6 to 1, cumalative voting-UNF*CKINGBELIEVABLE

[Rockclimber]

I can't believe I'm posting a Fox News article but there you have it.

This really pisses me off:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06 ... -election/
Hispanic Apparent Winner in Unusual NY Election

Published June 16, 2010
| Associated Press

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PORT CHESTER, N.Y. -- An unusual election in a New York City suburb, in which voters could cast six ballots for one candidate, apparently resulted Wednesday in the first Hispanic elected to the village Board of Trustees.

Luis Marino, a school district maintenance director, was in fourth place among 13 candidates for six trustee positions in the final but unofficial vote count, said Aldo Vitagliano, a spokesman for the village of Port Chester.

Marino, a Democrat, had 1,962 votes, well back of leader Bart Didden, an independent, who had 2,576. But Marino was well ahead of the seventh-place candidate, who had 1,272. Only 28 affidavit ballots remained to be counted, Vitagliano said.

Marino, 43, was thrilled.

"I am very happy, and I hope to do my best," he said. "I was happy to do whatever the people decided."

The court-imposed election was held after a federal judge ruled that Port Chester's conventional at-large trustee elections violated the Voting Rights Act. 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. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.

The success of one of the two Hispanics on the ballot could lead to wider use of the unusual voting system, called cumulative voting, especially as a remedy for discrimination. Port Chester was the first municipality in New York to use it, said Amy Ngai, a director at FairVote, a nonprofit election research and reform group that was hired to consult in Port Chester.

In cumulative voting, residents get multiple votes to apportion as they wish among the candidates. Experts said the system allows a political minority to gain representation if it organizes and focuses its voting strength on specific candidates.

Cumulative voting has been used to elect the school board in Amarillo, Texas, the county commission in Chilton County, Ala., and the City Council in Peoria, Ill.

The judge also ordered Port Chester to implement in-person early voting, allowing residents to show up on any of five days before Tuesday to cast ballots. That, too, is a first in New York, Ngai said.

Village clerk Joan Mancuso said 604 residents voted early. Total turnout had not been calculated early Wednesday.

Arthur Furano, an 80-year-old lifelong resident of Port Chester, voted Thursday and gave all six of his votes to one candidate.

"That was very strange," he said. "I'm not sure I liked it. All my life, I've heard, 'one man, one vote."'

His wife, Gloria Furano, gave one vote each to six candidates.

On Tuesday, Candida Sandoval voted at the Don Bosco Center, where a soup kitchen and day laborer hiring center added to the activity, and where federal observers watched the voting from a table in the corner.

"I hope that if Hispanics get in, they do something for all the Hispanic people," Sandoval said in Spanish. "I don't know, but I hope so."

Campaigning was generally low-key, and the unusual election itself was less of an issue than housing density and taxes.

The village held 12 forums -- six each in English and Spanish -- to let voters know about the new system and to practice voting. It also produced bright yellow T-shirts, tote bags and lawn signs declaring "Your voice, your vote, your village," all part of the education program mandated in the government agreement. Announcements were made on cable TV in each language and reminders were sent home in schoolkids' backpacks.

All the materials had to be approved in advance, in English and Spanish versions, by the Department of Justice.

Aaron Conetta said the voter education effort was so thorough he found voting easier than usual.

"It was very different but actually quite simple," he said. "No problem."

[scorpio]

Wow, is about all I can say. The illegal alien problem is being used to further the joos agenda. We are witnessing the destruction of our nation, our culture and our language.
Now, they are trying to hand over political positions to them.  
Of course, it was a the jewish controlled 'legal' system that demanded this outrageous solution.
Did you know that there are city council meetings in parts of Los Angeles that are actually held in Spanish??

[Christopher Marlowe]

If you study the law of Democracy, you will find that there are numerous schemes enacted for the purpose of manipulating the outcome vis a vis race or whatever.  It's an old story. Getting down to the nuts and bolts of how to manage elections for the best possible outcome is a noble pursuit, but too often the people involved have an agenda.

