FairVote Feed: Cumulative Voting

The Voting Rights Act, Jerome Gray and Fair Voting in Alabama

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:32:54 -0800

Among the flurry of news coverage surrounding the upcoming landmark Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which will decide the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, one interesting man has been getting considerable attention: Jerome Gray. His story has been related in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and other publications.

A 74-year-old black Alabama local and civil rights advocate, Jerome Gray has had a remarkable career as a community organizer, including work for years at the Alabama Democratic Conference. In that role he worked regularly with FairVote, including helping FairVote for a time as a member of an advisory committee on our organizing and outreach.

Mr. Gray has voted in every election since 1974. Yet prior to the 2012 general election, a county official improperly removed his name from the voting rolls - along with some 500 other names, all in a small town with a population of only about 4,000, 63% of whom are black. A three judge panel ruled the purging of names from the rolls illegal in a decision invoking the Voting Rights Act.

Alabama has a long history of Voting Rights Act activity. Shelby County, Alabama initiated the lawsuit now before the Supreme Court, and Jerome Gray recalls seeing white men in the beds of trucks photographing black voters as they came out to vote as recently as 2008. But Alabama is also home to many of the Voting Rights Act's greatest successes, especially in those towns and counties that have chosen fair voting as a preferred way of guaranteeing an undiluted vote to their African American and Latino populations - highlighted by Dillard v. Crenshaw County, a voting rights case pursued in 1985 that resulted 32 uses of cumulative voting and the one vote system, which has often has been called "limited voting," a name that unfortunately fails to communicate its capacity for expanding representation while ensuring that everyone has the same number of votes.

We recently wrote about the use of fair voting in Calera, the town whose illegal redistricting directly led to Shelby County filing suit against Attorney General Eric Holder in his official capacity. When Calera's redistricting scheme was found to be illegal, they adopted the one vote form of fair voting, allowing the same level of representation for African Americans as under a majority-minority district plan, but without the need for any line drawing. But Calera is far from alone. In fact FairVote hosts a booklet about the use of fair voting throughout Alabama, written by none other than Jerome Gray.

Fair voting in Alabama dates back to the 1980's, when local activists fought for it as the best option for remedying racial minority vote dilution present in so many Alabama localities, and it continues to be effective today. Chilton County, Alabama continues to elect its county commission using cumulative voting, and it has elected a black representative every cycle since its adoption. Fair voting in Chilton County has helped political, as well racial minorities, as demonstrated by the election of Democrat-turned-Independent Tim Mims to the Chilton County Commission in 2008 (Mims has since become a Republican and was re-elected in 2012).

As Jerome Gray wrote in his booklet for FairVote and the now-defunct Southern Regional Council, "thirty-two different governing bodies use some form of [fair voting]." Most use the one vote system, with a few using cumulative voting. FairVote has paid particular attention to Alabama and those working for fair voting there. Back in January, FairVote Voices, the podcast for FairVote, interviewed Ed Still, a local civil rights attorney who has worked for such systems to protect voting rights.

Although much of Gray's work involved making sure local community's changes to single member districts resulted in effective opportunities for African Americans in Alabama, he saw great promise in expanding opportunities for representation in fair voting. He wrote:

The advantages of alternative voting systems as they have worked in Alabama are enumerated below:

1. They eliminate the requirement of jurisdictions having to redistrict themselves every ten years after a census is taken as is required of single-member district localities.

2. They eliminate numbered places and the majority vote requirement which is commonplace throughout the South. There are no runoff elections. ...

3. Minority candidates and women often benefit greatly from these systems because they allow minority and women voters to "plump" their limited or cumulative votes in a block in support of candidates that they prefer. Moreover, minority and women candidates are not viewed as running against each other or against specific incumbents.

4. The electability of good candidates under these systems is not skewed unduly toward incumbents, candidates with the most money, or those with the best business and professional ties.

5. Strong minority candidates are able to win under these systems, even with less resources and political connections.

6. It facilitates the establishment and/or use of voting centers for local elections, cutting down on the number of voting places required for elections in single-member district jurisdictions.

7. It saves jurisdictions a lot of money in that no runoff elections are required. Money is saved on printing costs for ballots, setting up voting machines and paying poll officials. It saves money for the candidates, too, because they don't have to spend additional money campaigning in a runoff.

8. In the long run, it saves money for the jurisdictions. They will never have to pay lawyers and demographers to assist them in drawing redistricting plans to submit to the Department of Justice for preclearance, nor will they have to pay out any money to lawyers, demographers and experts to defend the fairness of their alternative voting system in court.

9. In small, less populated jurisdictions, these systems generally improve or increase the potential pool of good minority candidates to run and win simply because they do not restrict, or limit winnable candidate selection to the majority black district(s) as is often the case in single-member districts.

10. All the minority voters throughout the jurisdiction (in the city or county) always have the opportunity to vote and help elect the minority candidate(s) of their choice. Under a single-member district system, minority voters who live outside the majority black district(s) cannot help elect the minority candidate(s) of their choice for the simple reason that they aren't residents of the majority black district(s).

