Federal Elections Modernization Act¶
Overview¶
Published February 2026¶
Based on Rev 5.0 of the Federal Elections Modernization Act
The Federal Elections Modernization Act (FEMA) is a comprehensive reform of federal election systems and congressional capacity, hereafter referred to as "the Act." It combines House expansion, voting method modernization, proportional representation, candidate transparency, and legislative capacity improvements into an integrated package designed to launch as a unified system rather than as isolated reforms. The Act operates entirely within established constitutional authority under the Elections Clause (Article I, Section 4) and Congress's statutory power to set House size.
This Overview provides a substantive summary for readers who want to understand the legislation without reading the full statutory text. For a shorter orientation, see the Policy Introduction. For design rationale and alternatives considered, see the Policy Rationale.
The Problem¶
Congress operates with infrastructure designed for 4 million Americans now serving 335 million -- an 84-fold population increase without proportional institutional adaptation. The House of Representatives has not grown since 1913, leaving each member responsible for approximately 760,000 constituents -- six to seven times larger than districts in comparable democracies. The original representation ratio of roughly 30,000 to 1 has diluted 25-fold.
This creates compounding operational failures. District offices are overwhelmed by constituent service demands at a scale the Founders never anticipated. Staff capacity for policy development erodes as casework absorbs available bandwidth. Individual members wield disproportionate obstruction power in a chamber too small for its responsibilities.
Meanwhile, the winner-take-all, single-member district system produces predictable representation distortions regardless of which party controls redistricting. A party winning 51% in every district takes 100% of seats. A party winning 30% everywhere takes zero. Only 15-30 House districts -- roughly 3-7% of all seats -- are genuinely competitive, meaning the vast majority of House elections are effectively decided in low-turnout partisan primaries. Fifty different state ballot access regimes add administrative fragmentation, litigation risk, and procedural barriers that serve no coherent federal purpose.
These are infrastructure problems, not moral failures. They have accumulated over a century and now require systematic attention.
The Solution: Integrated Reform Architecture¶
The Act's central insight is that its reforms depend on each other. STAR voting eliminates spoiler effects and enables honest preference expression. Multi-member districts translate those preferences into proportional outcomes. House expansion creates the seats proportional representation needs to function. Joint Endorsement Lists make coalition structures transparent to voters. If any major component launches without the others, the result is dysfunction at a different scale rather than genuine modernization.
A 510-member House elected under winner-take-all plurality is still a dysfunctional House -- just a larger one. The Act therefore requires simultaneous integrated launch: the first expanded election must also be the first STAR voting election, the first multi-member district election, and the first Joint Endorsement Lists election. This produces a new operating system for congressional elections rather than incremental patches to the existing one.
The Act also addresses the fundamental political economy challenge of democratic reform: incumbents must vote for changes that alter their electoral environment. Title VI solves this through immediate, substantial compensation and capacity improvements that take effect upon enactment -- before any electoral reforms launch. This aligns individual incentive with institutional improvement using the same mechanism design logic the Framers applied to constitutional checks and balances.
Title-by-Title Summary¶
Title I -- Federal Ballot Access Standards. Establishes uniform federal standards for ballot access in federal elections, replacing fifty different state regimes. Candidates qualify through major party nomination (party received 5% in most recent election), signature petitions (0.5% of votes cast, capped at 5,000 statewide or 1,000 for House), or filing fee ($1,000 House, $2,500 statewide, inflation-adjusted). States retain administrative flexibility but must meet federal minimums. Reduces litigation exposure and procedural barriers while preserving legitimate gatekeeping.
Title II -- Federal Party Recognition. Creates federal party recognition standards under Elections Clause authority. Parties qualify through electoral performance (5% in 15+ states) or organizational demonstration (100,000 members in 25+ states). Establishes the Joint Endorsement List system, allowing each candidate to display up to three party endorsements on the ballot. This makes coalition structures transparent to voters without creating ballot clutter -- candidates appear once with their endorsements listed alongside.
Title III -- House Membership Expansion. Grows the House from 435 to approximately 720 members over 14 years using the cube root rule (House size equals the cube root of national population). Initial expansion to 510 seats occurs at the First FEMA Election, followed by biennial increases of 35 seats until cube root compliance. Expansion adds seats; no incumbent displacement occurs. Average district population drops from 760,000 to approximately 465,000 at full implementation. Enhanced Member Representational Allowances (35% increase) accompany the expansion to ensure adequate staff capacity.
Title IV -- Multi-Member Districts and STAR Voting. The largest and most technically detailed Title, containing several major components. All federal elections adopt STAR voting (Score Then Automatic Runoff): voters score candidates 0-5 stars, the two highest-scoring candidates advance to automatic runoff, and the finalist preferred by more voters wins. House elections transition from single-member to multi-member districts (3-7 seats) over five election cycles, using STAR-PR (Allocated Score) for proportional representation. A Unified General Election Structure eliminates state-administered primaries for federal offices -- all qualified candidates appear directly on the November ballot, with parties free to conduct internal nomination processes at their own expense.
