Conscious Choice: Cumulative Voting

June 2000

Cumulative Voting

by Mary Wisniewski

For American environmentalists, one of the toughest problems with pushing "green" legislation is finding "green" legislators. Though democrats tend to be more sympathetic to environmental causes than the GOP, both parties are perceived to be so tied to anti-environmental interests that it seems almost impossible to find a candidate willing to take a strong stand on issues such as urban sprawl.

A solution to this problem lies not in changing the parties, but in changing the system, according to Dan Johnson-Weinberger, a law student at University of Chicago who heads the Midwest Democracy Center. He believes that the way to change the system lies not in some utopian future, but in Illinois’ own recent political past. Reviving Illinois’ cumulative voting system would open up the legislature to alternative voices, according to Johnson-Weinberger, who is pushing for a state constitutional amendment to bring back Illinois’ unique electoral system.

"A lot of voters in this region would love to vote for an enthusiastic advocate for the environment, but they don’t get the chance because of our winner-take-all voting system," explained Johnson-Weinberger. "People who don’t like their local representative, people who feel locked out of politics should look at our voting system as a source of their disenfranchisement.

Under the current system, citizens of a state congressional district can elect just one representative from that district. If five candidates were running, only one would win, even if another candidate won a substantial number of the votes.

Under the cumulative voting system, which existed in Illinois between 1870 and 1980, citizens of a state congressional district were able to elect three candidates for the Illinois House of Representatives.

If a citizen strongly preferred one potential candidate, he could give all three of his votes to that candidate. This allowed for the election of "political minorities" — women, political dependents, Chicago Republicans and suburban Democrats, and anyone else who might otherwise be locked out of the regular system in the state legislature — according to cumulative voting supporters.

"Most of the good legislators came out of this system," explained Roy Cohn, a volunteer with the Midwest Democracy Center. "Dawn Clark Netsch, Paul Simon, Abner Mikva, the good city Republicans — all came out of cumulative voting."

With the support of state legislators from both sides of the Springfield aisle, the Midwest Democracy Center spent this past spring trying to place House Constitutional Amendment 13 on the November ballot to allow Illinois voters to bring back cumulative voting. The amendment had been introduced by Chicago Democrat Sara Feigenholtz. As of this publication, the Democracy Center had found sponsors for the amendment but hadn’t been able to get it to a full house vote before the summer recess.

But Johnson-Weinberger says he is not discouraged, and the Democracy Center’s efforts have so far earned support from Illinois governor George Ryan, Illinois senator James "Pate" Phillip, Illinois representative Lee Daniels, U.S. representative Henry Hyde, and former independent presidential candidate John Anderson. Democracy Center supporters say they will keep trying to educate voters about cumulative voting so it can make it to the ballot, if not this year, then in 2002.

"I think it has a shot," said Judge Mikva, who is supporting the drive-to-revive movement. "If people understand how it works, they’ll vote for it in a New York minute."

History

The following history of cumulative voting was drawn in part from an Illinois Issues magazine special report on cumulative voting, published in 1982.

Cumulative voting got started during a tumultuous period of Illinois history. During the Civil War, many southern Illinoisans had supported the Confederacy. Because of the War, Illinois was polarized into political halves — with the north controlled by the republicans and the south by the Democrats. The number of Republican House seats was proportionally greater than the total number of republican votes, so democrats were largely left out in the cold. Allegations of corruption in Illinois government led to a constitutional convention in 1870.

The idea for cumulative voting came out of a report by Joseph Medill, owner-editor of the Chicago Tribune and later mayor of Chicago. Medill chaired the committee on electoral and representative reform. He has been credited in part with the nomination and election of Lincoln, so it is perhaps ironic — or just an example of Medill’s broad-mindedness — that his recommendation was partly aimed at helping southern democrats.

In his report, Medill wrote that the adoption of three-member districts as opposed to one-member, "would do much towards abating the baneful spirit of partisan animosity and removing the temptations and opportunities which now exist for the corrupt use of money at elections... There is nothing which more effectually put an end to packing conventions than arming the voter with the three shooter or triple ballot, whereby he can fire‘plumpers’ for the candidate of his choice and against those of his aversion... "

The vote for cumulative voting drew worldwide interest. Before a referendum on cumulative voting, the Times of London predicted that "what Illinois thinks today the Union will think tomorrow."

But no other state ever adopted cumulative voting, though several cities adopted it and some still keep it, according to Johnson-Weinberger. Peoria, Illinois; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Amarillo, Texas still use the system. Cincinnati and New York City both tried it, and the cumulative voting system brought down the old New York machine of Tammany Hall, according to Johnson-Weinberger. But New York ended cumulative voting in the 1950s, because of the election of a communist from Harlem. Though the communist was not particularly radical (he was prorent control), his mere presence on the council was enough of an excuse to end cumulative voting. "The machine hates proportional representation," Johnson-Weinberger explains. "Now that it’s winner take all, they have a monopoly. They can keep grassroots people out."

The End in Illinois

Illinois under cumulative voting wasn’t utopia, admits Johnson-Weinberger. But there was less fighting along regional lines, and more consensus building, because of political minority legislators, according to Matthew Galloway, also with the Midwest Democracy Center. "The process of working out legislation was actually working together rather than slamming people."