11. Preparing and publishing voters' lists, as required by law in Alabama, is made simpler because the alphabetical list does not have to be subdivided for poll officials to determine who is eligible to vote in a given district.

12. The printing and distribution of maps and the training of map readers to help educate voters, poll workers and election officials as to the location of district boundaries and knowing what voting precincts are within each single-member district becomes moot when alternative voting is used.

The benefits of fair voting for achieving voting rights goals have been noted outside of Alabama as well. Cambridge, Massachusetts has used choice voting to elect its city council since 1941, with some noting that the system promoted the representation of racial minorities and promoted racial harmony not seen in other parts of the country. Indeed, Cincinnati, Ohio formerly used choice voting, and the Kerner Commission in 1968 noted that the subsequent racial unrest and ultimately violence may have stemmed from Cincinnati's repeal of the system and the subsequent decline in African American representation.

In fact, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has generally made it more difficult for jurisdictions using fair voting to repeal the system and return to suppressive winner-take-all elections that dilute the votes of racial minorities. The New York Times today has an important article about the role of Section Five in New York City, but does not mention that the last time the Department of Justice denied preclearance to voting change in New York was related to fair voting: when New York City attempted to repeal the use of choice voting for its school board elections, the Department of Justice denied the repeal preclearance under Section 5. And opponents of fair voting have noted that its repeal would be easier if Section 5 did not prevent them from changing their laws in ways that would dilute the votes of racial minorities.

It should therefore be no surprise that FairVote and advocates like Jerome Gray both support the Voting Rights Act in its entirety and support the use of fair voting at every level of government.

Primaries Spotlight Sharp Decline in U.S. House Moderates

Tue, 08 May 2012 13:41:02 -0700

Left to right: Tim Holden and Jason Altmire

Pennsylvania’s April 24 primary lacked the anticipated fireworks between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in the Republican presidential race, but results on the Democratic side may have a far more lasting impact: they underscore the disappearing center in American politics. Two Blue Dog Democrats*, Jason Altmire and Tim Holden, were defeated by more mainstream Democrats. After 20 years of victories in Republican-leaning districts, Holden fell to newcomer Matt Cartwright in a district drawn to be much more Democratic, while Altmire was upset by his colleague Rep. Mark Critz† in a race that, because of redistricting, featured two incumbents battling over one seat.

Both Cartwright and Critz received strong support from unions and other progressive groups, which sought to defeat Holden and Altmire because of their opposition to President Obama’s health care and climate change legislation. In other words, the party’s base organized against Holden and Altmire because their voting records were not sufficiently orthodox. While the Tea Party’s targeting of moderate Republicans in 2010 and 2012 has received the most media attention, the Pennsylvania results indicate a similar (and arguably just as strong) tendency in the Democratic Party.

Indeed, the Democrats’ Blue Dog caucus—a barometer of moderate strength—had its numbers reduced by more than half, from 54 to 26, in the 2010 election, in which Republicans made most of their gains in the Republican-leaning districts that wee disproportionately represented by Blue Dogs. The Washington Post reports that primary defeats and retirements are expected to reduce the caucus by at least eight more members by next year.

Although it is no surprise that a party’s most fervent supporters would desire “faithful” representatives ready to stand up for their core principles, the decline of moderates in Congress is worrisome, with Senate moderates also under attack. Although a minority in both major parties, moderate voters exist in large numbers that deserve representation. Furthermore, the political center is necessary to the health of a democratic system, especially one like ours grounded in checks and balances across branches of government.

Moderates, for instance, can serve as bridges between the two parties, swinging to the majority or away from it in order to develop policy that is more temperate. They also inject civility into a poisonous discourse. But we are in a vicious cycle: the decline of moderates causes each party to become more polarized and isolated, which in turn, only further accelerates the decline of moderates. With the center under attack, moderates face pressure to conform or perish.

Whatever one may think of Holden and Altmire, it is critical for a political system to reflect the wide range of viewpoints; such is the essence of a democratic system. Yet, our current election framework disadvantages moderate candidates and the voters that back them. As manipulated by modern campaign consultants, winner-take-all rules (in which a plurality of votes wins 100% of representation) encourage partisanship, zero-sum thinking, apocalyptic rhetoric, and negative campaigning—since only one side can win in a given congressional district.

As such, winner-take-all creates a political environment inhospitable to compromise, as it forces centrist politicians to fit themselves into narrow ideological boxes. Clearly, we need rules in place that reflect nuances and partisan gradations, rather than the “two-sizes-fit-all” mentality of winner-take-all. The most natural alterative to winner-take-all elections at the U.S. House level is proportional representation, a system in which like-minded voters can elect candidates in proportion to their share of the overall vote.

FairVote advocates for candidate-based, American forms of proportional representation, what we call “fair voting,” in which voters would elect several representatives in larger “super districts” with voting methods in which 51% of votes wins most seats, but not all. The key is that fair voting plans lower the threshold of votes necessary to win a seat and create opportunities for an array of opinions to be represented within a given super-district. This contrasts sharply with winner-take-all, in which the candidate with the most votes wins and his or her voters receive representation while everyone else gets nothing.

