HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/19/2024 Item 7a, Latner
TO: SLO City Council and Mayor Stewart
FROM: Michael Latner, PhD.
Professor of Political Science
California Polytechnic State University, SLO
I have reviewed Council Agenda Report Item 7a, published 11/14/2024 by City Attorney
Christine Dietrick and outside legal counsel Marguerite Leoni, regarding the proposal for a
“Citywide Single Vote” electoral system. This system would replace the city’s current
system, commonly known as “Plurality Bloc Voting” (PBV) with a limited vote (LV) system
where each voter has one vote to allocate in a citywide two -seat district, retaining the
staggered format of electing two of four council seats every two years.
This proposal is, in my professional opinion, a reasonable compromise between confiicting
electoral engineering principles. There is an established body of empirical evidence
demonstrating that moving from PBV to LV is an effective remedy for protecting racial and
ethnic minorities from electoral system-induced vote dilution. Either voluntarily, or as a
result of judgements or consent decrees brought under the federal Voting Rights Act, at
least eighty-flve (85) jurisdictions, including city councils, count y supervisors, and school
districts, across several states, have adopted some form of LV. Analyses of the adoption of
LV have shown the results, in term of racial/ethnic representation, are comparable, and in
some cases superior to, the adoption of single -seat districts (SSD), which has been the
primary remedy adopted under compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act.
A simplifled example demonstrates how LV protects the opportunity for minority voters to
win seats compared to PBV. Imagine a jurisdiction with one hundred (100) voters, electing a
two-seat assembly. There are 200 potential votes to distribute under PBV. A majority
coalition of sixty (60) Caucasian voters split their support between candidates A and B, but
would never vote for a Latino. A Latino minority coalition of forty (40) voters puts all of their
support behind a single candidate (C). Under the current system (PBV), the flrst seat goes
to A and the second to B (winners are in bold). The minority coalition can never win a seat
as long as the majority coalition’s least preferred candidate gets at least 41 votes. Worse
still, if the Latino coalition were to use both of their votes under PBV, either by running
another candidate, or by voting for either A or B, it could further reduce the likelihood of
electing candidate C. The discriminatory effect of the system is observable.
Candidate
votes (percent)
System A B C
PBV 66(41) 54(34) 40(25)
LV 33(33) 27(27) 40(40)
When the same candidates compete and voters choose their same top preferences under
LV, candidate C wins the flrst seat, and candidate A wins the second. This is because the
threshold of exclusion, which can be calculated as v/(M+v) where v = the number of votes
each voter has, and M = the number of seats elected, lowers because v is “limited” or less
than M. For a two-seat system, any candidate that gets more than 1/(2+1) = 33% of the vote
under LV gets a seat. By contrast, a minority coalition as large as 49.9% of the electorate
could be denied any seats under PBV, because v = M.
Why not then elect all four council seats together, so that any coalition with 1/(4+1) = 20%
of the vote is ensured a seat? Lowering the threshold of exclusion by increasing the number
of seats on the council is worth considering, as the United States, and California in
particular, have absurdly small council sizes compared to the rest of the world. This is in
fact a relic of institutional racism, and the efforts of white Protestants to suppress th e
political infiuence of Catholics and ethnic minorities in the early 20 th Century. However, it is
also where the City Council must balance competing principles. While it is desirable to
have a system that refiects the full diversity of the city, representing overlapping
communities of interest (people of color, neighborhood preservation groups, service
industry workers, students, the queer community, etc.) increasing the number of seats
under LV also increases the probability that multiple candidates within a minority coalition
split the votes of that coalition, which can result in all coalition candidates falling below the
threshold of exclusion. In other words, more seats requires more coordination under LV.
While there are systems that account for this shortcoming of LV, the two -seat option
incentivizes a majority and a minority coalition to each put forward their single best
candidate. Moreover, in electoral reform, it is generally advisable to adopt solutions that
are narrowly tailored to remedy an observed injustice, one that gets the job done but
doesn’t subject the system to major disruptions, such as drawing voters into single-seat
districts or implementing more complex ballot structures.
If the Council considers other alternatives, I would strongly urge against the adoption of
single-seat districts. While single-seat districts can minimally represent geographically
concentrated minorities, they tend to reduce electoral competition and political
participation, and can allow a disbursed plurality to control every seat on the council,
which is in part the problem you are trying to resolve. More permissive, multi-seat systems
actually provide for geographic representation, if in fact geography is a salient political
division within the city.
To the degree that racially polarized voting emerges in the city of San Luis Obispo (I have
seen no convincing evidence that such patterns are currently observed), the one-vote, two-
seat solution is likely adequate to remedy potential vote dilution under such conditions.
Perhaps as important, the adoption of Citywide Single Vote will set an example for other
jurisdictions that are genuinely searching for a more equitable electoral system than PBV.
Indeed, Citywide Single Vote might become a starting point f or the State of California to
consider as a general alternative to both PBV and single -seat districts.