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Read this story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100615/ap_on_el_st_lo/us_voting_rights_election

For those of you who can't, or won't, read it, it tells us of a suburb in NY that gives all voters 6 votes a piece! It is an attempt to, IMHO, artificially elect a hispanic representative. This is absolutely ridiculous, and I would say completely unconstitutional. I am so mad over this I can barely type. We may not all agree politically speaking, but we should at least be able to agree that this is COMPLETELY wrong and discriminatory. As someone of Mexican descent I find this to be patronizing and unfair. I am an American, and I have the same rights as everyone else, no better and no worse.

Thus making everyone else that chooses to vote... equal to 3/5ths of a vote.

Wait... what the hell? Crazy times we live in.

This post responded to an error, the error has been corrected.

dogma wrote:The article doesn't appear to state that Hispanic residents are the only residents permitted six votes. It appears to state that all residents are given 6 votes, as you would expect in a cumulative voting system.

AH yes, I had mistyped, but corrected my message almost immediately after posting. In fact it was corrected BEFORE you posted. Regardless, as Wrex said, it makes the system worse, and is completely ridiculous. If people aren't voting then it is their own fault, giving residents more votes to simply create a situation where someone is elected is completely ridiculous, and patronizing to boot!

Le sigh... politician fail.

But the new system isn't brought in because people aren't voting.

The idea is to allow people to allocate their votes if they wish, so that a Hispanic lobby group might organise its voters to vote evenly among Hispanic candidates. It's basically a variant voting system to account for mixed priorities (you might prefer these kinds of economic policies, but those kinds of cultural values).

sebster wrote:Umm, if you read the article you'll note that everyone gets six votes. It isn't some people getting six votes and some people getting one.

The idea is to allow people to allocate their votes if they wish, so that a Hispanic lobby group might organise its voters to vote evenly among Hispanic candidates. It's basically a variant voting system to account for mixed priorities. I'm not sure it'll achieve anything, nor am I convinced it's goals are laudable (voting for someone because they're Hispanic is as silly as voting for someone because they're Democrat or Republican - vote for them because they're capable).

Come on people, I made a small error and corrected it right away. Notice that my initial post is accurate! But yes Sebster, voting for someone because of their ethnicity is completely idiotic. You vote for politicians that will provide effective governance, not because of what their culture is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:But the new system isn't brought in because people aren't voting.

That is what the article implied. It stated that the voting system was brought in because a community with a significant hispanic population had not yet elected a hispanic representative. This implies that either hispanics aren't voting, or aren't fielding worthy candidates. The government's logic is of course predicated on the idea that people of one ethnicity will vote for their own ethnic group over political and economic ideology. Whether that is true or not is completely dependent on the individual and the community.

JEB_Stuart wrote:AH yes, I had mistyped, but corrected my message almost immediately after posting. In fact it was corrected BEFORE you posted.

It wasn't corrected before I hit reply.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Regardless, as Wrex said, it makes the system worse, and is completely ridiculous. If people aren't voting then it is their own fault, giving residents more votes to simply create a situation where someone is elected is completely ridiculous, and patronizing to boot!

I don't see how conditions are made worse. Cumulative voting simply creates a system in which 'votes' are divided into fractions. If you only want to vote for one person, then you would simply cast all your fractional votes for that person. If you feel unsure, then you have the option of splitting your votes in order to indicate that fact. If anything, it allows residents greater freedom to express their sentiments with respect to the candidates.

You might consider the rationale behind the change offensive, but the procedure itself is simply an alternative method of voting by which people can choose an official.

dogma wrote:It wasn't corrected before I hit reply.

Indeed. I am a bit testy tonight as the traffic today made the commute especially tiresome...

dogma wrote:I don't see how conditions are made worse. Cumulative voting simply creates a system in which 'votes' are divided into fractions. If you only want to vote for one person, then you would simply cast all your fractional votes for that person. If you feel unsure, then you have the option of splitting your votes in order to indicate that fact. If anything, it allows residents greater freedom to express their sentiments with respect to the candidates.

You might consider the rationale behind the change offensive, but the procedure itself is simply an alternative method of voting by which people can choose an official.

Truly, I should have explained myself better. It is not the system of voting that bothers me, well yes it does but that is a different topic, but the method in which it was installed. It is very patronizing and especially disturbing to find government officials treat you as if you are incapable for voting and electing someone yourself. If I choose to vote for a hispanic politician, then I will do so on his merits, not because we both might have delicious tamales on Christmas Eve!

In a community that is half Hispanic, the chances that those votes will be concentrated are greatly increased. The idea behind this, was to 'get out the vote', specifically within the Hispanic community.

Perhaps the system itself is not geared to favor specific groups, but chances are that it doesn't matter. It won't matter even more, if the results are the same as any other election. The system is geared however, towards leveling the field to minorities, which in this case, doesn't actually make any sense. The Hispanic community is not a minority within this village, and any move towards 'voting Hispanic', is bound to strengthen any candidates with a 'Hispanic' campaign.

A quick explanation...

VOTE FOR BOB! HE IS WHITE, AND UNDERSTANDS WHY YOU LIKE STARBUCKS!

That probably won't end very well, but I do not know any specifics about this community, mainly how their Hispanic population is composed. If all Hispanics are 2nd generation Mexican immigrants, that could most definitely make this a pretty unfair system. It creates the potential for a solid majority of voters, to vote based on the sauce to their meal's, country, and culture of origin.

Propagating less of that, is better than propagating more... that is for sure.

JEB_Stuart wrote:Come on people, I made a small error and corrected it right away.

I started my reply before you corrected. I then made changes to my post based on your edit, but you replied before I completed my edit - irony, eh?

Notice that my initial post is accurate! But yes Sebster, voting for someone because of their ethnicity is completely idiotic. You vote for politicians that will provide effective governance, not because of what their culture is.

It's nice to dream, isn't it.

That is what the article implied. It stated that the voting system was brought in because a community with a significant hispanic population had not yet elected a hispanic representative. This implies that either hispanics aren't voting, or aren't fielding worthy candidates. The government's logic is of course predicated on the idea that people of one ethnicity will vote for their own ethnic group over political and economic ideology. Whether that is true or not is completely dependent on the individual and the community.

Not really. Single vote systems produce a lot of problems. If the hispanic population produces a lot of candidates with similar platforms they can split their vote between them, resulting in no hispanic candidate winning office.

I think a better alternative would be preferential voting, where you place each candidate in order of preference, so that if your candidate is the least popular your vote is reallocated to your second favourite option, and so on. That system might not have been possible given the voting infrastructure, or it might not have been desirable for a range of other reasons.

But a single vote system is sufficiently problematic that we can't just assume the only reason an hispanic candidate is not being elected is because no sufficiently qualified hispanic candidate has run.

The responses on the website were really overblown, this definitely isn't a process of giving the minority 6 votes and other 1, but it is a little wierd. I don't know enough about the issue or current US voting procedures to comment in detail.

Ditto
Just to clarify, do all voters in the village get 6 votes?
My brain is fuzzier than normal this morning.

May be entirely wrong but I think some European elections use a similar ballot and iirc the MEP ballot does too.

There is a similar system in some elections called second alternative voting in which you cast a first, second and third preference vote. If no candidate gets 50% on the first preference votes, the second preference votes are added and there is a recount.

However it seems in this election you can give all your votes to one candidate.

I don't really understand why the problem (of no Hispanic candidates) arose or how this will solve it, since all electors get six votes I assume the white electors will continue to place all their votes for the white candidates.

It's not racially biased in execution, as far as I can tell.