Non-Binding Referenda Go Ahead in Champaign, But are Blocked in Urbana

For the second year in a row, voters at the annual town meeting in Urbana have turned down a request to place an advisory referendum on the ballot supporting Instant Runoff Voting.

The vote at Tuesday night's annual town meeting for Cunningham Township in Urbana was 82 to 13 against putting the referendum on next year's primary ballot. One of the opponents was Champaign County Board Member Tom Betz. He says most Urbana voters agree with him that Instant Runoff Voting is not a fair way to conduct elections, "because it disenfranchises voters". Betz went on, "It allows a second place candidate to potentially win. I believe in majority rule, and this is not majority rule. It's anti-democratic. I don't even believe it's lawful in the state of Illinois."

But supporters of the proposal accuse Democrats of denying voters the chance to make their own decision on the matter.

Under Instant Runoff Voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote, the ballots for the candidate with the least votes is recounted using the voters' second choice, and so on, until a majority winner is chosen.

Meanwhile, over at the City of Champaign town meeting, the vote was 29 to 4 in favor of putting a non-binding question on the 2010 primary ballot in favor of a property tax hike for Township General Assistance.

Champaign voters previously approved a non-binding referendum for more Township aid for the poor last spring. But they've twice defeated referenda calling for actual property tax hikes. Randall Cotton, who sponsored the question at the town meeting last night, says they'll have to work harder to get their message across. But he says the support for the funding is there. "There's a growing group of people who are really very acutely interested in this issue," says Cotton. "And of course, it's more timely and important now than any time before in recent memory, because of the incredible downturn in the economy."

Cotton says the referendum that City of Champaign voters will see next year will provide more details than previous ones. He says it will point out that Champaign's funding for General Assistance is less than 10 percent of the average funding levels for Springfield, Bloomington and Peoria. And the resolution will call for a cap on how much property tax bills can go up.