Con Con Considerations: Bulleting

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

The November ballot will ask voters whether Illinois should have a Constitutional Convention. A Constitutional Convention would be authorized to review any portion of Illinois' Constitution they wanted to -- and to propose an entirely new document, amendments to existing provisions, or additions of new materials.

But the Constitution also leaves much to the General Assembly to determine. Others have taken a position on whether or not there should be a Convention, and even on what issues a Convention should address if it is called. This page is less interested in what a Convention might accomplish as in how it might work.

Third in a series

Electing the Delegates

The Constitution provides that there shall be two delegates elected from each Senatorial District and directs the General Assembly to make that happen. How that should happen would be up to the legislature.

Bulleting isn't much in the popular imagination since the adoption of the Cutback Amendment in 1980, but the constitution provides for two delegates from each senate district, and when the legislature had multi-member districts, voters had the option of casting all of their votes for the same candidate. The practice was called bulletting, and it allowed voter minorities in a district to concentrate their votes to ensure that their voices were heard.

Should Voters Be Allowed to Bullet their Votes?

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