By fairly representing the left, right, and center in any given super district, fair voting would liberate moderate candidates from pressures to conform. With the threshold lowered, moderates could focus on targeted appeals to their core constituency, including a mix of centrist independents and more partisan voters. Both Holden and Altmire were targeted by a Democratic base that demanded fealty to party. It is not terribly difficult to imagine the way in which proportionality could have freed them from these pressures—and given voters in these districts a centrist alternative to the traditional partisan-Democrat-versus-partisan-Republican race set for November.

Fair voting would also weaken the power of partisan redistricting. Winner-take-all makes gerrymandering a particularly potent tool; without those underlying “if-you-win-I-lose, if-I-win-you-lose” rules in place, its power is diminished. Both Holden and Altmire faced difficult roads to reelection, in part, because of redistricting. Pennsylvania Republicans controlled redistricting and packed more Democrats into Holden’s district in order to help Republicans in adjoining districts—thereby making the district less hospitable to Holden’s unique brand of moderation and exposing him to a primary challenge. Altmire, meanwhile, was paired in a district with fellow incumbent Critz. Under fair voting, the Republican’s strategic cartography would have been without purpose and Holden, Altmire, and their opponents all would have a chance to win seats. Fair voting allows such shared representation.

It is time for structural election change. Election rules greatly impact the composition of government—who is in it and who is not, as well as how they get there. If Americans are dissatisfied with the latter—and polls consistently indicate they are—then they must examine the former. Clearly winner-take-all amplifies partisanship and polarization in Congress; it is therefore antagonistic toward the goal of achieving a more collaborative and collegial legislature. Blue Dog Democrats like Holden and Altmire are struggling to survive, while most moderate Republicans were long ago pushed out of Congress. To ensure fair representation in Congress, we must act before all bridges between the parties in Congress have been burned.

* The National Journal’s vote rankings of members of Congress places Altmire (187) and Holden (186) as the fourth and fifth most conservative of the 190 Democrats in the U.S. House; only representatives Dan Boren (OK-2), Mike Ross (AR-4), and Jim Matheson (UT-2) posted records that were more moderate. Both Boren and Ross have decided not to seek reelection in 2012.

† Relative to Altmire, Critz is more liberal. The National Journal’s vote rankings of members of Congress places Critz (169) as the 22nd most conservative Democrat in the U.S. House. While this would arguably place Critz among the party’s Blue Dogs, he is not a member of the Blue Dog caucus.

Congressional Redistricting Matters, and It’s Hurting This Country: a Response to Michael Barone

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:20:36 -0700

In many states, the process of congressional redistricting is complete and the new district boundaries that will serve each state for a decade are in place. In other states, the process is still ongoing, with lawmakers either battling over a proposed map or the final plan being left to the courts.

Yet the placement of redistricting in the hands of partisan actors inevitably politicizes the process, as each major party jockeys for its share of the spoils and seeks to advantage its incumbents. As a result, many Americans find themselves thrust into oddly shaped districts, called "gerrymanders," that cut like scars across geographic regions.

Though gerrymanders, with their conspicuous and confounding lines, receive the most attention, all redistricting is inherently undemocratic. There is a far deeper, structural problem: winner-take-all rules, which reduce millions of voters to irrelevancy and distort representation. Redistricting simply makes an already unjust situation worse.

* * *

Recently, pundit Michael Barone argued in The National Review (Redistricting Not a Big Story in 2012) that redistricting in 2011 has turned out to "matter less than we thought," insisting that the process is now unlikely to yield for Republicans the "significant gains" he and others once predicted.

Instead, Barone writes, the GOP's acquisitions will be "modest to nonexistent," primarily due to Democrats drawing "aggressive" maps and Republicans settling on incumbent-bolstering moderation. In other words, the GOP—hoping to protect the lead it won in 2010—played defense, while Democrats played offense in pursuit of new opportunities to retake the House.

He also argues that even where the GOP did attempt new gains, such as the map it designed in North Carolina to target opposing incumbents, Democratic moves canceled out such power plays. Barone cites Illinois, where Democrats pushed through an ambitious map, noting that the net gain between the two maps should be zero.

Barone's first mistake, however, is his assumption that the absence of change to Congress' partisan composition renders redistricting unimportant. Overly focused on redistricting's impact on each major party, he disregards its effect on voters already trapped within a troubling winner-take-all framework.

The question is where our priorities lie. Instead of chronicling lost GOP opportunities or speculating over seats gained or lost, Barone might have lamented the way partisan actors, engaged in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people, sacrifice voters like pawns.

Barone's second mistake is his assertion that partisan redistricting has produced "pretty clean lines," in contrast to race-based redistricting protected under the Voting Rights Act, which he accuses of producing the most egregious gerrymanders and the "most grotesque districts in the current cycle."

