Seeking #1: Winning Under Proportional Representation

Harvard students know the system well: every time they vote for their Undergraduate Council representative of their class marshal they are presented with a list or candidates and the option of voting for "as many or as few" candidates as they want.

It's called the Hare Proportional Representation System (PR) and Cambridge is the only municipality in the country that still uses it.

The system gives Cambridge politics its own distinct flavor: candidates run on slates, go city-wide and spend large amounts of time and energy identifying voters who would be willing to vote for them as their second or third choice candidate.

When Cambridge voters enter the polling booths tomorrow, they will rank their choices for City Council and the School Committee. Thus, voters write #1 beside the name of their first choice candidate, #2 beside the name of their second choice, and so on.

Counting the ballots according to the complex PR formulae will often take a week.

Candidates win their seats by accumulating enough votes to reach a quota determined by a complicated formula. Once candidates reach a quota, their surplus votes are redistributed to the other candidates on the ballot.

The least popular candidates in the early rounds are also dropped, and their votes are also redistributed.

So, how would a clever politician campaign to win under this system?

According to Professor of Government kenneth A. Shepsle, successful campaigns in a PR election "require an awful lot of organization and a lot of information."

"Usually when they are fairly organized, parties can instruct their voters how to [number their ballots]," Shepsle says. "What politicians do is work thorough established community organizations--families, religious, fraternal groups and encourage supporters in those organizations to coordinate their votes."

But because each individuals candidate cares most about getting him or herself elected, Shepsle says that such organizations aimed at coordinating votes are not associated with individual campaigns.

In addition to campaigning vigorously for first choice support, candidates muse seek voters who would list them as their second choice.

"Proportional Representation encourages people to campaign outside a support group and look for second and third place votes," says Shepsle. "[Candidates should] focus not only on one's own supporters but in building alliances; not steal [votes] but get second listings."

This year's council candidates seem to be running their campaigns in accordance with Shepsle's analysis.

Candidates agree that identifying and cultivating a core of supporters that will definitely give you their #1 votes is just as central t a PR campaign as it is to a plurality system.

"My experience is that candidates who are successful are those who target their vote. In addition, the slates do help," says Vice Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72.

"Everyone goes into the race trying to ID as many #1 votes as they can," says incumbent Councilor Jonathan S. Myers, who has been running "an intense door to door campaign" in order to identify votes "one by one."

Reeves says his "highly scientific, targeted campaign" has been centered around his strongest supporters--tenants, the elderly, and Harvard students--and making sure they will show up to vote for him on election day.

"The whole game is to locate people who want to vote for you. It's not the simplest thing to confirm their support. Many people remain undecided until election day," Reeves says.

Getting #1 votes is also crucial to staying alive in the race since candidates with the lowest number of #1 votes are eliminated even before redistribution--which can put weaker candidates with a broad base of second-choice support over the top--begins.

"I have to get enough #1 votes to keep me alive," says first-time candidate George A. Spartichino. Pats on the back and promises from voters that he'll get a lower vote from them are far from reassuring, he says.

"If I get a #1. That's what I'm looking for," says Spartichino. Spartichino says he is hoping to stay alive long enough to pick up votes from the other Italian-American candidate, former mayor Alfred Vellucci.

For many, cooperating with other similarly minded candidates has been an effective tactic to pick up transfer votes.

The slate system has worked well for candidates endorsed by the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA)--the city's progressive coalition--and the Cambridge Tenants' Election council.

"Other than spending lots of money and putting literature [in every mailbox across the city] nothing works better than a slate," says Glenn S. Koocher '71, a longtime observer of Cambridge politics.

Slate voting was responsible for the current 6-3 pro-rent control majority on the city council, says Michael H. Turk, co-chair of the Cambridge Tenant's Election Committee.

For many years, the CCA and Cambridge Tenants Election Committee have successfully endorsed a slate of candidates and organized a coordinated campaign.

"We try to keep all the campaigns [of CCA endorsed candidates] working together and make sure they don't undermine each other," says CCA campaign manager Debbie Zeidenberg.