I don't believe the story said that this fellow wasn't a citizen. It did say that Marino was the first "Hispanic" elected to the board of Trustees. If he isn't a citizen, I think it would be allowable to prevent his being on the Board of Trustees under the current "political function" exception:

Alienage classifications are those which treat citizens and non-citizens differently.  Typically, of course, the classifications have the effect of denying a benefit or an opportunity to non-citizens that is generally available to citizens.

The Constitution affords protection to citizens in ways that it doesn't for non-citizens.  The privileges and immunities clause of section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, for example, provides: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of CITIZENS of the United States."  Citizenship is also a prerequisite for voting under the 15th and 19th Amendments as for election to Congress or the Presidency.

Nonetheless, the Equal Protection Clause (as well as the Due Process Clause) makes no distinction in its text between the protections it affords citizens and non-citizens.  "No State shall deny to any PERSON...the equal protection of the laws."  Government does, of course, sometimes draw distinctions between citizens and non-citizens, thus raising the issue of what sort of judicial scrutiny should be applied to these classifications.  The answer the Supreme Court has given has changed over the years and has become complicated--more complicated than many commentators feel is desirable.  (Commentators have suggested that consistent application of middle-tier scrutiny (that is, insistence that the government show that its classification substantially furthers an important interest) would explain virtually all case outcomes, but the test that the Court has said it is employing has varied.)

In Graham v Richardson (1971) and Application of Griffiths (1973), the Court subjected state laws disadvantiging aliens to strict scrutiny. In Graham, the Court struck down a law that conditioned the payment of state welfare benefits on citizenship.   Preserving limited state resources for citizens was not found to be a sufficiently compelling interest.  In Application of Griffiths, the Court considered a state law that restricted bar membership to citizens.  Again, a majority of the Court applied strict scrutiny to strike down the law, finding citizenship to not be closely related to one's ability to fulfill the responsibilities of a lawyer.

In the late 1970s, the Court carved out an exception to the rule of strictly scrutinizing alienage classifications. Specifically, the Court held in a series of cases beginning in 1978 that the rational basis test should apply when alienage classifications are "bound up with the operation of the State as a governmental entity."  Using minimal scrutiny, the Court upheld state laws that excluded aliens from the police force (in 1978) and work as probation officers (in 1982).  In the 1979 case of Ambach v Norwick, the Court upheld a law requiring that public school teachers, because of their part of a governmental function and their role in inculcating American values, be citizens.  Proving, however, that the "political function" exception is not limitless, the Court in the 1984 case of Bernal v Fainter, struck down a state law prohibiting aliens from becoming notary publics.
see: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/project ... enage.html
[That's a great resource for Con Law questions.]

I think a Trustee of a village would definitely be considered a "political function", so the town of Port Chester would not offend the Constitution by passing a law that limited the position of Trustee to citizens only.  Of course, if he is a citizen, then all of this is irrelevant.  

If electing a hispanic to the board of trustees was the worst thing that happened this year, I would say we had a really awesome year. One "Hispanic" out of six on the Board of Trustees? What is anybody worried about? And he might be a good rep. If people don't like the voting system, then they should change it.

I don't know this fellow's background because "Hispanic" is kind of vague. It's interesting to hear about the migration of Mexicans to states other than the southwest. I'm cool with all the races of people, but I do object to the non-enforcement of immigration laws. It seems purposeful, and I think the intent has been to destroy workers' rights.  Mexico has a very unequal distribution of wealth and power, and this has been encouraged by a corrupt government and voting system. Should the US abet this system by providing jobs to citizens of Mexico, rather than encouraging those Mexicans to pursue a more just system in their own country? If the people of Mexico ever did anything to offend the Jews in this country, you can guarantee that we would be hearing about a purple, green or red twitter revolution very quickly.  

As I already noted, these voting schemes are nothing new. But the latest voting technology has created the opportunity to steal elections outright. There are bigger elections getting stolen more dishonestly.

[Negentropic]

Hey why complain, all you have to do is trade your cheesburgers for painted donkeys!