June 17, 2010
A federal judge in New York has approved a method of voting recommended by officials in the village of Port Chester that allows Hispanic voters to cast up to six ballots. Voters in Port Chester are electing trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged four years ago that the existing system is unfair. Although the village of about 30,000 is one-half Hispanic, no Latino has ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats. Judge Stephen Robinson said that violates the voting rights act.
This is nuts. Maybe the Hispanic voters voted for non-Hispanic candidates because they believed them to be the best ones running. I am amazed at this. Does that mean that if a black person votes for a white person, the white person might not be allowed to win? Will this now extend to gender? Will women be allowed extra votes if a judge decides there are not enough of them in a certain office?
This is the kind of identity politics most Americans have come to hate. It's bad enough that liberals manage to get ACORN to register non-existent voters and that dead people get to vote in some parts of the country. Multiple voting to achieve a social end is a farce. And it's no laughing matter.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