Barone has long criticized provisions of the VRA that create opportunities for racial minorities to elect preferred candidates. True, many "majority-minority" districts are aesthetically objectionable, but race-based redistricting—though flawed—is a tool the courts justifiably use to protect racial minorities and pursue worthy public objectives within the constraints of winner-take-all voting rules.

Furthermore, Barone is simply wrong to say that partisan redistricting in 2011 has produced "clean" lines, as there are some incredibly unsightly districts out there in which considerations of race played little or no part. In these constituencies, the only driving force was political. Consider the following:

Illinois: Downstate Illinois is heavily white, so race-based redistricting—unlike in the Chicago area—is not an issue. And yet, we see lines that are anything but "clean," squiggling through the state, though far from haphazardly. Democrats calculated every move in order to create partisan opportunities, such as the sprawling IL-13 (83.4% white non-Hispanic VAP), an open seat uniting Democratic portions of Champaign-Urbana, Springfield, and the Madison County suburbs of St. Louis. Furthermore, IL-17 (81.7% white non-Hispanic VAP), with a new pair of snake-like fangs jutting east, was redrawn to favor Democrats, endangering its Republican incumbent.
Ohio: Republicans in Ohio produced one of the most convoluted maps in the 2011 redistricting cycle, with nearly every district looking more gerrymandered than the next. Only OH-11 is defensible as the state's lone majority-minority district (52.4% black non-Hispanic CVAP). What, then, explains the "grotesque" shape of the state's other constituencies? The answer: partisan machinations. Districts, like OH-4, OH-7, and OH-15—with black non-Hispanic CVAPs of 5.7%, 4.3%, and 4.8%, respectively—were crafted to protect Republican incumbents, and are blatant gerrymanders. Another, OH-9 (14.5% black non-Hispanic CVAP), a worm-like oddity wiggling along the Erie coastline, drew two incumbent Democrats together.

Clearly, in just these two states there is ample evidence to contradict Barone's claim. Across the country, state after state and map after map show the continued prevalence of the partisan gerrymander, with perhaps the single ugliest plan produced in FairVote's home state of Maryland, where Democrats drew tortuous lines with the primary objective of increasing their 6-2 majority to 7-1. To dismiss these politically motivated districts as acceptable while criticizing race-based examples is not only intellectually dishonest, it is absurd.

* * *

The truth of the matter is that all redistricting is undesirable, although race-based examples are defensible and even necessary. There are, however, alternative voting systems that would eliminate incentives to gerrymander and render unnecessary the use of redistricting to safeguard minority interests.

Fair voting plans create multi-member districts that employ proportional representation, lowering the threshold for a voting bloc to elect a preferred candidate and providing more reflective, nuanced representation. And the "super-districts" such plans produce appear far less gerrymandered than present single-member constituencies.

Rather than handicap redistricting from the perspective of the major parties or quibble over which gerrymanders look the worst, we should move beyond such an archaic framework and embrace reforms designed to make our political system more democratic and reflective.

South Carolina: The Super District Alternative

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:06:08 -0700

Redistricting ensures that political district lines reflect population changes in the U.S. Census every ten years so that each district has the same number of voters per seat in a district. South Carolina is in the midst of redistricting and, as with most states, it’s become complicated and increasingly controversial and partisan. As explained in our recent post on Michigan, FairVote proposes an alternative to the winner-take-all system that has plagued the redistricting process, and opened it up to gerrymandering, partisan bickering, and opportunism. Moving to multi-member “super districts” with proportional voting would make the process of fair representation much smoother and insulated from the gerrymandering that is such an affront to democracy.

Here are the latest developments in South Carolina. As a result of a population increase in the last decade in the state of South Carolina, the state gained a new seat. The House decided to redraw the legislative lines to add the seventh congressional district to the state in the Low country, running along the North Carolina border. The plan has been rife with controversy, however.

According to Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the S.C. Democratic Party, the party will dispute the proposed new maps in court, on the grounds that incumbent congressman’s majority-minority district was packed with an excessive number of African American voters. The lawsuit seeks to move some African-American voters out of Clyburn's majority-black district to avoid what critics argue is a form of resegregation. On the flip side, other supporters of minority voting rights have argued that South Carolina can and should create a second black-majority district.

But despite racial dynamics being salient in this debate, one of the main controversies has been exactly where this seventh district would be created. With Republicans in control of both chambers of the state legislature, it is expected that the newly created district will be drawn to favor Republicans, but the House and Senate each have drawn their own plan. Senate Republicans want the new district in the state’s south, in Beaufort County, while the House wants the new congressional district in the northeast part of the state.

While public hearings have been scheduled for both chambers of the General Assembly to agree on a congressional redistricting compromise plan, which would then go to Governor Haley for approval or veto, the state House has passed H 3992 on June 29, amended and passed in the state Senate, and now it is back before the House, with both maps still being debated on the table. The redistricting battle is set to be resolved when lawmakers will gather in Columbia, S.C. on July 26 to vote one last time on one of the maps.

