Tuesday, June 15, 2010

"Strange" election gives residents in Hispanic community 6 votes

"What happened to - one man, one vote?"

A friend mentioned this story of a New York City suburb that gave residents six votes in a Port Chester election. Odd, but apparently true.

Yes, voters could give all six votes to one candidate. And that’s exactly what some did.

Resident Arthur Furano flipped the lever six times for his favorite candidate, according to the Associated Press.

It’s the first election for village trustees since since 2006, when the federal government alleged the existing election system discriminated against Hispanics. No Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats despite the village being nearly half Latino.

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, according to the Associated Press.

Even Furano admitted it was strange.

"I'm not sure I liked it,” he said. “All my life, I've heard, 'one man, one vote.'"


7 comments:

ThaQueenCity said...

Sounds like something only N.Y. would do! And they want to know WHY we don't care for "their" ways here?

Anonymous said...

BORING!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

NOT ONLY BORING, BUT IF NOT FOR THE RACE CARD, WHAT WOULD WANNA-BE
JOURNALISTS LIKE FRANCO BE WASHING DISHES?

Anonymous said...

SOUNDS LIKE CHICAGO POLITICS! THEY VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN!

Anonymous said...

Peggy West, the Milwaukee genius, is the person to talk to about this situation. She's a major in geography, and will tell you exactly where this town is.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Peggy West, the "affirmitive action" idiot from Milwaukee who was elected to public office by equally ignorant voters,
moved this little hamlet to the south pole! This place seems "far and away"!

Anonymous said...

Actually, cumulative voting (multiple votes with the right to use all votes for one candidate) and limited voting (multiple votes with the right to use most, but not all, votes for one candidate) systems have been used in areas under coverage of the Voting Rights Act.

One place that used limited voting in North Carolina was Cleveland County in the 1990s, as the result of a voting rights lawsuit against the county. That arrangement has since been struck down by a federal court.