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Overview of the Glades County Elections Case
This case, Thompson, et al. v. Glades County Board of County Commissioners, et al., represents one among many nationwide related to the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, devoted to preserving citizens' right to vote on an equal basis. In Glades County, Florida, the ACLU is charging that the present method of electing the Board of County Commissioners and School Board deliberately dilutes the votes of minority populations and prevents the election of black political officers.
Both the Glades County Commission and the County School Board are composed of five members each and are elected at-large from residency districts. This county-wide at-large voting system allows every voter in the County to cast a ballot for each Commission and School Board candidate. In a county such as Glades, in which African-Americans make up only about 12 percent of the population and tend to vote differently from the 83 percent of the county's population who are white, the white voters' candidate of choice wins every time, effectively diluting the votes of the minority African-American population in districts where minority voters are concentrated. This result is reflected in the fact that only once has there been an African-American member of either legislative body. The ACLU is asking the Court to remedy the system by implementing new procedures for future Commission and School Board elections.
Billie Thompson, the first plaintiff named in this case, is an African-American voter in Glades County who ran for the School Board in 1998. Although she received significant support in districts with concentrated minority populations, the at-large system currently in place caused those votes to be effectively diluted. She was not elected and believes that if the system had been different - if it had been a single-member district system, for example - she would have won.
The single-member district system is the most common remedy used in cases like this one, and it is an approach the ACLU supports in Glades. It involves splitting the county up into different districts - five in this case - and allowing only the voters within that district to elect their candidate. The African-American population in Glades County is sufficiently compact and geographically insular to constitute a majority in one district in a five single-member district plan. Such a system would provide an equal opportunity now missing for a district with a majority black population to elect the candidate they feel is best prepared to represent them.
The second plaintiff in the case, Patricia Brown, is an African-American voter in the community concerned that the current system does not allow people to elect candidates of their choice. The complaint filed by the ACLU Voting Rights Project alleges that African-Americans in Glades County bear the effects of discrimination in such areas as education, employment, and health. This history hinders the ability of African-Americans to effectively participate in the political process.
This lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers to prove that the results of at-large elections in Glades County violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The complaint urges the Court to order that new election procedures be implemented, which will ensure voting on an equal basis for all Glades residents.
