At-Large Elections and Vote Dilution: An Empirical Study

The 1982 amendments to the Act, however, have remained a subject of controversy. Opponents of the Act misperceive municipal at-large electoral systems, believing they provide as much minority representation as single-member district systems. This Note addresses that misperception with data showing that at large schemes provide significantly less minority representation than other schemes. The various standards used by federal courts in reviewing the constitutionality of at-large election systems are outlined in Part I. Part II sets forth an analysis of Congress\u27s response to the judicial ambivalence toward at-large elections- the 1982 amendments to section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Part III presents empirical data illustrating that, generally, blacks are significantly more underrepresented on city councils in cities with at-large election systems than in cities with district systems. Part IV discusses the implications of the Note\u27s empirical findings in light of the congressional amendments to the Voting Rights Act. The Note concludes that the congressional reimposition of the results standard for proving at-large election systems discriminatory was a necessary step forward because municipal at-large election systems remain systematically underrepresentative of significant population groups

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software