Democrats, however, seem to be hoping for a deadlock in the state legislature, since that would mean the line-drawing would be under the responsibility of a three-judge panel (two of them appointed by President Obama) – which Republicans are finding increasingly risky, “a nightmare scenario”, according to the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake.

A Way to Put Voters First

The internal conflict within the Republican Party, Democratic Party complaints, and the adverse impacts proposed plans might have on African American voters leads us to put forward alternatives to the single-member, winner-take-all way of designing redistricting – and put the voters in charge.

So what should South Carolina do to resolve these contentions? We need to replace winner-take-all elections that disadvantage those in the minority with geographically compact “super districts.” In each super district, several representatives would be elected with a proportional voting system like choice voting.

Under our proposed plan, South Carolina would be divided into two super-districts, with four seats and three seats, respectively, in which a proportional system such as choice voting or cumulative voting (as backed over the years by Congressman Clyburn) would be endorsed.

With a proportional voting plan in a four-seat super district, winning a seat would take just over 20% of the vote. Winning two seats would take just over 40%, winning three seats would take just over 60% and winning all four would take more than 80%. In the three-seat super district, winning one seat would take about 25% of the vote, winning two would take about 50% and winning a majority of three seats would take over 75%.

To create and evaluate these super districts, we entered data from the seven congressional districts as proposed by Matthew Kuhn, a student of Professor Nathaniel Persily’s Redistricting and Gerrymandering course at Columbia (part of the DrawCongress project). We did not have data on the projected partisanship, but the racial data is revealing for the increased power that proportional voting gives to all voters.

Here’s our proposed plan, based on Matthew Kuhn’s proposed map:

Data Analysis

Super district	Number of seats	Population per seat	Threshold to win 1 seat	White VAP	Black VAP	What districts were used to create super districts
1	4	660,766	20.01%	72.32%	20.91%	1,2,3,5
2	3	660,766	25.01%	59.27%	33.93%	4,6,7
Statewide		4,625,364		66.73%	26.50%

This is the data from Matthew Kuh's DrawCongress project, which was used as a building block to create our super districts:

Partisan Analysis: Backers of both major parties would be certain to have the power to elect at least one candidate of choice and every election would be competitive. We don’t have partisan information to be able to evaluate the chances of each party to win more than one seat in each of the districts, but given the state’s overall partisan lean, Republicans would likely be favored to win two seats in the three-seat district and at least two seats in the four-seat district

Voting Rights Analysis: With FairVote’s proposed plan, African Americans voters would have the power to elect two candidates, assuming they have shared preferences for representation. In contrast, Kuhn’s Draw Congress plan only allows for one black-majority district – the next-highest district for African American population is only 31% black. The plans under consideration in the South Carolina legislature also would put African Americans near or above a majority threshold in only one district. Women also would have more chances to break through in a state with an all-male congressional delegation. (Note: South Carolina currently has two African American U.S. House Members, James Clyburn (D) and Tim Scott (R). But voting rights power is not about outcome – it’s about the power of like-minded voters to elect a candidate of their choice, no matter what raced or gender.)

Using a proportional voting system would clearly give voters more choices in every election. Every Republican voter and every Democratic voter would likely be pleased with at least one of the winning candidates in their district, and nearly every white voter and nearly every African American voter would similarly be pleased. When compared to a single-member district system, a proportional voting system relieves us of our democratic deficit. It's a matter of voter equality.

Utah Redistricting: Avoid controversy with a statewide plan for House seats

Wed, 25 May 2011 11:38:17 -0700

Utah's state legislature has been engaged in redistricting. In its deliberation over plans for state legislative seats, a proposal to use proportional voting in Utah drew major news coverage and support from state legislators. Here's a discussion of how proportional voting makes sense for U.S. House elections.

Following the most recent census, Utah will gain another Congressional seat. This addition brings Utah's U.S. House representatives to a total of four. The addition of a fourth seat has thrown the state legislature into partisan conflicts because the strong Republican state legislature is seeking to dismantle the more liberal concentration in the second district by cutting it up into three pieces. Senate President Michael Waddoups wants to draw lines north to south instead of focusing on compactness, leaving Democrats concerned the new plan will divide their county into three parts and weaken their meager Democratic base and reduce the chances. of Democrat Jim Matheson holding his seat in 2012. Clearly, partisanship is an issue.

Utah's map drawn after the 2000 census is below.

As products of a process conducted only every 10 years, these lines haven't changed in a decade despite massive population shifts within Utah itself (especially into the first and second House districts). In some areas, population grew by 25%, while in other areas it grew by less than 5%. The inability for representation to update in real-time is an inherent flaw in the single-member-district system. Combined with the obvious gerrymandering, population shifts distort representation and discourage turnout within a solid Republican state. Simply put, being a Democrat in Utah can mean your vote doesn't count, although Jim Matheson has bucked national trends to keep his seat.

