Mission Viejo will go its own way with new ‘cumulative voting’ system

Come 2020, Mission Viejo voters will have an opportunity to cast ballots in a way that may be unique among local governments in California.

A so-called “cumulative” voting system — in which a single registered voter can cast as many as five votes for a single candidate for city council — was approved last week by an Orange County Superior Court judge and could be in place for the 2020 election cycle in Mission Viejo.

The ruling, by Superior Court Judge Walter Schwarm, settles a lawsuit between Mission Viejo and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a nonprofit voting rights group that believes cumulative voting will give the city’s Latino residents a better chance to elect candidates they feel represent them. Both sides have agreed to the change in the city’s election system.

When they choose City Council members for five seats, each registered voter will still get five votes, as they do under the current “at-large” voting model. But instead of casting a single vote (or no vote) for each seat, the cumulative model lets voters give multiple votes to candidates they like — giving one vote per candidate, if they chose, or as many as five votes to one candidate, or any combination in between.

Mission Viejo, like many California cities, elects council members at large, meaning all candidates run to represent the city and whoever gets the most votes wins.

But over the past four years a growing number of municipalities have switched to district-style elections, meaning candidates run for council seats that represent their geographic area, and voters only choose their own district’s council member. District-style elections have gained popularity as a way to boost diverse representation in city government.

Mission Viejo’s new system isn’t untested. Cities in Texas, Alabama, and a few other states have used cumulative voting for years.

What’s the problem?

In recent years, voting rights groups have used provisions of the California Voting Rights Act to diversify representation on city councils, school boards and water districts, among others. In Mission Viejo, about one in five residents is Latino, but the council has had no Latino representation in more than a decade.

Last year, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project pushed the city to switch to district elections. The city opted to study the matter, hiring a demographer and holding public hearings. But when the city chose to stick with at-large voting, Kevin Shenkman, an attorney for the organization, filed suit.

Analysis by the city and the advocacy group showed “racially polarized voting,” or one group of voters – in this case, Latino residents – voting similarly to each other but differently than other interest groups, Shenkman said. Two residents with Latino heritage served on the five-member council between 1998 and 2004, but Shenkman said he wasn’t aware of any Latino candidates for Mission Viejo City Council since the 2002 election.

Under the state law, “it is the rare … community that would not have some polarization,” said Mission Viejo City Attorney Bill Curley. “The (California Voting Rights Act) wants to level the playing field, in effect saying how can we do better in giving the minority voice more volume so it can be heard.”

Shenkman and Curley ultimately agreed that, because of its unusual geography, Mission Viejo isn’t a good candidate for district-style voting.

The solution both the city and the voting rights group agreed to was cumulative voting.

The plan is to put all five council seats up for election every four years. Each voter will get five picks to use however they choose, with options ranging from a single vote for each of five candidates to five votes for a single candidate, or any split within that range.

Pros and Cons

Experts have mixed opinions on cumulative voting, and there’s no definitive research on whether the system actually increases diversity in government, said David Rausch, a political science professor at West Texas A&M University.

When cumulative voting is first introduced, it can be a hard concept for some voters to grasp, Rausch said. Mission Viejo has agreed to run a voter education campaign to help people understand the system.

Once voters understand cumulative voting, Rausch believes, the system benefits voters by giving them more control.

Still, he said some voters might see the system as unfair because they’re used to one vote per candidate. But, Rausch added, voters have the flexibility to cast ballots as they would with an at-large ballot, or an option to put their more votes behind a single candidate.

Cumulative voting hasn’t always proven popular. Illinois scrapped a cumulative voting system in the early 1980s because “outcomes were not viewed as being representative of the (majority of the) people,” said Donald Saari, who teaches economics and math at UC Irvine.

Candidates in Illinois urged residents not to “waste” their votes by splitting them up, and groups sometimes banded together to trade votes or otherwise vote strategically, Saari said.

And while it might give an under-represented minority group a bigger voice, cumulative voting could do the same for fringe political groups that don’t represent the broader community.

If one side can do it, Saari said, “the other side will do the same, and we end up with highly skewed elections.”

Shenkman, the voting rights group’s attorney, doesn’t see that as a big problem, even if a voting bloc were to pool its support for, say, a neo-Nazi candidate.

“If they can get 20 percent of voters to cast all of their votes for that one candidate, well then, they ought to have a voice,” Shenkman said. “If nothing else, (they get) to represent their view, however wrong it may be.”