While each individual campaign is autonomous, endorsed candidates' fliers will usually encourage voters to place votes somewhere on their ballots for the other CCA candidates as well.

Because many candidates do not win enough #1 votes to be elected outright, garnering transfer votes becomes crucial to many campaign strategies.

By campaigning for other people on the same slate, candidates are able to direct the transfer of their surplus votes to similarly minded candidates who will support them on the council.

[The candidates are all interested] in getting out progressive votes, "says Zeidenberg.

Many voters try to outthink the system by marking ballots to boost weaker candidates by not voting for their original first-choice candidate in the belief that that candidate will win without their support.

Zeidenberg says that many enthusiastic slate supporters have called CCA offices to ask for the name of the weakest candidate so that they can give them their #1 vote.

But slate organizers discourage voters from trying to out-think the system. "We say put down as #1 who you say your #1 choice is," says Zeidenberg.

"We try to encourage voters in the city to vote for the slate in whatever order they choose," says Turk.

That way, he says, voters can avoid "an unusual horse race in which you make the cleverest bet only to find yourself outsmarted in the end."

In Cambridge, voters who tried to beat the system cost former mayor Barbara Ackermann her seat on the council in 1977, many say.

"Voters assumed she didn't need their help," says Koocher.

Ackermann says she just hadn't concentrated enough on getting #1 votes. She says she doubts that will happen to the current mayor and frontrunner, Alice Wolf, because "Alice is campaigning like a whirlwind."

"My feeling is that they didn't get robbed, they got their first choice," says Ackermann.

But some candidates say that the best way of working PR is to pull in your hidden supporters by running as a one-issue candidate.

"I think I did well because I was committed to a strong rent control position," says former city councillor David E. Sullivan, the top vote-getter in the 1987 election.

Suzanne L. King, candidate R. Elaine Noble's campaign manager, agrees, saying the Noble campaign is trying to sell the idea of charter reform to the city.

"You're not concentrating on one specific area of the city but rather to an idea, a philosophy," she says. "We're doing all the outreach that we can."

Since all candidates run city-wide under the PR system, candidates must focus on issues and ideas, King says.

PR was developed in Europe in the 19th century as an electoral system that would ensure minority representation in government. Candidates do not need to receive a majority of votes to win an election, just a smaller quota. Philosopher John Stuart Mill was a great advocate of the system.

Cambridge adopted PR in 1942, not to ensure the representation of minority views, but to reform a corrupt city government.

"City government [had] turned into a circus of self-dealing and political hackdom," says Reeves.

But many complain that PR in Cambridge does not achieve the system's 19th century goal, arguing that a plurality of views is still not represented on the council.

"Parts of the city are virtually disenfranchised," says King.

"I don't think [comprehensive representation] happens at all. I think you have large underrepresented portions of the city," says former city council candidate and Cambridge political observer Lester E. Lee, Jr., pointing to the absence of a city councillor from the economically depressed Area 4.

"Most city councillors are from west of Harvard Square," Lee adds.

Sullivan defends the system, pointing out that for the PR to work, people have to vote.

"Unfortunately, people in Area 4 don't vote. Turnout is low and the system reflects that. I'm not sure it's the system's fault," says Sullivan.

Reeves says, however, that city councillor's home neighborhoods are unimportant to the people they represent. He says that he does not live in the same neighborhood as his constituency.

"I represent one-tenth of the people wherever they are," says Reeves.

Many, however, believe that PR has been [crucial] in maintaining non-white member on the Council for decades.

"I don't think [the election of Blacks to the council] would happen in a city-wide [plurality] election," says Sullivan, pointing to the dismal chances of a Black being elected to Boston's city council despite the fact that it has a larger Black population. Eight of Boston's city councilors are elected through their wards, four are elected city-wide.

Lee also says that with slate voting, the city has become divided into two political campus--CCA candidates and independents." "Politics in the city revolve around that cleavage," he says.

Of course, in the end, as with all political systems, many candidate's faith in PR depends upon their success.

"If you're a loser, you think it doesn't work, if you're a winner, you think it does," says Spartichino.