Is there a way to circumnavigate partisan gerrymandering and ensure our democracy works by counting every vote equal, despite the location of voters? Yes. Many problems created by the current system (such as gerrymandering, discouraged voters, and an iron-clad two-party system) can be solved by turning all of Utah into a four-seat super district, utilizing a proportional voting system such as choice voting or cumulative voting. The map of the super-district would look as follows.

If Utah was to be transformed into a single super district, the effects of gerrymandering would be eliminated because scattered support can elect a representative if votes are concentrated into a single candidate. The state as a whole would simply elect four representatives. Also, population shifts wouldn't distort representation because all votes would be equal no matter where the voter lives within the state. For example, a voter who lives in the southeast portion of the state could vote for a candidate in the northwest portion of the state, a feat that would be impossible in a winner-take-all system.

Every vote should matter, however, and with choice voting votes for minor parties (in Utah, this includes the Democrats) aren't automatically thrown out. This is because a four-seat super district system would enable any group with just over 20% support (passing the threshold of exclusion) to elect a like-minded representative (as compared to 50%+1 in a single-member system) -- and have their ballot count for ther second choice if their candidate trails too ar behind to reach that winning threshold. Under such a system, Democrats would be guaranteed one representative, Republicans would be guaranteed two representatives, and the fourth seat would lean Republican. This would encourage every voter to turnout and exercise their right to suffrage. As Utah's population continues to evolve, groups of voters wouldn't lose power relative to other parts of Utah, unlike with the current one-seat district system.

If Utah were to be become a four-seat super district, election outcomes would be more representative of real grassroots opinion and every vote would matter. It's democracy at its finest.

New Mexico Redistricting: Super Districts for U.S. House

Tue, 24 May 2011 07:34:02 -0700

When it comes to the complexities of redistricting, New Mexico is no exception. On May 14^th, It’s legislative leaders named an 18-member committee to work on the monumental task. In the past, several Congressional redistricting maps have ended up in the courts due to fights over partisanship and incumbent protection - leaving the judicial system to redraw the lines. But as recently as the 1960s, New Mexico elected its U.S. House seats at-large - -and should do so again with a single "super district" and a proportional voting system.

Below is the map New Mexico has been using:

As can plainly be seen, gerrymandering is a factor in this map. When it comes to partisanship, Districts 1 and 3 are about 56% Democratic, and District 2 is 56% Republican. Although having a history of being relatively competitive, each district now is represented by the expected party, leaving the smaller of the major parties in each district unrepresented. Backers of small parties like the Greens and Libertarians (of which New Mexico has plenty, with Green candidates earning more than one in seven votes in two of the state's three districts in elections in 1997-1998) is forced to strategically vote from one of the two larger parties or risk "spoiling" the election. A winner-take-all system (with a threshold of exclusion of 50%+1) such as the one used in New Mexico obviously skews representation, discourages turnout, and shuts out independents and minor parties..

Can this democracy deficit be solved? Yes, by going back to New Mexico's history of having the entire state be a single super district with three seats elected under a proportional voting system such as choice voting or cumulative voting. New Mexico is one of two states with more than one House seat that was forced by a 1967 law mandating one-seat House districts to give up at-large elections and use one-seat district.

We recommend implementing a proportional voting system over a return to at-large elections because at-large elections remain winner-take all, giving a state-wide partisan majority the ability to unfairly elect all of the state's representatives (as was the case for the Democratic Party for over a decade, 1948-1958). Alternatively, a super district system utilizing choice voting or cumulative voting under a proportional system would allow non-majority groups to elect a candidate if they pass the diminished threshold of exclusion (25% in a 3-seat super district).

The new map is below:

With a single super district electing three representatives under a proportional voting system, scattered like-minded voters can elect a representative if votes are concentrated into a single candidate. Every vote matters and votes for third parties aren't automatically thrown out when choice voting is used. This is because a three-seat super district system would enable any group with 25% support (passing the threshold of exclusion) to elect a like-minded representative. Under such a system, Democrats would be guaranteed one representative, Republicans would be guaranteed one representative, and the third seat would by a toss-up leaning Republican -- but just barely. This would encourage every voter to turnout and exercise their right to vote in every election.

When considering ethnicity, the 46.3% of New Mexico that is Latino (according to census data) would hold significant weight in Congressional elections and likely help elect a Latino House Member; all U.S. House Members from New Mexico were white for more than a decade until 2009, when Ben Lujan was elected when Tom Udall vacated his seat to run for the U.S. Senate.

Finally, the super district system would avoid New Mexico's gerrymandering issues since no lines would need to drawn after the 2010 Census. Elections would be more representative of real grassroots opinion and every vote would count. It's democracy at its finest.

Debunking the Myths about Port Chester

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:06:31 -0700

Port Chester's historic Board of Trustees election this month, which utilized cumulative voting for the first time in New York State history, has drawn a great deal of national attention to the issue of alternative voting systems in the Westchester County community, including two articles in the New York Times and two national stories distributed by the Associated Press. Turnout rose by nearly 25% from last year's competitive race for mayor, the Village's political diversity was well-represented, and the election included the first-ever election of African American (a Republican) and Latino (a Democrat) candidates to the Board.

