On April 29, U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson, a Reagan appointee, ruled that Fremont County, Wyoming, is violating the federal Voting Rights Act by electing its five county commissioners at-large. The population of Fremont County includes 19.9% who are Native Americans. Yet no Native American has ever been elected to the Fremont County Commission. Large v Fremont County, 05-cv-270. The case had been filed in 2005 and the trial had been in 2007. UPDATE: here is the 102-page opinion.
The county had tried to defend its at-large elections by asserting that the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional.
Actually, it is not the practice of electing the county commissioners at large that is the “culprit” in the lack of success Native American candidates have had. Rather, it is the use of a “block vote” ballot in making the at-large choices, an outcome well documented in the scholarly literature on electoral systems. Some kind of multi-member district that offers choice in what is essentially an “at large” fashion would be required in any case where one seeks to achieve a more proportional success rate for Native American candidates.
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