At-Large Voting — the Oldest Trick in The Book

On April 2, 2024, City Council held a Public Hearing on a resolution to add three more districts to Raleigh’s City Council starting with the 2026 election.

On May 1, 2024 at 6PM there will be a Community Engagement Workshop on Election Reform at Chavis Park Community Center. You can attend this workshop to get more information for yourself and to let the city know what YOU think. (The city requests that you RSVP if you plan to attend)

Councilors who have stated support for adding 3 districts note that those added districts will lessen the number of constituents each district councilor must represent from 90,000 currently down to 57,000. Smaller districts will bring down the cost of running for election thus opening up the process to more diverse representation.

One resident who spoke at the hearing in favor of adding districts over adding At-Large seats mentioned the history of using At-Large seats to marginalize minority residents of Raleigh in his comments.

For those of you who may not be aware of the history, prior to the current makeup of council with a Mayor, 2 At-Large members and 5 District seats, Raleigh elected their council members as 5 At-Large seats. After the election, the five councilors would meet and select among themselves which one would be mayor.

This process was described as 5 white guys, within 5 blocks of 5 Points.

At-Large seats may no longer be used in a blatantly racist manner. But, we argue that has simply been replaced by the preferences of big dollar donors (because it costs a lot more to run At-Large, city-wide, than in a smaller district). When other speakers argued that At-Large councilors answer to the whole city, do they really? Or, do they answer to the big dollar donors who finance their campaigns?

A study by Nonprofit VOTE, The bias of at-large elections, explains how At-Large voting is a gift to the powerful few at the expense of the less-powerful many. It says:

“At-Large block voting—also known as the plurality-At-Large voting method—has been called the oldest trick in the book. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg cited this method, along with [sic] racial gerrymandering, as a preeminent second-generation way to deny equal opportunity for minority voters and candidates.”

“Congress has banned At-Large voting for all federal elections. It’s been discarded by most states. No voting method has been subject to more litigation for its discriminatory impact on local elections. Yet, while the covers are off the discriminatory impact and intent of At-Large voting, it persists in hundreds of local jurisdictions.”

From the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, we find At-Large voting effects on marginalized populations:

“Perhaps the most dramatic fact that emerges from the report is that as many as 39 counties in North Carolina still have all At-Large voting systems. Such districts make it exceedingly difficult for people of color to win elections. This not only perpetuates systems that fail to reflect the diversity in our communities but discourages participation in the democratic process.”

Federal suit alleges At-Large elections unconstitutionally dilute vote:

“The at-large process required commission candidates to conduct citywide campaigns, which were far more expensive than a district campaign for a seat covering one-fifth of the city’s population. That was a clear disadvantage to less-wealthy candidates, the plaintiffs said.”

The ACLU argues that this is polarized voting and Violates the Voting Rights Act.

Mayor Pro Tem Melton mentioned hearing from people about whether to add 1 or 3 District seats. Adding only 1 seat doesn’t do much to lessen the burden on the current district councilors. The city has grown exponentially since 1970. We have grown from a population of 122K to over 467K. We have also grown from 45 square miles to 211. 

There is another danger in adding any more At-Large seats. One of the benefits of moving to 4-year, staggered terms for council is the ability to run primaries and hold elections that will result in majority winners instead of the current plurality elections that were implemented when our elections were moved to even years.

If you add any At-Large seats, you will not be able to separate all the At-Large seats into different election cycles with the 4-year stagger. You will be legally REQUIRED to hold the current “vote for 2” style election for 2 At-Large seats held in the same election cycle despite holding a primary. You will end up with a plurality election for the At-Large seats and eliminate the goal of getting a majority election through holding a primary. This has been verified with the Wake County Board of Elections. Adding any At-Large seats will effectively negate the point of adding a primary.

Another study shows Under voting persists in At-Large elections. So, adding any At-Large seats continues the ‘vote for multiple candidates’ process that can disenfranchise voters.

Lastly, the Mayor asked staff to find studies focused on whether more district seats result in fewer homes being built. The attached article does indicate that may be the case in some areas, but it also cites “studies have shown that ward voting increases the representation of racial minorities.” We don’t have the impression that district seats result in fewer homes built in Raleigh. If staff were to undertake an analysis of rezoning cases in Raleigh, we don’t think they would find that district councilors are voting against construction in their districts or that they are influencing other councilors to vote with them. Let’s look at real data from Raleigh before considering study data from elsewhere.

The study is here: Upjohn on ward voting   

NOTE – a cursory read of this Upjohn study shows it is NOT actually representative of the situation in Raleigh. The study compares towns that switch from fully At-Large to fully Ward (District) representation. Raleigh would continue to have 27% of its council as city-wide representatives after adding 3 district seats. Here are some relevant quotes from the study:

 “However, note that while switches to ward voting provide a natural experiment for this question, I do not consider all the effects of ward representation or claim that it is worse overall than at-large systems.”

“Trebbi, Aghion, and Alesina (2008) show that majority-white Southern towns implemented at-large systems after African American voting rights were strengthened by the Voting Rights Act, and a number of studies have found that ward voting indeed increases the representation of racial minorities”

“Accordingly, changes between the two electoral rules have often been motivated by racial equity concerns. A key 1982 Supreme Court case held that at-large elections in Burke County, Georgia, violated the 14th Amendment rights of African Americans in the county, sparking a wave of switches to ward voting in the 1980s and 1990s”

Livable Raleigh Editorial Team