Choice Voting on the Ballot in Lowell
Choice Voting in on the Ballot in Lowell, Massachusetts!
To bring you up to speed, Lowell is one of the very few cities in the Commonwealth where the entire city council is elected at-large in a Winner-Take-All election. There are 9 members of the Lowell City Council, and under the current system, each voter chooses the 9 candidates they want to win, and the 9 top vote-getters are elected. Somerville elects its four At Large Aldermen in the same way.
The problem with this voting system is that it makes no effort to ensure that multiple constituencies are represented on the council. It allows the slimmest of majorities, and and in some cases even minorities, to control 100% of the seats. Imagine, for example, that 51% of Lowell citizens prefer candidates A1, A2, …, A9, and 49% prefer B1, B2, …, B9. Despite the fact the public is clearly divided, all 9 A’s are elected to the council and no B’s. A fair system — a system of proportional representation — would have elected 5 A’s and 4 B’s.
Moving to a district-based system, like most cities in Massachusetts, can sometimes help but at best provides only limited representation, because many constituencies cross geographic boundaries. Returning to our A’s and B’s example, if every district were comprised on 51% A supporters and 49% B supporters, then 9 A’s would be elected anyway. Indeed, it would be in the interest of the majority (in this case A supporters) to gerrymander the districts to make this possible.
In Lowell, the effect of this All-At-Large Winner-Take-All-System has been to exclude the immigrant and minority communities from having a real seat at the table. In response, the group FairVote Lowell began collecting signatures to put Choice Voting, a ranked voting system of proportional representation, on their municipal election ballot. Lowell was one of the several cities in Massachusetts that used to have Choice Voting years ago — Cambridge is now the only one that still does.
Well, the news came in that FairVote Lowell gathered enough signatures to put Choice Voting on the ballot! This is a winnable campaign, so I hope you’ll sign up to get involved!
For more detail on Choice Voting, here’s a helpful animation:
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