Title IV also establishes the Electoral Science Office (ESO), an independent agency responsible for ongoing evaluation of voting method performance. The ESO operates within a three-tier graduated protection architecture: statutory principles (normative commitments requiring an Act of Congress to change), protected design elements (core features requiring affirmative Congressional approval to modify), and adjustable technical parameters (implementation details the ESO may refine subject to Congressional disapproval). This builds maintenance capacity into the voting system itself, enabling technical improvements as electoral science advances without requiring full legislative action for each adjustment.
Title V -- Non-Qualifying Federal Office Examinations. Establishes the Federal Candidate Assessment Office (FCAO) as an independent agency administering standardized competency examinations for federal candidates. Examinations test factual knowledge of governmental structures and processes relevant to the office sought -- House (2 hours), Senate (4 hours), Presidential (8 hours). Critically, no minimum score is required. Candidates scoring 0% may run and serve. Scores appear on ballots as voter information, functioning as a transparency mechanism comparable to nutritional labels rather than a qualification barrier. The FCAO operates under a nine-member Commission with multi-branch appointments, staggered terms, and independent fee-based funding after a 24-month startup period.
Title VI -- Compensation, Transition, and Implementation. Provides immediate capacity improvements upon enactment: phased salary increases over five years (House to $250,000, Senate to $300,000), enhanced pension accrual (2.5% vs. 1.7%), professional development funding (5% of base salary), and transition protections allowing incumbents to remain in single-member districts during the multi-member phase-in. Also establishes public campaign matching funds (6:1 for contributions under $200 in multi-member districts), streamlined Senate appointment authority, and $500 million in initial federal grants to states for implementation support. These provisions serve dual purposes: political viability (immediate benefits aligning incumbent incentives with reform) and governance improvement (enhanced legislative capacity independent of electoral changes).
Title VII -- Enforcement and Reporting. Grants expanded enforcement authority to the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice for Act compliance. Establishes coordination requirements between the FEC, ESO, and FCAO. Includes supermajority protection against compensation rollbacks (three-fifths vote required to reduce Title VI benefits), severability protection ensuring compensation mechanisms survive if reform titles are invalidated, and anti-retaliation provisions.
Title VIII -- General Provisions. Contains severability clauses, constitutional supremacy provisions, rules of construction, and the tiered effective date architecture. Defines key temporal terms (First FEMA Election, Second FEMA Election, Full Implementation) and provides technical definitions for the ESO's graduated protection framework.
Implementation Architecture¶
The Act uses a tiered effective date structure designed to deliver immediate benefits while ensuring simultaneous launch of electoral reforms:
Tier 1 -- Immediate upon enactment. Titles VI, VII, and VIII take effect, delivering compensation improvements, enforcement authority, and administrative framework. The ESO and FCAO begin establishment. Members who vote for the Act see benefits during the same Congress.
Tier 2 -- First FEMA Election. The second general election after enactment (with an 18-month minimum floor), at which Titles I through IV take effect simultaneously. The House expands to 510 seats. STAR voting debuts for all federal elections. Multi-member districts begin phasing in at 25% of seats. Ballot access and party recognition standards become operative. This integrated launch ensures voters and administrators experience the new system as a coherent whole.
Tier 3 -- Second FEMA Election. The first general election after the First FEMA Election, at which Title V takes effect. FCAO examination scores appear on ballots for the first time. The decoupled timeline provides 36-42 months for proper exam development without delaying core electoral reforms.
Ongoing -- Biennial expansion. Beginning with the second Congress after initial expansion, the House grows by 35 seats every two years until cube root compliance at approximately 720 members (~14 years from enactment). Multi-member district coverage increases through five transition cycles to 100% for qualifying states. Each expansion provides an assessment checkpoint for course correction.
Assuming early 2026 enactment, the illustrative timeline would be: 2026 enactment with immediate Title VI benefits; November 2028 First FEMA Election with 510-seat House, STAR voting, and initial multi-member districts; November 2030 Second FEMA Election with FCAO scores on ballots and House at 545; cube root compliance around 2040 at approximately 720 members.
Constitutional Foundation¶
The Act rests on well-established constitutional authority. The Elections Clause (Article I, Section 4) grants Congress broad power over the "times, places and manner" of federal elections, supporting voting method requirements, district structure changes, and ballot access standards. House sizing is a statutory matter -- Congress adjusted House size thirteen times between 1789 and 1913. Multi-member districts have 178 years of American precedent (1789-1967) with explicit Supreme Court validation. FCAO examinations function as disclosure requirements under Elections Clause authority, not additional qualifications for office, avoiding concerns raised in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton. A separate Constitutional Authority Technical Memorandum provides detailed analysis.
Conclusion¶
The Act treats democratic modernization as infrastructure maintenance rather than ideological transformation. Its reforms address measurable operational deficiencies -- representation ratios, electoral geometry, administrative fragmentation, institutional capacity -- through proven mechanisms with extensive precedent. The integrated design ensures each component reinforces the others, while the tiered implementation delivers benefits on a human timescale: members who enact these reforms see results during their careers, and voters experience tangible improvements within a single political generation.
Revision History¶
Revision 1.0 (Current) - Initial publication based on FEMA Rev 5.0 - Replaces prior CMA-era Executive Summary and Legislative Overview documents - Written to APAI Document Production Standards Section 3.1 (Overview) specification
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Prepared by Albert Ramos for The American Policy Architecture Institute