The Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department recently approved the use of Limited Voting, for Calera, Alabama city council elections. See this story. There will be 6 to be elected, but each voter will only be able to cast one vote. Calera is 20% black and has slightly more than 10,000 residents. It is a suburb of Birmingham. Thanks to Ed Still’s VoteLawBlog for the link.
It seems puzzling that the Voting Rights Section recently objected to Limited Voting in Euclid, Ohio, yet it has approved the idea for Calera, Alabama.
Standard practice in Pennsylvania. Non-Home Rule Counties have three at-large County Commissioners but you can only cast two votes for county commissioner in the General Election.
P.R. now.
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes needed for each seat winner – via pre-election candidate rank order lists for surplus and loser vote transfers.
Really low tech — to get REAL Democracy in legislative bodies.
Calera had 3158 persons in 2000, and had 10,700 according to 2008 Census estimate, a 240% increase in 8 years. It is on the interstate southeast of Birmingham, and has an extremely disjointed shape, with a small core area with a rectangular grid, presumably the original town, and several areas a few miles away that have curved streets as in new suburbs. So it appears that its is a case of suburban growth overrunning a small town outside the big city (its about 30 miles from the center of Birmingham). Part of the consent decree is that the DOJ will drop their objection to 177 annexations by Caldera.
Calera currently has 5 members elected from districts, and held an election in 2008 using new districts. The DOJ has prevented everyone elected then from taking office. Based on 3000 population in 2000, that would be 600 per district. With all the annexations, they may have ended up with several 1000 in some districts and so the new districts were drawn to reflect the population in the annexed areas. The core area may have gone from 5 districts to 2 (or maybe 1-1/2).
Racism at its best with the DOJ & Black groups. Why does a black vote count more then any other race DOJ????