|
CUMULATIVE VOTING
What Is Cumulative Voting?
Cumulative Voting is an alternative method of casting
votes. The customary and familiar
system of voting allows each voter to cast one vote for one candidate for
each office being contested; that is the system we use in Sun City
Texas. In a Cumulative Voting
system, each voter is allowed to cast several votes for a single
candidate. For example, suppose
there are 3 seats to be filled on a Board of Governors, and 12 candidates
for those seats. In our customary system, voters would cast 3 votes - one
each for their top three choices. In
the most common version of Cumulative Voting, voters would be able to cast
all 3 of their votes for one candidate.
The net effect of a cumulative system in this instance is to
potentially triple the power of a voter who cast all 3 votes for a single
candidate with respect to voters who spread their votes evenly among 3
candidates.
In a less common version of Cumulative Voting voters are
allocated the number of votes equal to the number of candidates (12 in our
example). Voters are allowed to cast these votes in any manner they deem
appropriate - including all 12 for a single candidate. The less common version therefore increases
the potential leverage of voters who decide to concentrate their votes on a
single candidate (e.g., the voter who cast all 12 votes for a single
candidate would have a factor of 4 advantage over a voter who cast 3 votes
for each of 4 candidates).
Why Would A Community Opt For Cumulative Voting?
Cumulative Voting is one of several possible remedies when
voters have been disenfranchised for reasons that are not
acceptable/palatable to community standards (i.e., race, economic status,
religion, and so forth). The
expected impact of a Cumulative Voting system is to increase the potential
voting power of previously disenfranchised population.
Does Cumulative Voting "Work"?
Examples, research and evidence abound to support the
contention that Cumulative Voting is successful in achieving its intended
purposes in both the public and private sector. Measures of success include an increase
in the number of previously disenfranchised members of the community
serving on elected governing boards and/or issues of concern to the
previously disenfranchised population appearing in a more prominent manner
on the agenda of governing boards.
A number of school districts in Texas have adopted Cumulative
Voting as a remedy to settle lawsuits brought by the League of Latin
American Citizen (LULAC) addressing the lack of minority representation on
school boards. A study conducted by
the Hispanic Research Center at UT/San Antonio, concluded that Cumulative
Voting did work as expected in polarized communities -- with Hispanic
voters favoring Hispanic candidates and accumulating their votes and
casting them in favor of Hispanic candidates who were, in fact, elected.
While Cumulative Voting has been shown to be effective in
generating target-population representation on governing bodies where the
normal voting system failed to do so, the resulting representation
generated is neither limited on the upside, nor permanent. Over time representation generated in
this manner may well become disproportionately large with respect to the
size of the disenfranchised community, if that community has an effective
political leadership, or it may shrink/disappear if the leadership is
ineffective.
What Are Some Risks of Cumulative Voting?
First, as with any issue of this sort, there are spillover
effects - some positive, others are perverse and unintended. One of the more pronounced negative
effects of Cumulative Voting stems from its primary mechanism - allowing
groups to concentrate their voting power by focusing their votes on a
single (or small number) of candidates.
Cumulative Voting increases the potential power of any and all
groups which can focus their voting power - not just the disenfranchised
group which was the target of the policy.
Seemingly innocuous groups (such as the Garden Club or the Golf or
Tennis Clubs) as well as radical groups potentially gain political power
disproportionate to their strength in numbers.
Second, Cumulative Voting provides incentives for extreme rather
than middle-ground or broad-based politics.
A normal/customary system causes candidates to appeal to a broad
base - hence they must address a wide range of issues on voters' minds and
structure solutions which have wide appeal.
A Cumulative Voting system provides incentives to appeal to a
smaller base because the smaller base can magnify their impact on the
outcome by concentrating their votes.
This, in turn, can either fuel the intensity of political division
within a community, or generate political division when none was apparent
before Cumulative Voting was implemented.
Finally, while Cumulative Voting can be useful in overcoming
the causes/effects of disenfranchisement, a Cumulative Voting approach can
also generate or encourage a fractionated population, framed around a set
of narrowly focused groups, when none existed before. In a study of Cumulative Voting in the
House of Representative in Illinois, Greg Adams concluded there is
"strong empirical evidence that the cumulative system in Illinois
produced more ideologically extreme members of the state assembly than did the
single-member district system."
Other scholars have contested Adams' conclusions, but the fact
remains that Cumulative Voting provides a mechanism by which small groups
with a narrow focus can achieve considerable voting power. Such smaller groups and narrower focuses
are more likely to be "extreme" in some form or another, or
narrowly focused on one particular purpose (good or bad) -- otherwise the
groups would be larger in the first place.
