Case On Voting Rights Within The Town Of Islip To Begin Wednesday

ISLIP, NY — The federal voting rights case trial involving the Town of Islip will begin on Wednesday. The case, Flores v. The Town of Islip, was filed the Latino residents of Islip, along with Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change, who serve the Latino residents of Islip.

The group is suing the Town of Islip and the Islip Town Board, alleging that the town government's current at-large voting structure denies Latinos representation and is in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

According to FairVote.org a single-member district system, the most commonly used for legislative elections in the United States, is when the candidate with the most votes in a geographic location is declared the winner. However, the splitting of the geographical votes can potentially result in misrepresented parties, manufactured majorities, an increase in gerrymandering, lower voter turnout, higher levels of wasted votes, and lack of fair representation to third parties, racial minorities and women, the website says.

In an at-large voting system, which is used most commonly in local elections, an entire town or city is considered to be one large district and all candidates for office run together against each other.

The group will argue that the current system should be replaced with a councilmatic system, which involves each town board member representing a specific district within the town rather than the town as a whole. This would allow Latino voters, which make up about 30 percent of the town residents, to be able to select a candidate of their choice to represent them on the Islip town board.

"In the case, members of one of the largest Latino communities on Long Island seek to vindicate their rights and the rights of generations to come by eliminating a system that deprives Latinos in Islip the right to be heard," a statement from Make the Road New York reads.

To date, no Latino has ever been elected to the town board.