The Village of Sleepy Hollow, once a quiet manufacturing town 30 miles north of New York City, has been transformed as waves of immigrants from Central and South America have relocated there.
The influx could be seen in the Mexican taquerias and Ecuadorean delis that filled downtown, but was not evident in the makeup of the presiding local town board. That disconnect spurred a lawsuit asserting that the voting system in the Town of Mount Pleasant — which encompasses Sleepy Hollow — made it impossible for Latino residents to elect a candidate to represent them.
That case was resolved on Tuesday, when Mount Pleasant agreed to institute a new system and cover the roughly $1.5 million in legal fees for the plaintiffs.
The case was the first filed under the state’s 2022 John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which offers some of the most muscular protections in the nation for communities of color.
The resolution will require the town to abandon its current, at-large system of voting, which the plaintiffs successfully argued had diluted their electoral power, with the non-Hispanic majority easily outvoting the Hispanic population of Sleepy Hollow. The result often was town boards made up of Republicans and non-Hispanics.
The settlement will implement a system with geographically distinct districts, with one district centering on Sleepy Hollow. It will also expand the Town Board of Mount Pleasant, which also encompasses Thornwood and parts of Briarcliff Manor, by two seats.
“Solely as a matter of compromise, and without admission of any liability, the parties have agreed to establish a new system for the election,” the settlement reads.
A similar case was settled in February in the Town of Newburgh, which will now use a form of ranked-choice voting to choose its Town Council.
In Mount Pleasant, the vote to change the voting system was unanimous, even drawing Republicans on the town board to adopt the settlement on Tuesday evening. Still, the resolution of the dispute was not without hard feelings from those who see the case as a Democratic power grab.
“The town board is opposed to amending our electoral system because we believe it is fair,” Town Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi said last week. “However, this settlement is a compromise to address the complaints raised in the lawsuit while sparing the town additional legal expenses.”
Initially, Mount Pleasant officials appeared willing to quickly resolve the claims raised in the lawsuit, filed in 2023. The Voting Rights Act offers a process, beginning with independent expert analysis, for localities to address such complaints without resorting to litigation. The town retained two such experts, Dr. Lisa Handley and Jeffrey Wice, who study patterns of racial polarization in voting.
The report they produced showed that indeed, such a pattern did exist: “Non-Hispanic white voters and Hispanic voters prefer different candidates,” wrote Mr. Wice in his report. “In these races, the non-Hispanic candidates almost always win.”
But instead of adopting a new voting system as the reports suggested, the Town of Mount Pleasant opted to test the new state law in court. That procedure wound on for two years and cost the town roughly $3 million in legal fees, including those of the plaintiffs in the case.
“After years without having any say in their government, the Hispanic population of Mount Pleasant will finally have their seat at the table,” said David Imamura, a partner at Abrams Fensterman, LLP, which, along with the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, represented the plaintiffs.
Sergio Serratto, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, celebrated the result on Tuesday, saying, “I am proud to have been part of achieving representation for the Latino community.”
He added: “Now we will finally have our voice heard.”
Grace Ashford covers New York government and politics for The Times.
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