Can Cumulative Voting Be Intentionally Abused?
Because of its predictable success in promoting target-group
interests, and the inability to focus the political power advantages which
accumulate to the target group, Cumulative Voting can be a ruse - groups
which cannot achieve success in a normal/customary voting process have an
obvious motivation to argue in favor of Cumulative Voting simply for the
purpose of increasing their power, electing their candidates, or advancing
their positions when they cannot succeed otherwise.
Are There Alternatives To The Cumulative Voting System That
Achieve The Same Objectives?
There are a number of alternatives to Cumulative Voting that
have been shown to have the same general results in terms of target-group
representation. Other possibilities
include Choice Voting, quota systems, allocating additional votes to
members of a particular community, or even creating voting districts where
target-population representation is virtually guaranteed. None of these
systems is perfect, and few are without controversy. For instance, President Clinton's
nomination of attorney Lani Guinier
for Assistant AG was withdrawn largely because her advocacy of Cumulative
Voting became associated with so-called "quota politics."
Choice Voting (sometimes known as preference or transfer
voting) is one particularly interesting approach. In a Choice Voting system voters are
asked to rank the candidates in their order of preference (top to bottom). They may rank as many candidates as they
like, with the appreciation that a lower ranking means it is less likely
the candidate will be elected.
Voting clerks then use a pre-determined formula to tally the votes
(a wide range of possible formulae have been used and shown to be
workable).
Choice voting has been shown to increase target-group
representation without sacrificing majority rule or presenting the
potentially deleterious or divisive incentives attributed to Cumulative
Voting.
Summation
Cumulative Voting is an
alternative to the customary system of voting; it is one of several
possible remedies in situations where voters have been disenfranchised for
reasons that are not
acceptable/palatable to community standards (i.e., race, economic status,
religion, and so forth). A considerable
amount of evidence exists to support the contention that Cumulative Voting
achieves its desired results.
However, the results are not automatic, permanent, or limited.
Two disconcerting aspects
of Cumulative are the inability to confine its effects to the target
(disenfranchised) population and the potential for abuse:
Cumulative Voting confers
those same opportunities on any and all groups, regardless of their size or
whether or not that group is a disenfranchised group. As a result, non-target groups may garner
unwarranted voting power under a Cumulative Voting system.
By the same token, segments
of the voting population that fail to achieve their political results under
the customary voting system have an incentive to call for a Cumulative
Voting system so that they might band together and multiply their voting power
- and thereby achieve the results they desire and could not achieve
otherwise.
There are alternatives to
Cumulative Voting that achieve the same results with respect to the target
group without having the potentially
deleterious or divisive incentives attributed to Cumulative Voting.
Final Question: What is
the Citizens Council's Perspective?
The Community Association Board has asked the Special Projects
Committee to evaluate Cumulative Voting for possible use in the upcoming
elections - where we will elect two additional Resident Directors. That Committee, along with the Election
Committee will report to the full CA Board -- with the Board making the
final decision on whether or not it is appropriate to make any changes to
our customary approach. It seems to
us that the process of making that decision should revolve around three
determinations:
1. Is there a disenfranchised segment of the population in Sun
City? By "disenfranchised"
we mean a group that is truly excluded or substantially marginalized for
illegitimate reasons - not just a group wanting to increase their impact
(e.g., golfers, computer club, etc.), nor a group that has simply failed to
have their ideas/issues accepted by the majority of voters in free and open
elections.
2. What are the alternative remedies? If we find there is a truly
disenfranchised portion of our population, and if we conclude that a remedy
is warranted, Cumulative Voting is but one, of several, possible
approaches.
3. Do we appreciate, and are we willing to accept the likely
spillover effects, both plus and minus, of moving away from our existing
system? We need to face up to the
fact that a change of this magnitude in the voting procedure could have a
significant impact on our broader political process - well beyond providing
a remedy to whatever problems might exist.
That alone demands additional scrutiny
We at the Citizens Council are not endorsing any of the
possible alternative voting methods, nor do we necessarily argue against them. Since the issue has been raised, we
simply felt some examination and discussion was needed so the cart does not
get ahead of the horse on the crucial issue of framing our political
decision process. Let's take our
time and be rigorous in thinking this through -- if change is not needed,
then we need not make any change. If
change is needed, then let's get it right.
We encourage your comments on the thoughts presented in this article
along with your active participation in the debate.
|