Port Chester, New York, will be holding elections on Tuesday June 15.  The Justice Department sued Port Chester under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in 2006.  The Department alleged that Hispanics could not elect candidates of choice under the at large system.    In an unconventional twist, the city suggested a cumulative voting system instead of the creation of single member districts. Under cumulative voting, a voter could cast six votes, even for the same person.  The idea is that this gives minorities the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.

The biggest drawback to cumulative voting is that it tends to elect the most extreme candidates.  Because a candidate under a cumulative voting system can disregard entirely large portions of an electorate, candidates with more extreme, more niche views are given a better chance to win. Of course this is one explanation why alternative remedies receive such support among academics and the more extreme political factions.  When a candidate is relieved of the obligation to appeal broadly in a single member district, the more polarizing candidates tend to win.  Just what America needs right now.

If no Hispanic candidate wins the election on Tuesday, expect the Justice Department to ask the court to revisit the remedy.

In the meantime, Federal Observers will be present in Port Chester. Under a December 2009 order, the law that gave the Federal Government the right to monitor polls in places like Philadelphia, Mississippi and many places in the Deep South was extended to Port Chester in the suburbs of New York City.  This means that teams of individuals from the Office of Personal Management will be on the ground, in the polls, recording all that they see into federal observer reports.