Tentative conclusions on democracy & governance
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Keep eye on Illinois constitutional convention
Illinois voters get to decide in November 2008 whether to hold a constitutional convention. The last vote, in 1988, failed 2.7 to 0.9 million.
Under the state constitution, the General Assembly can call such a vote by 3/5 vote of each house. If there hasn’t been a vote in 20 years, one automatically goes on the ballot.
There isn’t much news about this, but some relevant blogs have popped up. For a skeptical and critical view, see Total Drivel. For a “Declaration of Independence” approach, see this website of a declared delegate candidate. For a PR booster, see this new blog.
This is an opportunity – we’ll see if it’s taken – to undo the Cutback Amendment. In 1980, that referendum ended a 110-year experiment with a semi-proportional voting system. Under cumulative voting, it was said, DuPage County elected some Democrats, and Chicago elected some Republicans.
It will take a lot of work to make anything happen. In the event of a positive vote, elections to the convention are held (two members per district, assuming FPTP). Then there are internal convention dynamics to surmount.
This is worth a Google alert nonetheless.
4 responses to to “Keep eye on Illinois constitutional convention”
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Semi-proportional? Or semi-plurality? The latter would be more accurate.
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Must confess… I don’t know what separates the proportional from the non-proportional if not the results systems deliver. Is it that there’s no ‘quota logic’ built into cumulative voting (like one sees with Droop/Hare quota, various methods of list allocation)?
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FPTP can deliver proportional results. But that does not make it a “proportional” system.
Some of classify systems by inputs rather than outputs (which are only partly due to systemic features).
I really prefer to divide systems into nomimal and list, anyway, instead of majoritarian and proportional. (STV bridges: proportional, thanks to quotas and transfers, but clearly nominal.)
Cumulative vote is closer to SNTV than to anything else: Strictly nominal, strictly nontransferable, any voter who is not indifferent among candidates and yet fails to give all her votes to one candidate (i.e. treating it as SNTV) is misunderstanding the system.
The notion that cumulative voting can be considered an electoral “reform” in 21st century America only shows how far we reformers have to go.
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MSS: The notion that cumulative voting can be considered an electoral “reform†in 21st century America only shows how far we reformers have to go.
Agreed. But there’s still a difference between single-winner FPTP and cumulative voting. In the former — unless I am missing something pretty basic — the proportional results are accidental, or at least not under the control of candidates or voters. When cumulative voting produces proportional results, it’s because candidates and voters have been able to use the method effectively.
Also, I don’t think it’s always bad strategy to give votes to more than one candidate under cumulative voting. If a slate has enough support to earn two seats, then its supporters need to coordinate so that two candidates each gets the right number of votes. This can be done by deciding which voters are going to plump for which candidate, or by asking all voters to use some votes for both. Although the need for such coordination is a major limitation of the method, it’s not impossible.
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