MIN CHC 1989-10-31 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• In my opinion, a challenge to Hawaii County's at-large voting system based on election results in the past few elections could not succeed. It would be difficult to prove that there has been racial bloc voting against a minority that has significantly decreased the representation which the minority would have had with a single-member district system. In the Mainland cases where an at-large system was successfully challenged, there has been fairly clear racial bloc voting in ethnically polarized communities (for example, in Gretna, no black had ever been elected although blacks comprised 30% of the population) . Several modifications to the present system of selecting the Council have been proposed: (1) all members to be elected from single-member districts (nine districts have been proposed as the specific number) ; (2) six single-member districts with three at- large districts; (3) all to be elected at-large, with no residency requirements; and (4) district elections in the primary, with at-large elections in the general election. Any Council election system which involves election from a district, including the proposal for district elections in the primary only, would come under the constitutional one person/one vote requirement: the districts would have to contain approximately equal resident populations. Deviations of up to about 15% have been upheld by courts if necessary to achieve some important policy; for example, to preserve existing political units. If the County adopted district council elections, it would have -to establish a reapportionment commission to draw the district boundaries for the 1992 election because the boundaries should be based upon the most recent census, and the results of the 1990 census will not be available until sometime well after the Charter Commission has disbanded. As an aid to members of this Commission who might be trying to determine the approximate sizes and boundaries of single- member districts, I will enclose under separate cover a tally of registered voters by precinct. While districts must be based upon resident population, not registered voters, the number of registered voters probably bears a close enough relationship to population for the Commission to get a general idea of what districts might look like given various assumptions. The supporters of single-member districts have argued, generally, that the district council member will more truly represent the. district if elected solely from the district and that island-wide campaigning is too difficult and expensive. Advocates of the at-large system havestated that council members elected from only one district will tend to look at issues only from the perspective of their district and that the individual voter has more power if he or she can vote for nine Council members rather than just one. 661 -4-