Addressing Common Concerns
About Full Representation Systems

Given that single-member districts are accepted as ���tried and true,��� there certainly are likely to be legitimate concerns to address about full representation voting systems. Some of these questions are addressed in the appendix. Among other potential concerns are the following:

Will it cost too much to run for office?

Will it foster polarization?

Will it be hard to hold representatives accountable?

Will it be too difficult to implement?

Will it cost too much for black candidates to run for office and be true to black voters? No. Campaign expenses for local elections can vary according to the size of the area. District elections often are less costly than traditional at-large elections because fewer votes are needed to win and because campaigning can be in a concentrated fashion ��� often door-to-door ��� rather than through radio or television. The difference often is less than one might think, however; studies of legislative elections show that candidates in districts with two or three representative typically spend no more money than candidates in districts with a single representative.

Moreover, in full representation election systems, fewer votes are needed to win than in traditional at-large elections. True, more votes are needed to win than with district elections, but candidates can seek that support from a much greater pool of potential supporters than with districts and can win with a far lower percentage of the vote. Depending on the system, they can also save money by running as a team with other candidates and sharing expenses.

With both black-majority districts and full representation, the greatest impact of campaign spending may be on the choice among candidates within the black community rather than between a black-supported candidate and a white-supported candidate. As long as there is a black majority district or as long as black voters are above the threshold of inclusion with a full representation system, a minority-backed candidate is quite likely to win. But the winning minority-backed candidate can gain an edge over other minority-backed candidates by having greater amounts of campaign cash. Campaign finance thus is a factor with either black-majority districts or full representation, but is unlikely to change the reality of a black-supported candidate winning as long as black voters are above the threshold of inclusion.

Will it foster polarization and extremism? No. A common concern about full representation election systems is that they could fracture representation into competing groups and give too much power to ideologically extreme voters. This concern can be answered both theoretically and factually.

Despite the use of full representation in hundreds of elections in the United States, there is no history of ineffectual legislatures. Choice voting, for example, was used to elect two dozen city councils in the 20th century, and these city councils nearly always were seen by civic observers and students of legislatures as more effective than councils elected before the adoption of choice voting. There was increased diversity, certainly, and often more vigorous debate, but that diversity and debate seemed to contribute to better government. Civic groups like the League of Women Voters nearly always were strong backers of choice voting in these cities during the many repeal attempts ��� attempts that were led by factions that wanted to restore their dominance, not good government.

The single longest use of a full representation system in the United States was for elections to the Illinois House of Representatives from 1870 to 1980. Due in part to the high threshold of inclusion (with three-seat districts, the threshold was 25%), Democrats and Republicans dominated representation, although representation within the parties was widely considered to be broader and more diverse than under winner-take-all elections. Currently, many political and civic leaders in Illinois ��� including former governor Jim Edgar (R), former Congressman Abner Mikva (D), the Democrats' senate leader Emil Jones (an African American first elected by cumulative voting in a white-majority district), the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune ��� support restoring cumulative voting. Their chief argument is that cumulative voting contributed to a better policy-making process, with better policy flowing from both parties representing nearly every district in the state.

Some also fear that full representation will lead to racial polarization ��� with whites only voting for whites and racial minorities only voting for racial minorities. In any community where a voting rights challenge has proven successful, one obvious answer to this charge is that the voting rights case could only have been won if there already was racial polarization. Creating the means for both communities to elect representatives who represent the same area and need to make policy together should only serve to help decrease that polarization. Bobby Agee, first elected under cumulative voting in 1988 and the only black county commissioner in the history of Chilton County, Alabama, has several times been elected by his white colleagues to be chair of the county commission even as he continues to have strong support in the black community

Some full representation systems arguably encourage more real coalition-building among racial and ethnic groups than winner-take-all elections. For example, in New York City, Cincinnati and other cities that used choice voting for city council elections, successful black candidates with strong support in the black community ran on the same candidate slate with white candidates. These slates typically included candidates who appealed to a range of different ethnicities and races that, together, represented well the voters that the slate was seeking to attract. Successful slates in choice voting elections combine representing diversity with support for a common agenda that holds the slate together.