The key change for Port Chester was its adoption of cumulative voting. Cumulative voting is a well-tested variation of traditional at-large elections in the United States, one that is used in dozens of American elections, and was used for more than a century to elect the Illinois House of Representatives. (This year's Republican nominee for governor in Illinois, Bill Brady, supports bringing cumulative voting back to the state, as do such luminaries in Illinois as former White House counsel Abner Mikva and former governor Jim Edgar).

But as with any media coverage, there has been no dearth of misinformation about the case that brought about a change in the voting system, the reasons behind the switch to cumulative voting, and cumulative voting itself. Media Matters has written two pieces about the misrepresentation of the election by Fox News, but Fox is not the only source whose coverage hasn't been entirely accurate. This post aims to set the record straight and correct some of the more prevalent fallacies that have been disseminated by the mainstream media.

Myth: Judge Stephen Robinson forced Port Chester to implement cumulative voting.
Reality: In 2006, the Department of Justice filed suit against Port Chester alleging that the Voting Rights Act had been violated. Judge Robinson ruled in favor of the plaintiff, and as is standard in Voting Rights Act cases, required that a remedy be instituted. The Department of Justice recommended dividing the village into 6 districts, at least one of which would have a Hispanic majority, and Judge Robinson was willing to approve this plan if Port Chester could not formulate an alternative plan. However, Port Chester preferred cumulative voting. Judge Robinson found the proposal to be "legally acceptable" and allowed Port Chester to proceed with cumulative voting as a remedy.

Myth: Having 6 votes is un-American, because Hispanic voters get 6 votes in this voting system, and others don't.
Reality: This is completely incorrect. First, Port Chester voters already had 6 votes - one for every member of its Village Board of Trustees. Indeed, most local elections in the United States are held using voting methods where voters have more than one vote, because there is more than one winner. Second, Hispanic voters - as well as white, African-American, Asian, and all other voters - get 6 votes under cumulative voting in Port Chester. All voters have 6 votes, and can distribute them as they wish - and it is expected that a majority of voters of every racial and ethnic group took advantage of their option to give more than one vote to their favorite candidates.

Myth: Cumulative voting is complicated.
Reality: Cumulative voting is quite simple. An exit poll survey is expected to show that most voters did not find it complicated and that a large majority of voters took advantage of their new power to give more than one vote to a candidate. The instructions provided in the educational materials and on the Port Chester Votes website read as follows: "You can use your six votes in any manner you wish: you might cast one vote for six different candidates, or you may decide to give three votes each to two candidates. You can give four votes to one candidate and one vote each to two other candidates, or you might cast all six of your votes for your favorite candidate. Any combination of votes totaling up to six votes is acceptable."

Myth: Cumulative voting is not a legitimate method of voting / cumulative voting was crafted specifically for this case.
Reality: Cumulative voting is a legitimate voting system that is used by a number of other institutions, including school boards and councils in Amarillo (TX), Chilton County (AL) and Peoria (IL). In addition, many corporations use cumulative voting to elect members of their boards. Cumulative voting is sometimes used to remedy Voting Rights Act challenges like Port Chester's, but it was not created specifically for this case.

Myth: Cumulative voting violates the principle of "one man, one vote."
Reality: "One man, one vote" describes the ideas that every voter's vote must count equally towards representation. Infringements of the principle generally involve unbalanced districts or instances where certain people fail to follow the rules. Port Chester involves neither, and in fact attempts to preserve the principle by avoiding the inherently political redistricting process. Under cumulative voting, each voter has six votes - the number of seats on the Board of Trustees - but this was also true under Port Chester's old system. Each of the six votes was required to be allocated to a different candidate (collectively - elections were staggered so that two seats were elected at a time; the general concept holds true, though). Under the new system, the six votes can be distributed any way the voter desires. Just because each voter doesn't literally have one vote - a feature that results from the multiple winners of the election - doesn't mean the one man, one vote principle is violated. In sum: every voter has an equal number of votes that corresponds with the number of seats, and therefore an equal chance to choose the members to fill those seats; one man, one vote is thus preserved.

Myth: Cumulative voting violates majority rule.
Reality: Majority rule ensures that the majority coalition of voters is represented by a majority coalition in a legislative body. Cumulative voting does not violate the principle of majority rule, because the majority voter coalition still holds a majority on the Board of Trustees. Under the previous system, the non-Hispanic majority bloc held all of the seats, which is not what majority rule implies in multiple-winner elections; it does not ensure that the majority coalition of voters control all of the legislators. Certainly, cumulative voting increases minority - political minority - representation. But that increase is only intended to restore the Board of Trustees to proportional representation, where the minority is still a minority on the Board but has a voice. In the case of Port Chester, this hotly contested election led to the election of two Republicans, two Democrats and two candidates running outside the major parties - a fair reflection of the Village's diversity of political opinion.

