April's Ferguson-Florissant School Board Election To Be The First Using Cumulative Voting
Voters in the Ferguson-Florissant School District will select their school board members much differently on April 2.
The new method, called cumulative voting, settles a Voting Rights Act lawsuit filed in 2014 by the ACLU of Missouri and the NAACP. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in January.
As in the past, an unlimited number of candidates can run for open seats — there are three candidates for two open posts in April — and the top vote-getters will be elected. But unlike previous elections, voters can cast up to two votes for one candidate under the new cumulative system.
Black residents make up 80 percent of the students in the Ferguson-Florissant schools but just half of the district’s voting population. That meant white residents voting as a bloc for their preferred candidates could keep candidates preferred by black residents off the board, said Tony Rothert, the ACLU of Missouri’s legal director.
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/april-s-ferguson-florissant-school-board-election-be-first-using-cumulative-voting
