Santa Monica Mirror
Healthy Next Steps for
Democracy in Santa Monica ��� Part II By Michael
Feinstein, Santa Monica City Councilmember December 18, 2002
Santa Monica���s current voting system has many
advantages. But it can also be improved. How do we
make it better, without losing the good we already
have?
Under our current system, Santa Monicans can vote for
all seven City Council seats. Elected officials must know
the city and be responsive across geographical lines to
win. After each election, residents have seven Council
members they can approach, increasing the likelihood they���ll find
someone with whom they share a perspective as issues
vary.
But perhaps the greatest benefit is that because we
elect several positions at once in a community-wide, multi-seat
election, our results are semi-proportional. Voters are
able to ���self-group��� -- in different combinations around
different candidates -- reflecting a range of priorities that
evolve and shift with each race.
This proportionality is far
preferable to limiting representation and choice through imposing
single-seat, winner-take-all districts. In such districts,
only one perspective wins, all others lose, voters can be trapped
within a ���lesser-of-evils/spoiler��� voting dynamic and
the incentive for policy-makers to work community-wide is
decreased (see www.goodgovernment4santamonica.com for
more).
Our current system has two main, related issues that
we need to address.
First, if a majority of voters (say
60%) vote in unison, they can overwhelm the rest and elect a
disproportionate ���super-majority��� (say 100%) of the seats.
Instead, we want a system where viewpoints are represented in the
proportion that they exist within the community.
Second,
voters are sometimes incentivized to strategically cast
fewer votes than they are entitled to ��� often called ���bullet��� or
���under��� voting -- to promote the election of their most favored
candidate, lest a vote for another helps defeat their strongest
preference. Instead, we want voters to be free to
express their preferences fully, without fear of
backfire.
Full Representation ��� Choice Voting
Choice
Voting would give fuller representation to the diversity of
our community, helping ensure that everyone's vote counts and
that all political perspectives are represented.
Also
known as "proportional representation", "preferential voting"
or the ���single transferable vote, in Choice Voting, voters simply
rank the candidates in the order of their preference (1,2,3,4,
etc...), ranking as many or as few as they would like. Once
a voter's first choice is elected or eliminated, surplus votes
are then "transferred" to their subsequent preferences, until all
seats are
filled (www.fairvote.org/factshts/choice1.htm).
Because
not all votes are ranked the same, a majority of voters cannot be
over-represented in this system. Instead of casting
equally-weighted votes for several candidates simultaneously,
voters are compelled to indicate their individual priorities more
clearly. This helps lead to identifying community
priorities more clearly, while achieving a more representative
proportionality in the final result.
Also, because a lower
preference vote never undermines a higher one, the incentive to
���under-vote��� is eliminated. This takes the guesswork out of our
elections and makes voting as easy as 1, 2, and 3. Eventually,
nearly every voter has their preferences help elect at least one of
the winning candidates and most often at least one of their top
choices.
Choice voting is recommended by the National Civic
League in its Model City Charter, as the best way to elect city
government. In Cambridge, Massachusetts ��� a community with
many similarities to Santa Monica ��� it has been successfully in use
for decades, as it has been in Ireland and Australia well.
Closer to home, the Motion Picture Academy uses it to choose the
Academy Awards finalists, while just last year San Francisco voted
to implement a similar system.
Santa Monica formally looked
at this issue recently in 1992. The City���s Charter Review
Commission recommended Choice Voting as the best option for local
elections.
Although the City Council was split at the time
and did not act on this recommendation, in 1999 it gave City
Staff direction to further explore the use of Choice Voting for
local elections, a process that was to also include the Santa
Monica League of Women Voters.
In 2001, the League���s
membership subsequently took the position that it supports
"consideration of alternative voting systems for Santa
Monica elections with a special emphasis on the single
transferable vote or Choice {Voting} system."
Instead of
the forced, high-stakes, debate the community went through
in November over Measure HH, this time the city should take a
more measured and learned approach to electoral reform, attempting
to build consensus rather than rushing to the ballot
box.
Exposure and education about Choice Voting should
begin on the grassroots community level ��� from civic and
neighborhood organizations��� board of directors, to SAMOHI and SMC
student government, to mock elections and the City���s own polling of
residents on community priorities.
With such a considered
approach, we may find that Santa Monicans will grow to appreciate
the greater flexibility and power Choice Voting provides and
support its adoption for use in City
elections. |