IL: Judge Rules Majority Means More Than Half

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

If you said, "Duh", you're not from Illinois where the City of Macomb tried to redefine "majority"...

illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?ArticleSource=5781

In a unique case in which a city tried to redefine “majority” in a local election, an Illinois circuit court judge has ruled that having the majority of votes means simply having more than half.

Since February, the results of a city aldermanic race have been under dispute in the western Illinois city of Macomb. Western Illinois University student Steven Wailand, 20, ran for 2nd Ward alderman in a municipal election against an incumbent who had been appointed by the town’s mayor. Wailand received 17 of 33 votes cast, but city officials refused to seat him, stating that he needed a “majority plus one more vote” to win.

Wailand took the dispute to court, and on Friday Illinois Ninth Circuit Court Judge Rodney Clark ruled in his favor, stating in the ruling that the definition of majority is “unambiguous.”

[busymom]

I take it the city officials didn't want anyone new in office? 


So, I wonder how much the city will be paying out in legal fees for this....

[Virgil Showlion]

Macomb, Illinois
Population: 19,280

I suppose it qualifies as a "city".

Out west, we'd talk about the "town of" Medicine Hat because it only had a population of ~60,000. I guess if there are no accepted standards, a municipality can call itself what it wants.

[jkapp]

I think he shoul dhave been seated...33 /2 = 16.5  Since you can't have half a vote, you make it 16, plus one is 17.  And the guy git 17 votes.  Seat him ya corrupted government a-holes!

[Virgil Showlion]

May 6, 2013 16:37:56 GMT -5 jkapp said:

I think he shoul dhave been seated...33 /2 = 16.5  Since you can't have half a vote, you make it 16, plus one is 17.  And the guy git 17 votes.  Seat him ya corrupted government a-holes!

17 is the smallest majority (i.e. the smallest number > 50% of the total number of votes). If the requirement was a majority plus one, he'd need 18 votes.

Even if you considered "fractional" votes, a majority plus one would be 17.5 votes.

The "plus one" is usually added to prevent a perfect tie from legally constituting a majority. If there had been 34 votes cast in this case, the challenger couldn't reasonably claim a majority. But the "plus one" has to be explicitly written into the rules as "majority plus one". It isn't implied by the word "majority".

[frankq]

The audacity! Who do these bastards think they are? Chicago?

[jkapp]

May 6, 2013 17:02:21 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

May 6, 2013 16:37:56 GMT -5 jkapp said:

I think he shoul dhave been seated...33 /2 = 16.5  Since you can't have half a vote, you make it 16, plus one is 17.  And the guy git 17 votes.  Seat him ya corrupted government a-holes!

17 is the smallest majority (i.e. the smallest number > 50% of the total number of votes). If the requirement was a majority plus one, he'd need 18 votes.

Even if you considered "fractional" votes, a majority plus one would be 17.5 votes.

The "plus one" is usually added to prevent a perfect tie from legally constituting a majority. If there had been 34 votes cast in this case, the challenger couldn't reasonably claim a majority. But the "plus one" has to be explicitly written into the rules as "majority plus one". It isn't implied by the word "majority".

I know logic doesn't usually enter into politics, but as an accountant when I see 33, and one person got 17 of that 33, then he has more than the person who has the other 16.  As the saying goes: numbers don't lie

[Virgil Showlion]

May 7, 2013 6:35:49 GMT -5 deminmaine said:

May 6, 2013 16:35:25 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Macomb, Illinois
Population: 19,280

I suppose it qualifies as a "city".

Out west, we'd talk about the "town of" Medicine Hat because it only had a population of ~60,000. I guess if there are no accepted standards, a municipality can call itself what it wants.

Here (and I believe throughout New England) the qualifier is the method by which the municipality governs itself.  A city has a Mayor and City Council whereas a town has a Board of Selectmen and an annual Town Meeting.

Different states, and certainly different countries, have other standards for defining the terms.

I know, Dem.

A few years back I was curious about the difference and googled it.

Doesn't change the fact that a population of 20,000 is a mighty small city.

[EVT1]

Duh- a majority is a majority and it rules everywhere on the planet except for the senate.

[frankq]

May 7, 2013 16:28:26 GMT -5 EVT1 said:

Duh- a majority is a majority and it rules everywhere on the planet except for the senate.

 Keep it on the Gun Debate thread. Get over it.......

[Opti]

Wailand received 17 of 33 votes cast, but city officials refused to seat him, stating that he needed a “majority plus one more vote” to win.

Wailand took the dispute to court, and on Friday Illinois Ninth Circuit Court Judge Rodney Clark ruled in his favor, stating in the ruling that the definition of majority is “unambiguous.”

“The court is confident that anyone reading the code would determine that if a candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote at the February election, that candidate would be declared the winner,” Clark said in a written decision. It is “not logical to have a person receive more than 50 percent of the vote but yet, not be the winner. This is not how America decides who should be elected.”

The article isn't clear to me. If the town law as written is a majority plus one to win, the judge is not disagreeing with their definition of majority but their law itself. He's basically taking the plus one argument out of play and stating whoever gets the most votes wins.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 7, 2013 16:28:26 GMT -5 EVT1 said:

Duh- a majority is a majority and it rules everywhere on the planet except for the senate.

 Awwww, can I get you a tissue?

 The majority did prevail in the Senate.  The majority of US.