We got to make it fair
Don’t like how the vote is going? Give people more votes:
A Federal Judge in New York didn’t like the outcome of recent elections, so he gave Hispanics extra votes to make things more fair.
And:
But Randolph McLaughlin, who represented a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the goal was not merely to encourage more Hispanics to vote but “to create a system whereby the Hispanic community would be able to nominate and elect a candidate of their choice.”
Yes, the Hispanics must get a candidate of their choice. So should every other demographic, right? Fair is fair.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:48 am
If they want to elect a candidate of THIER CHOICE then let the ANTI AMERICAN INTERLOPERS go back to THIER COUNTRY! In THIER COUNTRY can feel free to vote for any candidate they want. In OUR COUNTRY they get ONE VOTE IF THEY ARE CITIZENS! Activist judges should be ousted and prosecuted for misusing thier positions.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:54 am
This is some bullshit.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Like I said over at DPUD, did anyone RTFA? This is just cumulative voting. It’s not like Hispanics get six votes and blacks, whites, and Asians only get one apiece.
“One man, one vote” isn’t what people seem to think it is. It means equality among voters, not that it’s impossible for all voters in an election to have the same number of cumulative votes. Here, all voters have six votes to apportion as they choose. This doesn’t seem all that different from my town’s recent council election: there were two open seats and so we were instructed to “Pick Two” from the list of candidates. That’s not cumulative, but it’s close.
Keep in mind that states have some flexibility in how they run their state and local governments. As long as they’re not violating rights, they can have run-offs, make judges run for office, disallow political party identification, have a one-house state legislature, ignore separation of powers, have a parliamentary system, or any number of other things that the federal government can’t do. Whatever state a person is in, the odds are that at least one of the things I just mentioned happens in your state.
So really, the only outrage here is the judge’s motivation. And even that has precedent: it’s exactly why the VA-2 seat is gerrymandered the way it is. So, nothing new here.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:20 am
Drat; that should’ve said “disallow political party identification on ballots.” Otherwise it would be a First Amendment violation.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:39 am
i understand each gets six but it seems set up to sway the outcome in favor of hispanic candidates.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:49 am
I’m going to have to agree with Wolfwood, here. There are six spots, and people get six votes – one for each position. The candidates are (and already were) “pooled.” They didn’t run for a specific seat, the top six vote-getters won.
The only change is that instead of one vote each, the voters get one vote per seat. They have the option of using all six votes for one candidate, or one each for their six favorite candidates, or to split them up any way they choose.
Like Wolfwood said, the only outrage here is the motivation behind the lawsuit and the judge’s decision – “No Hispanics have been elected! Waaahhh!”
I’m still confused about why people care about race to begin with, though. [sarcasm] Maybe that means I’m not a good judge of what’s “right” with racial issues. [/sarcasm]
June 16th, 2010 at 9:55 am
I’m not really sure how it would actually favor Hispanic candidates when everyone still gets the same number of votes regardless of race, but you’re right that that is the intent (which I think is stupid, but see the last paragraph in my last comment).
June 16th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Let them elect enough people and they can gerrymander things to their hearts content, just as everyone else in power does, right/left, black/white, etc…
June 16th, 2010 at 11:40 am
what RML said.
June 17th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
If everyone now gets six votes, then wouldn’t the more-likely-to-vote whites simply beat the hispanics by more? The only two things that would have an effect is if something changed the ratio of white to hispanic voters or magnified the effect of hispanic votes but not white votes. I’m not seeing how this new system actually helps hispanics, as it does neither.
June 19th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Nate, what you’re missing is that they have 6 votes each, and can cast more than one of the votes for the same candidate. So, if there’s only one Playmate running, and you only want Playmates, you can cast all 6 for her. Meanwhile, other voters are going to divide their votes among the non-Playmates, with some using each vote for a different non-Playmate. So, if only 20% (a clear minority) of the voters use all 6 of their votes for the Playmate, there’s a good chance she’ll get elected.
June 20th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
The flaw here is to assume that Hispanics only vote for Hispanics, and whites only vote for whites.
The fact that no hispanic has ever been elected does not mean that hispanics are being denied any right to vote. Identity politics make me want to vomit.