CHC 1979-04-10 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Filipino community makes only 10% of the registered voters. By no stretch of the imagination would a candidate of Filipino extraction running from the district of Puna ever hope to get elected on the at-large scheme. Because, assuming that there is racially motivated voting, the at-large scheme makes him subject to the vote of the entire county making it virtually impossible for him to get elected from the County of Hawaii. Whereas , if he was running strictly from the district of Puna his chances of being elected would increase_by:-tenfold. _The same applies whether that district was made up of Japanese or only Haoles, Hawaiians, or whatever it is. So that is the situation the mainland was faced with and as a general rule the courts have looked at at-large voting schemes very, very carefully. They suspect at-large voting schemes because many such voting schemes, especially in the south , were created to perpetuate white supremacy. This is not true, here. I don ' t think such concepts can be applied, here. It is probably not applicable. So, the one man , one vote concept everybody uses it very loosely. The law doesn ' t require that each person ' s vote have the same weight in Puna as it will in Hilo or in Ka'u or in Kona. It does require, as much as possible, equality of representation. But factionally it doesn ' t require exact equality. You cannot do that, from a functional standpoint. The court cases have gone all over the place. If I were to read you some of the decisions, you would be more confused than you were prior to listening to me this afternoon. Basically, as I say, the basic rule is that one person ' s vote should equal another' s as nearly as possible. In terms of its weight in proportion to its ability to elect a candidate. Now, the scheme does not minimize or cancel out voting strength of racial , ,,-political , or economic groups inthe population. You cannot set up a plan to favor any racial , political , or economic groups or other types of factions in a community. Or even a political candidate, for that matter. There have been situations where politicians try to redraft, what we call gerrymander, district lines so that they can perpetuate their own election. Or see that Mr. Jones , down the street cannot be reelected because he has to run from another district where he is not very well liked, for whatever reason. Population. Population is the proper measure of equality in apportionment. Population. The registered voters 1 si _=.has been used but basically the courts favor population. Because as we all know the number of the difference between registered voters and the population can differ substantially. The elected officials are supposed to represent the people in the community, not just the registered voters. So we fall back to population. The other guideline is when you are talking about voting dilution cases, as these racial cases have been called. You have to consider access to political processes. - 29 -