Electoral reform

Electoral Reform projects seek to change the way that public desires are reflected in elections. They include measures to reform parties, redefine citizen eligibility to vote, alter electoral constituencies and their borders, design new ballots, counting procedures or equipment, tighten scrutineering (by the parties or other observers), ensure safety of citizens voting, limit the influence of bribes and coercion, and often to alter the rules by which the legislature and executive organize themselves given the ballots, e.g. runoff voting, instant runoff voting, party disapproval, proportional representation.

continuous change

There are many such movements globally, in almost all democratic countries, as part of the basic definition of a democracy is the right to change the rules.Political science is imperfect. Electoral Reforms seek to make it work a bit better, a bit sooner. The solution to the problems of democracy tends to be "more democracy". Electoral Reform is a permanent feature of any democracy.

nation building

In less democratic countries, elections are of course demanded by dissidents, therefore the most basic Electoral Reform project is to achieve a transfer of power to a democratically elected government with a minimum of bloodshed, e.g. in South Africa in 1994. This case highlights the complexity of such reform. Such projects tend to require changes to national or other constitutions, and to alter balances of power. They are always by definition politically painful.

United Nations role

The United Nations Fair Elections Commission provides international observers to national elections that are likely to face challenge by the international community of nations, e.g. in 2001 in Yugoslavia, in 2002 in Zimbabwe, etc..

The United Nations standards address safety of citizens, coercion, scrutiny and eligibility to vote. They do not impose ballot styles, party diversity, or borders on electoral constituencies. Various global political movements, e.g. labor movements, the Green Party, political Islam, political Zionism, advocate various cultural, social, ecological means of setting borders that they consider "objective" or "blessed" in some other way. Contention over electoral constituency borders within or between nations and definitions of "refugee", "citizen", and "right of return" mark various global conflicts including Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, the Congo and Rwanda.

national reforms

National electoral reform projects tend to be simpler and less focused on life-and-death matters. Australia and New Zealand held Royal Commissions to find the best form of "proportional representation" of parties in the legislature, and redesign ballots to s/elect these Members of Parliament. Electoral constituency (or "riding" or "district") borders also tend to be set by such national projects at regular intervals, or by statuatory rules and definitions.

ecoregions as constituencies

One key global Electoral Reform effort is Ecoregional Democracy. This seeks to align trading bloc "Biosafety" rules regarding ecologically-alien imports (such as genetically modified seeds or entirely new proteins or molecules) with natural terrestrial ecoregions. For example, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) area roughly corresponds to the Nearctic ecological zone. A proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would add the Neotropic ecological zone. Many groups in the anti-globalization movement demand more direct democratic control over the ecological, social, and trade rules in effect in such large trading blocs, fearing that ecology or society will be compromised.

ecoregions support indigenous peoples

Ecoregions, defined by the science of ecology, are the natural borders of ecologically-sensitive districts, and very often converge with the borders of indigenous lands and lifeways. Indigenous languages tend to include terms or distinctions applicable to one ecoregion, where that language has originated. In many cases, Ecoregional Constituencies are necessary to preserve any semblance of indigenous culture and indigenous language and lifeways.

ecoregions define biological dangers

In addition to their convergence with indigenous people's lands and languages, ecoregional borders also naturally support biosecurity - water, soil and gene flows within terrestrial ecoregions do not endanger the natural capital of those regions. However, unnatural imposed cultural or industrial age borders tend to bisect ecoregions - leading to conflict as ecological threats to a cut-off corner of an ecoregion do not threaten lives in the main body of the constituency. Whereas upstream and downstream citizens are dealing with the same leaders and legislatures by definition in an ecoregional constituency, and these conflicts remain contained locally.

If biological warfare or ecological pathways for biohazards become a major concern in national governance, even national Electoral Reform is likely to adhere to these ecoregional borders to minimize biosecurity cost.