Myth: Port Chester switched to cumulative voting to remedy the fact that a Hispanic candidate had never been elected.
Reality: This claim is probably the most prevalent, and subtly fallacious, of all the misinformation about Port Chester. In 2006, the Department of Justice filed suit because the Hispanic community's candidate of choice was continually denied election. The Voting Rights Act, as first passed in 1965 and then amended in 1982 when signed by then-president Ronald Reagan, is designed to uphold the protections of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, and as part of those protections, ensure that racial minorities are not consistently denied an opportunity to elect a candidate of choice. Judge Stephen Robinson, who was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, presided over the case. After hearing expert testimony, Judge Robinson concluded that both "the Hispanic community in Port Chester is politically cohesive and tends to vote as a bloc for the same candidates" and "the non-Hispanic majority in Port Chester votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it to defeat Hispanic candidates of choice." Hispanic candidates of choice need not be Hispanic, just preferred by the Hispanic constituency. Judge Robinson's decision cited evidence that "Hispanics also voted cohesively in endogenous elections where there was no Hispanic candidate." The issue is not whether Hispanic candidates were discriminated against, but that Hispanic candidates of choice were, and by extension, so were Hispanic voters. Thus, the case appeared to involve discrimination against a racial minority, but upon closer examination, it is truly about discrimination against a political minority, which happens to also be a racial minority.

Myth: Cumulative voting assumes that voters can only be represented by candidates of their own race / because a Hispanic candidate was elected, the system was a success.
Reality: As previously stated, Hispanic candidates of choice need not actually be Hispanic, and they often were not. If the election produced a winner that was a Hispanic candidate of choice but happened to be white (or any other race), that would have been satisfactory as well.

Myth: Cumulative voting only benefits Hispanics.
Reality: Cumulative voting benefits all minorities, including Hispanics, independents, third parties, Tea Party supporters, enthusiastic backers of major party candidates, and so on, because it gives them a voice on the Board proportional to their level of support. Two Democrats, two Republicans, a Conservative, and an independent with conservative leanings will comprise the Board of Trustees for the next term. The top vote getter was independent candidate Bart Didden, followed by white Democrat Daniel Brakewood. Conservative John Branca finished 3rd. Hispanic Democrat Luis Marino finished 4th, African-American Republican Joseph Kenner finished 5th, Republican Sam Terenzi finished 6th and African American Democrat Gregory Adams finished 7th, just outside of a winning position. Port Chester's results reflect the common reality that when voters are able to define their preferences more precisely, all voters can benefit from cumulative voting.

These are some of the myths that have been spread about the Port Chester cumulative voting election. Cumulative voting does not violate the Constitution, the "one man, one vote" principle, or majority rule, and is in fact a reasonable voting system for any election with multiple winners.

Port Chester Elections Draw National Attention

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:46:12 -0700

On June 15th, the Village of Port Chester (NY) held New York's first-ever election with cumulative voting. Turning out in sharply higher numbers than recent Village elections, voters elected all six trustees on Port Chester's governing body. Winners reflected the Village's diversity by such measures as party (two Republicans, two Democrats and two non major-party candidates) and race/ethnicity (first African American and Latino candidates ever to win in trustee elections).

FairVote supervised the Village's ambitious bi-lingual voter education campaign and had eight staff and interns on hand for the vote. Just as in previous elections, voters had one vote per trustee being elected. Cumulative voting gave voters the freedom to distribute their votes as they pleased, with those giving more than one vote to a favorite candidate increased that candidate's chances to win. Other jurisdictions using cumulative voting include Amarillo (TX), Chilton County (AL) and Peoria (IL).

PR Win in South Dakota

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

In an unprecedented decision, the US Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s remedial plan for cumulative voting in South Dakota. The case, Cottier v. City of Martin (SD), resulted in the requirement of implementing cumulative voting for electing city council members- the first ever judicial imposition of a proportional voting system. The lower court had found the City’s redistricting plan to dilute the Native American vote and therefore violated Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act. The initial suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two Native Americans against the City of Martin. According to the 2000 census, Native Americans were 44.7% of the total population constituting 36% of the voting age population. Since 1981, the city has elected only four Native Americans winning a total of seven city council elections of 80 elections for city council (8.75%). To read the Court of Appeal’s decision please visit: Cottier v. City of Martin

Read more on Cumulative Voting in South Dakota

Federal Court of Appeals Upholds Cumulative Voting

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0700

With a long track record of providing fair representation to communities of color, proportional voting systems have been used to settle dozens of Voting Rights Act lawsuits. Chilton County, Alabama has long been hailed as a textbook example of cumulative voting's success -- where the African American community, long shut out of power, finally won consistent victories on the County Commission.

A recent legal challenge put in doubt the future of Chilton County's cumulative voting system, but a federal appellate court recently upheld the system. This groundbreaking decision solidifies the future of proportional voting systems in Voting Rights Act settlements.

[Article on Recent Cumulative Voting Decision]
[Read about cumulative voting in Chilton County]
[Time Magazine article on Cumulative Voting]
[Alabama Cumulative Voting Info 2004]