By Editorial
Published April 4th 2009 in www.amarillo.com
Amarillo's experiment with election reform will continue next month as voters select from a field of six candidates vying for four seats on the Amarillo Independent School District board of trustees.
It's worked well so far, and figures to do its job once again on May 9.
Amarillo ISD, faced with a lawsuit challenging its at-large system of electing trustees, came up with a cumulative voting plan that set aside the concerns of the plaintiffs who had sued the district. They had sought a single-member district plan, but settled on a hybrid process that has produced a high-quality field of candidates.
Cumulative voting allows residents to bunch up their votes for as many or as few candidates as they wish. This year, with four full-term seats being contested by six candidates, voters can cast all four votes for a single candidate; they can parcel their votes out evenly among all four; or they can combine their votes in any combination adding up to four.
A fifth contest, with incumbent Anette Carlisle running unopposed, will fill an unexpired AISD board term.
The motive for developing this plan was to generate more interest from candidates residing in all neighborhoods, representing a wide variety of demographic groups.
The public-opinion jury is still pondering whether the plan has worked precisely as its supporters envisioned.
But it's working well enough for the district to keep using it.
There will be some confusion among voters, to be sure. AISD needs to keep its phone lines open for the next five weeks to make sure it minimizes voter angst.
It's worked well so far, and figures to do its job once again on May 9.
Amarillo ISD, faced with a lawsuit challenging its at-large system of electing trustees, came up with a cumulative voting plan that set aside the concerns of the plaintiffs who had sued the district. They had sought a single-member district plan, but settled on a hybrid process that has produced a high-quality field of candidates.
Cumulative voting allows residents to bunch up their votes for as many or as few candidates as they wish. This year, with four full-term seats being contested by six candidates, voters can cast all four votes for a single candidate; they can parcel their votes out evenly among all four; or they can combine their votes in any combination adding up to four.
A fifth contest, with incumbent Anette Carlisle running unopposed, will fill an unexpired AISD board term.
The motive for developing this plan was to generate more interest from candidates residing in all neighborhoods, representing a wide variety of demographic groups.
The public-opinion jury is still pondering whether the plan has worked precisely as its supporters envisioned.
But it's working well enough for the district to keep using it.
There will be some confusion among voters, to be sure. AISD needs to keep its phone lines open for the next five weeks to make sure it minimizes voter angst.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.