ABSTRACT
The majority-minority single-member district (SMD) was once viewed as the exclusive remedy for minority vote dilution. Twenty-one municipalities in Alabama now elect their governing councils through limited voting, and three others elect their councils through cumulative voting. In addition, cumulative voting is used to elect the county commission and the school board in one Alabama county. Two rounds of municipal elections, in 1988 and 1992, have been held in Alabama since the adoption of two modified multi-seat election. Limited and cumulative voting systems involve a change in the rules that have traditionally governed how votes may be cast in multi-seat elections in the United States. The typical voting rules employed in the multiseat format have been: every voter is allowed to cast as many votes as there are seats to be filled, but only one of those votes may be cast for any particular candidate. Most of the elections under alternative voting rules in Alabama have been limited voting elections.