According to Johnson-Weinberger, cumulative voting resulted in a significant piece of environmental legislation — the creation of the Regional Transportation Authority.

"Mass transit was really in crisis in the mid-1970s, even more so than today. We didn’t even have Metra. Metra had not consolidated... The legislators say it was the suburban democrats and the city republicans that bridged the gap and forged good progressive legislation that was good for the whole region because they represented independent minority groups," Johnson-Weinberger said. "It would be almost impossible to see that broad consensus emerging in today’s polarized political environment."

Cumulative voting in Illinois ended not because of the election of "radicals" — almost all legislators elected since the 1950s were still members of the Democratic or Republican party. The system ended because of a campaign by political maverick Patrick Quinn, who claimed that the system cost the state too much money.

During the 1970s, Quinn led protests against legislative pay raises. Voter anger regarding the pay raises fueled Quinn’s petition drive to place a resolution on the ballot to end cumulative voting. Quinn argued that cumulative voting — or, more particularly, the three-person district — cost the state an extra $7 million a year. Opponents to cumulative voting argued that voters didn’t understand the cumulative voting system. They pointed out that in some districts, there was only one person running for each seat. They had a point — in the 1960s, nearly 45 percent of the House elections involved only three candidates for three seats, according to Illinois Issues.

Opponents of cumulative voting also argued that few voters understood cumulative voting, leaving special interest groups to use the "bullet" vote (three votes for one candidate) to get candidates elected. A smaller house of representatives would be more effective and would force political parties to become more competitive, the opponents claimed.

Other groups feared the end of cumulative voting would mean an end to political minorities in the state. Such diverse groups as the United Auto Workers union, the National Organization of Women, and the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization worked against Quinn’s amendment. But for the tax-sensitive 1980 voters (who elected Ronald Reagan the same year), the argument for saving money was more powerful than the argument for independent voices in the legislature. Only about half of those eligible to vote in Illinois bothered to vote on the amendment — and the cutback was favored by only one-third of the voters. So a minority of Illinois voters did away with the state’s 110-year-old electoral experiment.

Quinn, a Chicago lawyer currently leading a petition drive to oust Governor George Ryan, said cumulative voting diluted the voting power of racial minorities, and that since the 1980 cutback amendment the Illinois house includes a higher percentage of African-American and Hispanic legislators.

Quinn explained that the old districts were much larger than the current districts — 59 for the whole state as opposed to 118 districts today. He said the system was too complex and benefited the politically sophisticated.

"The system often guaranteed a republican legislator from a district though he or she only had a small fraction of the total vote," Quinn said. "As a result, the number of Hispanic and black representatives in the old house was far below the percentage in the population."

Quinn rejected the argument that the number of Hispanics and African Americans in the legislature may have increased since 1980 because of an overall change in attitude toward minorities in the past twenty years, which has resulted in a greater number of minorities to local and national offices nationwide. "The ultimate result of the cutback amendment was the election of more minorities," Quinn said.

Bringing It Back

Supporters of cumulative voting say that the cutback has been a failure. Rather than saving money, the legislature has more staff members and lobbyists than ever before, according to Galloway. Voter apathy has increased, because of the winner-take-all system. And the legislature has once again become polarized — this time between the city and the suburb, making progressive legislation on issues such as urban sprawl and prairie conservation seem like an impossible dream, according to cumulative-voting supporters.

Since 1980, Illinois has tried other ways of guaranteeing election of political minorities, such as redrawing political districts. This takes power away from the people and gives it to politicians (who have their own agendas) and to the courts, according to Mikva.

"The worst place to draw these lines is in the courts," said Mikva. "The courts don’t have a clue what the politicians are doing or how to keep them from doing it."

"The beauty of cumulative voting...is that there aren’t any of the side effects I’ve described," Mikva said. "We [the courts] don’t have to decide if there’s a Polish seat, or an Hispanic seat — the people decide that."

Anderson, who had run for president as an independent in 1980, said that there’s nothing in the Illinois Constitution, or the U.S. Constitution, that requires single-member districts.

Anderson believes in proportional voting — which is the system in most European countries. Under that system, if 7 percent of the voters support the Green Party, the Green Party gets 7 percent of the seats.

The argument against that system is that it also paves the way for extremists — for example, Nazis. Johnson-Weinberger says that cumulative voting is less extreme than proportional voting, because any candidate still has to get 25.1 percent of the vote to be elected.

"I’m really not worried about a Matthew Hale getting that much of the vote," Galloway said, referring to the head of an Illinois white supremacist group.

Johnson-Weinberger admits that the "drive to revive" is an uphill battle in the legislature. "It’s not like anyone makes any money out of it." If the legislature doesn’t put the amendment on the ballot, the supporters of cumulative voting will have to collect 250,000 signatures statewide to put it on the ballot — an enormous effort — and the deadline for this year’s ballot has already passed.

Johnson-Weinberger says that if cumulative voting has a chance anywhere, it’s in Illinois, where it’s been tried before. "This isn’t futuristic. This isn’t oddly European. This is the heartland."

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