In 2008, the U.S. government had sued Euclid, Ohio, under the Voting Rights Act, concerning School Board elections. Euclid is 45% black, but almost no black had ever been elected to the School Board under the city’s at-large elections. The U.S. District Court, on July 13, 2009, had ordered that Euclid use Limited Voting for its School Board elections. But on September 10, the federal government appealed that order to the 6th circuit.
Limited Voting provides that each voter may only cast one vote, even though either two or three seats are open in that particular year. Apparently the Justice Department does not like this solution, and will probably be seeking single-member districts.
The DOJ and other math MORONS can NOT detect that half the votes in half the gerrymander districts = about 25 percent MINORITY RULE.
Democracy NOW via P.R. — before Civil WAR II starts — due to the many, many EVIL laws of the gerrymander MONSTERS.
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes needed for each seat winner.
The Euclid School Board had agreed to a stipulation that the current at-large system was a violation of the VRA. They did so apparently so that they could present their preferred remedy, cumulative voting, for the court to impose, since they had no authority under Ohio law to determine the manner of their election. If the remedy proposed by the local governing body alleviates the VRA violation, then preference should be given to that solution.
Note that there were previous VRA decisions regarding the City of Euclid. The city and school district are coterminous but separate legal entities.
The school board had presented cumulative voting as their first option, with limited voting as an alternative, but later appeared to not have a preference. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections said that they couldn’t handle cumulative voting, and the judge was concerned that the voters couldn’t handle it either. This was of particular concern in this case, because a significant issue was whether black voting turnout would be sufficient for any remedy to work.
While 45% of the current population is black; it was 30% in 2000; and 16% in 1990, and in the past black voter turnout was significantly lower. This may or may not be because of a lack of electoral opportunity.
The DOJ argued that limited voting would not be effective, since in the past black voter turnout was less than 2/3 of whites, and even all blacks cast their vote for a single candidate, they might not be able to defeat a well-distributed support among 3 candidates by white voters.
The DOJ proposal was for creation of 5 single-member districts, with one district having a 60% black voting age population (about 1/2 the school districts black population). The district nearly bisects the school district along I-90, and probably would have been drawn to do so if it were legal.
The DOJ may be filing an appeal simply to keep their opotions open based on the initial election using limited voting in November. It would be hard to argue that limited voting won’t have the desired effect if it did.
Note that limited voting in general permits a voter to vote for fewer candidates than the number of seats that are open. For example in Philadelphia, voters may vote for 5 candidates, though seven are elected. In Euclid, voters will be limited to voting for one candidate, with 2 or 3 board members being elected at alternate elections.