Background

The Urbana City Council is currently composed of seven members elected from seven districts, called wards. Urbana is divided by population into seven equal-sized wards as afforded by the U.S. Constitution to give each resident of Urbana an equal voice in government.

The referendum

In the November election, Urbana residents will vote on a ballot question asking Yes or No: whether to add 2 at-large seats to the Urbana City Council, electing these council members citywide rather than from individual wards. If approved, this would make Urbana a "mixed" system, meaning 7 Council members will be elected by wards of equal population, and 2 will be elected at-large.

The question on the ballot will read as follows:

The strange wording of the question comes from the fact that lawmakers expected councils to be reducing their size—hence the word "restrict." Unsurprisingly, adding at-large back to an already smaller ward-style council (like we have in Urbana) hadn't really figured into their language. It was was likely written this way to accomodate the influx of councils eliminating at-large seats in response to Voting Rights Act lawsuits like those seen in Springfield and Danville.

Where did this come from?

Members of the Urbana City Council and the Mayor disagreed on the city ward map that is updated after each U.S. Census. On July 26, three weeks before the ballot deadline, one council member announced that he was working to circulate petitions to place the at-large question on the ballot. There has been no public hearing, no commission, and no report of how this will alter Urbana government—this is about politics not government.