The Sunnyvale Sun

Letters & Opinions

Voter-friendly council election system needed

By Bob Weissman

Did you vote in the November 2005 election for Sunnyvale City Council? Of course you did. Were you able to vote for all of your favorite candidates and against all your least favorites? Probably not. Sunnyvale's archaic system of electing council members restricted your choices--for no good reason. It's time Sunnyvale switched to a more representative system of council elections.

Counting the mayor, Sunnyvale has seven council members, elected to staggered four-year terms. In the 2005 election, three council positions were up for grabs. Since all the council members are elected "at large"--meaning they all represent the entire city as opposed to smaller geographical areas--you might have thought that you could vote for your three favorite candidates and the three highest vote-getters would win. If you thought that, you would have been wrong.

Sunnyvale City Council members occupy "seats." "Seats" is an abstract concept used to keep the council positions separate and distinguishable. A council member is elected to a particular seat for the duration of his or her term. When elections occur, each candidate runs for a particular seat. The candidate can win only that seat, despite the fact that a seat is only an abstract concept with a number attached. The implications of this are subtle but important.

Suppose there's an election and you really like two of the seven candidates. You'd like to vote for both of your favorites, but you find that you can't--because they're both running for the same seat.

Too bad for you.

Now remember back to the weeks just prior to the last council election. Your mailbox was stuffed with negative campaign fliers, wasn't it? Negative campaigning is repugnant, but it's easy--and effective--when a candidate runs against a single opponent or even two. It's not so easy when running against a large pool of candidates, because then a candidate would have to smear all the others to make himself or herself look better. And that, in itself, would look bad.

The system of numbered seats was enacted way back in 1968. The justification for this system was vague at best. Comments at the time included "[it] will help ensure that councilmen will be more responsive and responsible to the electorate." It's lost to history exactly how the system would accomplish that. The Valley was a very different place in 1968. Perhaps the numbered-seat election system made sense back then--it did pass in a special election, after all--but it doesn't make sense any more.

It's time Sunnyvale eliminated the practice of forcing candidates to run for specific seats. All candidates should run against each other, and whoever gets the most votes should win. It's as simple as that.

This issue will be up for discussion at the June 13, 2006 council meeting.

Please plan to attend.

Bob Weissman is a retired software engineer and manager. He has lived in the Santa Clara valley since 1976 and in Sunnyvale since 1999.