Alternative Voting Systems as Remedies for Unlawful At-Large Systems
The Yale Law Journal · 1982
Alternative Voting Systems as Remedies for Unlawful At-Large Systems Courts have repeatedly recognized that at-large voting systems 1 have the probable effect of discriminating against electoral minorities. 2 At present, the virtually exclusive judicial remedy for unlawfully discriminatory at-large voting systems' is single-member districting.4 This remedy is both drastic and fraught with problems.It often requires a fundamental alteration of the existing governmental structure, 5 guarantees only indirect 1.Under at-large voting, all voters in a district may cast a single vote for each open seat in a given election.When the voters in a district can elect only one candidate to a governmental body, atlarge voting is identical to voting in a single-member diitrict.Unless otherwise stated, however, the term "at-large voting" will refer only to systems based on multimember districts.This type of at-large voting is the dominant electoral system in American cities.See Sanders, The Government of American Cities: Continuity and Change in Structure, 1982 MUN.Y.B. 178, 179-80 (66% of American cities elect all council members at large, while another 19% elect some at large). See,e.g., Rogers v. Lodge, 102 S. Ct. 3272, 3275 (1982) ("At-large voting schemes and multimember districts tend to minimize the voting strength of minority groups by permitting the political majority to elect all representatives of the district.");City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 65-66 (1980) (plurality opinion) (criticizing at-large systems for submerging minorities); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. 124, 158-59 (1971) (same).3.Not all at-large voting systems are unlawful.While the Supreme Court has recognized that they tend to be discriminatory, it has refused to hold such systems unconstitutional per se.See, e.g., Rogers v. Lodge, 102 S. Ct.