The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Blacks and Hispanics

Political scientists have long been interested in the link between election structures and the representation of interest. Here we examine one such link, that between local election structures and minority representation. Research of the middle and late 1970s revealed that at-large city council election procedures resulted in a dramatic underrepresentation of blacks and some underrepresentation of Hispanics. Now a revisionist position claims that at-large elections no longer have this detrimental effect on minority representation, if needed they ever did. In this paper we examine this controversial link by assessing the impact of at-large and district elections on the representation of blacks and Hispanics using varied methodologies and 1988 data. We find that although at-large elections represent blacks much better than a decade ago, there is still a small gap between the representation afforded by at-large and district systems. On the other hand, the impact of local election structures on Hispanic representation is less clearcut and seems to vary from region to region.