You might not know it from the greeting cards and relentless guilt-triggering ads, but Mother's Day was not originally conceived as a consumer gimmick. It began in 1870 as a rallying cry for mothers who lost husbands and sons in the US Civil War, and as a renunciation of war, militarism, and patriarchy.

Here is the original, pre-Hallmark, Mother's Day Proclamation, penned in Boston by Julia Ward Howe in 1870:

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage, For caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." >From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!" The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor Nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war. Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions. The great and general interests of peace.

France's Problem Is Its Electoral System

Commentators on France's recent presidential election have reacted with alarm to far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen's upset in achieving a place in the French presidential runoff election. But contrary to the headlines, there has not been a major surge of right-wing populism in France. It's been there all along. Instead, what we saw was a major breakdown of France's method of electing the president, with attendant lessons for the US.

France uses a two-round runoff system to guarantee that the winner has a majority of the vote. The top two finishers advance to the runoff, a method that is common in the United States as well. But one obvious defect of a two-round runoff is that, just like the US method of electing our president, it can be plagued by spoiler candidates and "split votes."

In the case of France, in the first round of voting a full 64% of voters supported candidates other than the two who advanced to the runoff. Many liberal voters, looking to express disappointment with Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the first round, split their support among six other candidates. Together these liberal-leaning candidates garnered more than 40 percent of the vote. Divided, none polled enough votes to make the final runoff.

The anti-immigrant Le Pen took just 17 percent of the vote, virtually the same popular vote he won in past presidential runs. But he benefited from the split votes and spoiling by liberal candidates, edging out Jospin for a spot in the runoff by a mere one percent of the vote.

Jospin learned what Al Gore knows all too well--in the American as well as the French electoral systems, spoiler candidates can cost you an election.

A better electoral method for ensuring majority rule is called "instant runoff" voting. With an instant or "same-day" runoff, voters indicate their runoff choices at the same time as their first choice by ranking them on their ballot: 1, 2, 3. If no candidate has an outright majority of first choices, voters' runoff choices are used to determine the majority winner.

The result is that the majority prevails in one election instead of two. Split votes and spoiler candidacies which plague French and US elections are prevented. Candidates are spared the expense of raising money for a second election, and taxpayers are spared the expense of paying for this completely unnecessary second election. Moreover, candidates have incentives to court the supporters of other candidates, asking for their second or third rankings and winning by building coalitions instead of tearing each other down.

If France had used instant runoff voting, liberal voters could have sent a message to Prime Minister Jospin by awarding their highest rankings to other candidates, but would have had the option of ranking Jospin as one of their runoff choices. During the ballot counting their votes would have coalesced around Jospin as their front runner, who would have made it to the instant runoff over the marginalized Le Pen, who had very little runoff support from any other parties or candidates.

Certainly Al Gore wishes instant runoff voting had been used in the US presidential election, as runoff rankings from the supporters of Ralph Nader would have allowed Gore to win the states of Florida and New Hampshire, either of which would have handed Gore the presidency. Similarly, in 1992, many of Ross Perot's supporters would have ranked George Bush second ahead of Bill Clinton, who won just a single state with a majority.

In fact, our last three presidential elections were won by candidates lacking a majority of the popular vote. Many governor's races and Congressional seats also are won by candidates without majority support. Instant runoff voting would ensure majority rule even while allowing more robust political debate and preventing electoral mayhem that results from split votes and spoiler candidacies.

In March, San Francisco voted to become the first American city to implement instant runoff voting for its major local elections. Used already to elect major offices in Ireland, Australia, and London, instant runoff voting provides a means to accommodate voters' growing interest in more political choices. Most states could adopt it by state statute for all major elections, including the US president. This electoral method is clearly a wave of the future because, when compared to current methods used in France and the United States, its democratic benefits are too powerful to ignore.

Steven Hill is from the Center for Voting and Democracy (www.farvote.org). He managed the San Francisco campaign for instant runoff voting and is author of "Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics" (Routledge, June 2002). Rob Richie is the Center's executive director.