From FNC's America Live 6/16/2010 - Port Chester, NY gives Latinos 6 votes per person!

In a questionable effort to give latinos greater representation, even though they might not even legal or eligible to vote due to age, they have been given (pending what I hope will be a successful legal challenge) 6 votes per latino voter to cast as they wish???

EVERY voter was given 6 votes, not just latinos.
I’m not saying the system that was set up is right, just that the headline is misleading.
This was a very complex “remedy” to a very complex situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/nyregion/12chester.html

Again, I’m not saying that it’s proper, just that there’s a lot more to it. There were threads here on FR at the time.

You must have missed the hundred or so posts on FR about this.

Cumulative voting gives 6 votes to everyone, not just “latinos.” It is equal and therefore legal.

The subsequent election elected one black Republican, one Hispanic, and four white members of the Board of Trustees.

Port Chester, NY gives Latinos 6 votes per person!

That headline is a bit deceptive, since each non-La-teen-oh got 6 votes as well.

Seems an odd election scheme, for sure - and even more odd that a judge would be the one writing the election law. But it's no different from, say, having two votes for your state's senators and being allowed to cast them both in one race and then sit out the other. Nor is it any different from the Free State Project, or less-organized efforts to pool influence.

After all, there were six seats open in the race in question, which means if all the La-teen-ohs pooled their votes to get one of their own elected, he's still outnumbered at least five to one. /shrug

Of course, on the other hand, this gives the official stamp to racial quotas in political representation (a la "wise La-teen-uh") - which seems to be the ridiculous fate of our once-great republic.

I just don't get it.

6 votes each: how does that work?

Just say 20 people to vote x 6 = 120 total votes. 120 Votes for the same person each time.

as opposed to 20 peaople with 1 vote = 20 total votes for the same person each time.

Same differance in the long run, isn't it? Seems like it is a wash, but what do I know. Guess it makes them feel GOOD to have 6 votes. strange. What am I not getting?

"I just don't get it"........"Same difference in the long run, isn't it?

No.

This is a problem that stems from a shrinking majority and a growing minority. In the case of this particular town it was a growing hispanic minority, but historically, and especially in the south, it has been a growing black minority.

The town, or any town, city, municipality elects all the members of the council "at large" which allows the shrinking majority to elect all the city councilmen. Meanwhile, the growing minority doesn't have enough votes to elect any councilmen.

So they sue.

And when the courts gets involved, the solution that judges have always imposed has been to force the town to elect the councilmen from single member districts. This allows the growing minority to elect a councilman, or 2, or 3, depending on how big the minority is.

The complaint about single member districts is that they say that each council member is at the council meeting representing only his district which is divisive and it would be better if all the councilmen were elected at large because they would be voting to represent the interests of the whole town.

So the judge in this particular case imposed this 6 vote per voter solution which allows the town to continue to elect their councilmen at large while allowing the minority to concentrate their votes and elect a minority representative.

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