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Cumulative Voting
Cumulative voting achieved some
national notoriety in 1993 because it was the full representation
voting system recommended by law professor Lani Guinier in her
search for a lasting solution to minority vote dilution. Nominated
to run the civil rights division of the Department of Justice,
Guinier came under harsh attack for her legal writings that laid out
the reasons for the Voting Rights Act and explored ideas such as
cumulative voting. The resulting debate about Guinier���s writings
was misleading and unfortunately led to the withdrawal of her
nomination without her having a chance to testify before Congress.
Since then, however, the actual experience of cumulative voting in a
growing number of communities has demonstrated the new power it
gives to minority voters and the acceptance it can gain among white
voter. How it works: In cumulative voting, each voter has as many
votes as there are representatives to be elected. Unlike traditional
winner-take-all elections, however, voters may distribute their
votes in any manner they choose. For example, if there are three
seats to be filled, a voter might cast one vote for each of three
candidates just as in a traditional at-large election. But they
could also choose to give two votes to one candidate and one vote to
another, or give all three votes to the same candidate. If voters in
a minority were to give all three votes to one candidate, they would
triple the chances that their candidate would win. To determine
winners, all votes are counted equally; the winners are the
candidates with the most votes. Cumulative voting has worked well
for black and Latino voters in many localities. To ensure electoral
success, like-minded voters in the minority generally ���plump��� their
votes on the same candidate in order to maximize their chances of
electing that candidate. A minority-backed candidate might not win
if minority voters split their votes among more than one candidate.
When the minority population is large enough to elect more than one
candidate from the minority group, it thus must weigh the potential
benefits and risks of seeking to elect more than one candidate. One version of cumulative voting
makes it easier for a voting group to elect more than one candidate.
In Peoria, Illinois voters use the Illinois method,
sometimes referred to as equal and even cumulative voting
. The voters indicate which candidates they support, and their
votes are evenly distributed among these candidates. For example, in
a three-seat race, a voter who supported just one candidate would
provide three votes to that candidate. A voter who supported three
candidates would provide one vote to each of those candidates. A
voter who supported two candidates would give each of those
candidates 1.5 votes. The Illinois method ��� used from 1870 to 1980
to elect the Illinois State House of Representatives ��� facilitates
candidates running together because the message to voters can be
simple: ���vote the team.��� The Illinois method has the additional
advantage of minimizing voter error: ballot design is very simple,
and a voters��� full voting power is allocated no matter how many
candidates they support. Even with the Illinois method, however,
leaders of the minority group must make strategic decisions in
determining how many seats to try to win and how to urge supporters
to cast their votes. This strategy should seek to maximize electoral
opportunities while avoiding minority-backed candidates splitting
the minority vote so that none of them win. Where it is used: More
than 50 jurisdictions in Texas have adopted cumulative voting since
1991, and, in 1995, then-governor of Texas George W. Bush signed
legislation to allow school districts to adopt cumulative voting
(along with limited voting). With a population of more than 150,000
people, the Amarillo Independent School District is the nation's
largest political jurisdiction to use cumulative voting. The Latino
Union of Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the NAACP led the way in
settling a voting rights suit in Amarillo with cumulative voting in
1999. In the first cumulative voting elections, in May 2000, a
black candidate and a Latino candidate each won one of four seats up
for election. These new board members included the first black ever
to win a school board seat in Amarillo and the first Latino to win
in more than two decades. Even though both the black and Latino
populations were below the threshold of inclusion, community leaders
calculated that each candidate could draw some support from the
white community while winning the great bulk of the black and Latino
vote. They were proven right when the candidates avoided splitting
the minority vote. Chilton County, Alabama provides another example
of the success of cumulative voting. Before 1988, no black candidate
had ever been elected to the county commission. In 1988, cumulative
voting was used for first time, and a black candidate named Bobby
Agee led the field in the election for seven-seat county commission
even though blacks were barely 10% of the population, few white
voters supported Agee and Agee was outspent by more than 15 to one
by some of his white challengers. Black turnout was very high, and
most blacks chose to allocate all seven of their votes for Agee
rather than spread their votes among other candidates. The first
black commissioner in Chilton County���s history, Agee has been
reelected three times and has served several terms as chair of the
commission. In 1992, however, when a second black candidate tried
to join Agee on the commission, Agee had a more narrow victory, and
the other candidate was defeated. Cumulative voting was used in
three-seat districts to elect the Illinois State House of
Representatives from 1870 to 1980, resulting in many more victories
of black candidates than in winner-take-all elections that took
place at the same time to elect the state
Senate (see chart in appendix). In July 2001, a task force of
prominent Illinois leaders, chaired by former Republican governor
Jim Edgar and former Democratic Congressman and federal judge Abner
Mikva, called for restoring cumulative voting. It currently is used
in Peoria, Illinois, in various municipalities in Alabama, South
Dakota and Texas and for many elections for corporation boards.
While not perfect ��� and of course no system can be perfect in all
ways ��� cumulative voting has a proven record for producing good
government in Illinois, in resolving voting rights lawsuits and in
empowering minority voters in many communities.
Limited Voting
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