Tag Archives: vote dilution

DODGE CITY, Kan. — For the past 13 years, Hector Almendarez has picked up his hard hat every workday and driven down Wyatt Earp Avenue — passing the Cowboy Capital Saloon & Grill and the Boot Hill Museum, where visitors drink sarsaparilla from the Long Branch Saloon – to work his shift at a nearby meatpacking plant.

He is one of thousands of Hispanic immigrants who have come to this city of 27,000 in Southwest Kansas over the past four decades to work in one of its plants. Known for its cowboy culture and as a symbol of the Western frontier, Dodge City, a quintessential emblem of an older, Whiter America, is now 65 percent Latino, according to U.S. Census data.

But despite its changing demographics, Dodge City’s city commission – the local body in charge of enacting policies that affect its residents most directly, including housing, transportation, and education – remains nearly all White. Almendarez, who makes rounds at his plant registering fellow Latino citizens to vote, believes the commission’s membership might better represent the city’s diversity if its five members were elected from local neighborhoods. Instead, every commissioner is elected city-wide rather than by just one district. Two Latino residents are suing over the practice.

“Cheektowaga faces challenge to election methods under new state voting rights law”

December 19, 2023, 6:35 amUncategorizedState Voting Rights Act, vote dilutionSpencer Overton

The Buffalo News:

A former Cheektowaga Town Board candidate claims the town’s voting system prevents minority candidates from being elected and is urging officials to consider making a change.

Ken Young, a Black resident who campaigned as a Democrat for a spot on the board this past election cycle, wants the Town Board to implement a ward system for voting and impose a two-term limit for board members. He laid out his claims in a notice he filed with the town last week under the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York.

Cheektowaga’s elections are all at large, meaning the officials whom residents elect represent the entire town. This is different from the City of Buffalo, for example, whose Common Council members each represent one of nine districts in the city.