On May 9, Amarillo used cumulative voting for the fifth time to elect school board members. As with every previous election, candidates of color were elected. Voters returned African-American incumbent James Allen and Latina incumbent Mary Faulkner, both of whom had won endorsements from the Amarillo Globe-News in its editorial praising the school board's overall effectiveness. Before cumulative voting had been installed in 2000, no candidate of color had won for two decades, triggering a voting rights lawsuit that led to the implementation of cumulative voting.
As with many local elections in Texas, turnout was low -- barely 5% of the city's nearly 100,000 registered voters. In the city's last cumulative voting elections for college board of regents in 2008, turnout had been more than 15%.
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Cumulative Voting Boosts Fair Representation in Amarillo
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Washington State Enacts NPV
On April, 28, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed National Popular Vote (NPV) legislation, making Washington the 5th state after Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey to sign the legislation. These five states have a total of 61 electoral votes, just less than a quarter of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring the compact into effect.
27 state legislative chambers in 17 states have passed the NPV plan, including Arkansas, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont most recently. Introduced in 48 legislatures since its launch in 2006, the bill has earned the support of more than 1650 state representatives. Recent polls indicate more than 70% of voters across a full range of states support a national popular vote of the president. [The Olympian Article on WA Passing NPV] [Longview Daily News and Columbian Editorials on NPV] [FairVote's FAQ on NPV & Direct Election of the President] [Rob Richie’s Blog Post] [National Popular Vote] |