Posted on 06/15/2010 2:05:01 PM PDT by Howard Morrison
Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.
Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Is this satire???????????
I’m trying to figure out how anyone thought this was a good idea.
Unfortunately, no...
Good grief. This nation is infected with terminal infantilism.
worse than that
Isn’t this illegal under say ... the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment ???
If I were a white candidate who loses due to this - I would certainly take it all the way to the Supreme Court ...
This is nothing more than stuffing the ballot box - WHICH IS ILLEGAL ...
And if Hispanics get 6 votes, do Vietnamese get 12 [assuming they are half the population of the Latinos] ???
And lets not forget the GLAAD crowd, and how about the PETA folks, not to mention the senior citizens ...
And here’s an oldie [but a goodie] - how about JUST one person, one vote ... OR IS THAT TOO MUCH OF A NOVEL IDEA ???
SHEESH !!!
Good luck.
Someone would have to file a suit...that would be my guess. This is just a prime example of a liberal judge making a terrilbe decision for who know why?
Socialism was invented by jealous, childlike slackers. It’s way easier to sit back and whine for the goodies of life than it is to work for them. Our “children” are now “children” to age 26, according to Obamacare. In many households, the “children” are even older.
The left has infantilized one special interest group after another: blacks, women, gays and now Hispanics, teaching each, in turn, to whine its way through the courts asking for unlimited handouts.
Thats why I said it would have to be a losing white candidate - he would have standing to sue ...
An individual voter might not have right to sue under the standing doctrine - unless he could succesfully claim that his right to vote was abridged under the Voting Rights Act ...
So, if I’m reading this right, *all* residents including the white ones get 6 votes. What will the judge do if the percentages stay the same? For example, if the white candidates continue to win, only instead of them getting 1000 votes while the hispanic candidates get 500, now the white candidate gets 6000 votes, and the hispanic 3000?
Or, for cryin’ out loud!!!
Try again:
OH, for cryin’ out loud!
I read this wrong - sorry ...
Let us assume 7 whites and 3 Latinos running [10000 vote electorate] ...
6 of the whites got 1100 votes, 1 got 400 votes ...
Each Latino got 1000 votes ...
6 whites win ...
New election - 6 votes each ...
If they all cast votes the way they did before, 6 whites win [each with 6600 votes] ...
The only way for Latinos to win is to substantially back only 2 candidates[each with 6601 votes, 1 with 4798] ...
More chance to win - less chance for Latino candidates to run ...
So our system of voting gets contorted out of recognition to increase the chances of a member of a certain ... are you ready for it? ... race.
If EVERYONE gets to vote 6 times. . . how does this CHANGE anything?
Do Judges have to take a low IQ test, nowadays?
It goes like this:
Say your town has 30 Amish and 70 Mennonites. There's a Board that has 3 seats. Every year, all 3 seats go to the Mennonites, by a 70-30 vote.
Now they institute Cumulative Voting. Each voter gets to cast 3 votes. In this election 5 Mennonites and 2 Amish candidates are vying for the 3 spots. Now look at the possible outcomes...
Each Amish candidate gets 45 votes, as the 30 Amish with 3 votes each divide them perfectly between the two. There are 210 votes (70 x 3) for the 5 Mennonites. If they're perfectly spread out, they'd each get 42 (210 / 5). The board would have TWO Amish and only one Mennonite!
Of course, in the real world, votes don't distribute quite so evenly. Even so, the Mennonites could just ignore their bottom 2 candidates, and give the 210 to the other 3... at 70 each, they stiull get all 3 seats.
So what do the Amish do? They give ALL of their votes to ONE candidate. With 90 votes, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the Mennonites to keep them off of the board. With 210 votes, they can only top 90 votes for two candidates. Now the board is 2-1 Mennonite, but the minority Amish have a voice on the board... and pretty close to a proportaional prepresentation (33%, compared to 30% populatio and 28% of the candidates on the slate).
It isn't a perfect system, but it also isn't terrible or unfair. It assumes identity voting for many... but that isn't far from today's reality anyway. At least this way, larger minority groups have a very strong chance of gaining a voice on boards.
I can see that happening too, but it’ll take longer than I have time for.
Why would the Mennonites run 5 candidates? Why not 3, and win all seats?
I understand your example; but is assumes poor planning and irrationality on the part of political parties.
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