SC: New district voting puts Black influence on ballot

If Charleston County Council elections were still done the old way, Karen Hollinshead Brown wouldn't be running this year. Nor would Edith Askins or Rosemarie B. West. All three candidates are black Democrats running low-budget campaigns in hopes of representing either District 4 or 5, two of the three majority black council districts that a federal judge approved as a fix for the county's former at-large system. If the new single-member districts, which voters will see for the first time in Tuesday's primaries, were meant to increase black voters' influence in county politics, they seem to be off to a good start. [more]