christian Science Monitor and Legal Times. His writings have appeared in seven books since 1999, including the feature essay in Whose Votes Count (Beacon Press, 2001).
Richie has been a guest on many radio and television programs, including C-SPAN, NBC News, NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and "Fresh Air", CNN, FOX and MSNBC. He edits the Center's newsletter and other publications like its Voting and Democracy reports and its bi-annual analyses of congressional elections that have received prominent news coverage around the nation.
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1962, Richie graduated from Haverford College with a B.A. in philosophy in 1987. Before co-founding FairVote and becoming its director in 1992, he worked for three winning congressional campaigns in Washington state and for non-profit organizations in Washington and the District of Columbia. He is married to Cynthia Terrell and the proud father of three children: Savanna, Lucas and Rebecca.
David Moon
Program Director
David Moon is the Program Director of FairVote. An attorney licensed in Maryland, he is returning to the organization having completed his legal education at the American University, Washington College of Law.
Over the past several years, David has worked with numerous social justice organizations, including the NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund and the ACLU. With a strong interest in criminal justice, David worked with the ACLU's Students Against the Death Penalty in voter education efforts and workshops on systemic legal problems for grassroots organizers, and he has also served on the Board of Directors of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. In the past, he co-taught two seminars on political domination at Tufts University and continues to work on political organizing to this day. His most recent political management endeavors include a federal progressive political action committee, and successful campaigns for Providence, RI City Council and Maryland State Senate candidates.
David is a Maryland native and a graduate of Tufts University (B.A. in Sociology & Philosophy), and currently resides in Washington, DC.
Organization’s Objective
FairVote seeks systemic changes to improve America’s democratic infrastructure and give all Americans a voice in elections. True democracy should ensure fair and competitive elections and create a society where every individual is represented. Unfortunately, American elections suffer from inadequacy at all levels of government, from individual access to the presidential election system. Some examples of areas of concern include:
· No federal right to vote is enshrined in the Constitution, allowing standards for eligibility to vary from state to state and city to city.
· Because of the Electoral College, a majority of states are rendered utterly irrelevant in presidential elections.
· Winner-take-all elections result in a Congress and in state legislatures that do not adequately reflect the electorate they are tasked with representing, ideologically or demographically. Incumbents are nearly invincible, causing races to become uncompetitive, with plummeting turnout, and almost zero accountability to the voters.
· Plurality elections do not allow voters a full range of choices and forces them to vote against their worst fears rather than their best hopes. When serious independent candidates challenge the major parties, they are cast as “spoilers” and voters fear they will inadvertently elect the “greater of two evils.”
· Young people are voting at an unprecedented low rate.
· The presidential primary system is a disaster, devoid of fairness or order.
Average Americans are not made sufficiently aware of what rights they do and do not possess, and often the media is also misinformed on the workings of our electoral systems. Politics in America cannot meaningfully improve until substantive reforms are enacted and more Americans understand the implications and efficacy of their votes.
