Arthur Furano voted early — five days before Election Day. And he voted often, flipping the lever six times for his favorite candidate. Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation.
Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday.
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.
I found the article as a featured headline on Yahoo.com. I don't particularly enjoy going to Yahoo for news since they're the very definition of MSM (Mainstream Media), but whenever I'm there I usually take a casual glance and see what's going on. When I spotted the title "Town's election gives residents six votes" with the caption of "The New York town of Port Chester responds to a Federal complaint that it was under representing Lainto voters." with the blue link button saying "Novel plan". I thought, "Surely this isn't what it looks like" and clicked.
I was wrong.
Do I have to say the obvious? If every man has an equal vote, and no man is being kept from voting by force, then the only logical reason for being underrepresented would be because he was too lazy to go vote. How does failing at your civic duties equate to getting extra votes? Furthermore, how is it fair that the system is encouraging racial voting? There isn't any rule in place that says "There aren't enough whites in government in New Mexico, all whites get 6 votes.", yet Latinos are afforded that right?
I hope the article left something out, but seeing as how the AP calls this a "novel plan", I doubt it.
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