In contrast, creating a series of single-member districts that are designed to elect one race or another is considered by some observers to be more polarizing ��� although one often sees a candidate who wins initially with the votes of one race reaching out beyond their race as an incumbent and eventually winning more votes from other races.

As to extremist groups, there is no evidence to suggest that those fostering racial hatred have been successful in full representation elections. Yes, these systems require a threshold of inclusion that is much lower than with a winner-take-all system (although a threshold that can be kept relatively high if a community so chooses), but the total number of votes needed to win actually is higher than with a district system. When a range of choices is available, extremist views are not necessarily popular even in areas demonstrating a history of racism. Some of our most polarizing political figures ��� such as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in Louisiana ��� benefited from being seen as the only ���protest��� alternative for white conservatives. When given a choice, many Duke supporters have been shown to prefer more mainstream conservatives. Full representation systems give them that choice. True extremists almost certainly would be more clearly politically isolated than they sometimes are in winner-take-all systems that limit voters' choices.

Will it be hard to hold representatives accountable? No. In a single-member district system, minority opportunity districts create a clear mechanism for racial minority voters in that district to hold their representative accountable ��� they know who is supposed to be representing them and can judge whether that person is doing so effectively. But there are important limitations to this accountability. First, many black voters might live in surrounding white-majority districts and have no electoral influence over the representative living in the black-majority district. Second, incumbents have major advantages in our system and are rarely defeated. A particularly ineffectual or corrupt incumbent might lose, but typically a merely adequate incumbent can stay in office because of high name recognition and a history of winning votes in the area. Even when they face vigorous challenges, they sometimes can win due to votes being split among opposing candidates.

Full representation systems are clearly different in that every voter has more than one representative. In a five-seat school district elected by the one vote system, for example, each voter has five representatives. In another sense, however, each voter has one primary representative ��� the one representative that the voter helped elect with his or her one vote. If there is no organized civic group or newspaper providing information to voters about the actions of representatives, it might be hard to know just what ���your��� representative is doing. But this in turn creates incentives for organized civic groups to form and monitor incumbent performance, which is all to the good for citizen participation. Even without this increased organization, however, it often can be possible to determine whether one���s policy interests are being met ��� and if those interests are not being met, a voter is much more likely to have credible alternative choices in the next election with full representation than with a district system.

Will it be too difficult to win and implement? Since 1987, nearly 100 American jurisdictions across the country have adopted a full representation voting system to settle a voting rights challenge ��� in those communities, therefore, a lawsuit triggered the incentive for the existing leadership to change their election system, but that leadership decided to accept a full representation system rather than continue fighting the challenge in court. The use of cumulative and limited voting in Texas, North Carolina and Alabama has been largely successful for minority voting rights and generally acceptable to the majority community. After several adoptions of cumulative voting, Texas in 1995 went so far as to change its state laws to allow a school district to adopt cumulative voting or limited voting without a lawsuit. But despite the relatively narrow losses for choice voting in citywide ballot measures in Cincinnati and San Francisco, lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits are likely to be necessary for most localities to gain a full representation system in the short term, given incumbents��� usual preference for the status quo.

The Alabama Democratic Conference (ADC) and its legal defense team provide a model. After winning a broad voting rights challenge against a number of small localities, the ADC has pursued a concerted effort to get jurisdictions to adopt either minority opportunity districts or full representation voting plans and, once the change has been made, help black leaders and voters make the system work. One helpful step is to seek to modify state law in order to make full representation systems an option, as doing so can make it easier for localities to adopt a full representation in a consent decree. Given that localities sometimes can get full representation election plans passed through state legislatures and/or through local ordinances and initiatives, any group or citizen interested in full representation should review their local and state laws and determine the most politically viable approach.

Once any new system is in place, it almost certainly will work if the community is ready to make it work. In any election under a new voting system there is a need for voter education and get-out-the-vote efforts. This is especially important when applied to full representation voting systems. These systems require strong minority-backed candidates and high voter participation if they are to maximize their potential for providing fair representation. One can never overlook the importance of community involvement and strong grassroots efforts to get people interested and involved. That increased participation of course can have important long-term implications for minority empowerment.

Conclusion: Participation Counts

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