Cumulative voting: a step towards proportional representation
A recent city council election in Peoria, Illinois, demonstrates the benefits of proportional voting systems. Peoria’s “cumulative voting” is a semi-proportional system – a better alternative to “winner-take-all” systems. Cumulative voting is also a step in the right direction towards more proportional systems like proportional ranked choice voting (RCV).
Multi-winner systems are ideal for legislative bodies. Each constituency has multiple legislators, increasing the likelihood that each voter feels represented by at least one of their legislators. Compare this to “winner-take-all” systems. The single candidate with the most votes wins, and if you didn’t vote for that candidate, you might feel like your legislator isn’t accountable to you.
Cumulative voting is one method for electing multiple winners, where voters can cast as many votes as there are seats. Voters can even use multiple votes on the same candidate, if they wish. For example, imagine a three-member city council that uses cumulative voting. A voter might cast two votes for their favorite candidate, and one vote for their second choice. If a voter feels extremely invested in their favorite candidate, they might cast all three of their votes for that candidate.
Peoria uses cumulative voting to elect five “at-large” members to its city council, and just did so in April. In the 10-way race, cumulative voting helped elect three incumbents and two newcomers. One of the newcomers, Bernice Gordon-Young, founder of a nonprofit that donates clothing and supplies to underserved children, won the most votes overall. The most senior member to be re-elected, Zach Oyler, says “history has shown in this race that there is favorability towards newcomers.”
Proportional systems help lower barriers to new and diverse candidates, as Oyler expressed. Cumulative voting is a semi-proportional system because if members of a community of interest work together and agree to use all of their votes on the same candidate, that group can likely elect a candidate of their choice, even if that group is in the minority. For this reason, cumulative voting has been implemented as a voting rights remedy in jurisdictions like Amarillo, Texas and Chilton County, Alabama.
This is a big step up from a winner-take-all system, where if a minority group makes up less than 50% of a district, the election could be decided entirely without their votes. It is also a step towards more proportional systems like proportional RCV.
Proportional RCV uses a ranked ballot; voters can rank the candidates in order of preference. Candidates who receive a certain share of votes are elected, with the share (or “threshold”) depending on the number of seats to be elected. See how it works here. With proportional RCV, any voter group (demographic, ideological, or other) above the threshold has power to elect a candidate of their choice. For example, in a five-winner contest, the threshold to elect is 17%.
With cumulative voting, a degree of coordination is required on the part of minority groups who hope to elect their candidate of choice. A community of interest must actively consolidate their voting power behind the same candidate. With proportional RCV, proportional outcomes occur organically. As long as a group reaches the threshold, the election cannot be decided without that group having had a say.
With proportional RCV, voters in the same bloc can even support different candidates as their first choice. For example, say a community of interest’s support is split between Candidate A and Candidate B. Candidate A’s supporters might rank Candidate B as their second choice, and Candidate B’s supporters might rank Candidate A as their second choice. Let’s say Candidate B was the weaker candidate and gets eliminated during tabulation. Then, Candidate B’s supporters have their vote count towards Candidate A. The diversity within that community is represented on the ballot, and the winner must be responsive to that community as a whole.
Peoria shows us that “winner-take-all” is not the only way that local elections are run. Proportional voting systems are an effective means for ensuring voting rights to minority communities. Cumulative voting gets us part of the way there, though proportional RCV is most up to the task. Proportional RCV can be implemented for local elections, as has been done in Cambridge, MA; Minneapolis, MN; and Albany, CA. It can also be adopted on a federal level – via the Fair Representation Act (FRA) – to ensure minority communities have representation nationwide.
Ballot image by Tomruen in the public domain.
