One man, six votes?

One of the founding principles of our nation is "One man, one vote."

Not any more. Welcome to the electoral twilight zone of Port Chester, New York. An election this coming Tuesday for village trustees turns that principle on its head. One man, if he is a member of a designated minority group, can have six votes.

This absurd reorganization of the electoral process was ordered by a Federal judge in response to alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act. In voting for six at-large council seats a member of the town's Hispanic minority has never won an election. Whether or not those candidates were qualified to serve is apparently secondary to the racial bean counting mandated by the "equality of outcome" crowd.

So to in effect "stack the deck", the Hispanic residents of Port Chester, NY can now allocate their six votes in the traditional way, one to each of six candidates, or cumulatively by directing six votes to one single candidate of the proper racial complexion. In this way the judge hopes to guarantee the election of at least one Hispanic village trustee.

It's madness. Here we have a whole new level of judicial activism which is certain to lead to more electoral mischief. Why have elections at all if a judge can impose his will and effectively dictate the outcome?

What happened to a candidate campaigning on ideas? Surely if a Hispanic resident aspires to the village council he (or she) ought to be capable of representing the interests of the whole town. Or is it now permissable to assert racial parochialism; Hispanics care only about other Hispanics, Blacks about other Blacks, Chinese only about other Chinese (but certainly not Koreans or Cambodians!), and of course, whites are only capable of representing other whites.

Is this really the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers?

Posted at 12:23 by Chris Wysocki   [/election]   Comments | Perm Link |
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