Word: quota
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Under Cambridge's proportional representation system, the ballots must be counted, redistributed, and recounted many times to decide the election. In the Council race, election commissioners first establish a "quota" of votes necessary to elect a Councilor based on the number of ballots cast...
Candidates with a quota of more number-one votes are automatically elected. To seat the Council, the election commissioners divide up the ballots among the candidates by number-one votes...
...candidate with the most number-ones is seated first. Then, the commissioners take away ballots from this person's pile, picking them at random, until only a "quota" is left to the newly elected councilor's credit...
Eventually the election commissioners come to a candidate who has less than a quota of ballots to his or her credit. At this point they eliminate the candidate with the fewest number-one votes and transfers, and redistribute the ballots he or she had received...
...Dominican exodus has grown along with the country's economic troubles. A huge foreign debt, high inflation and a 30% unemployment rate make it nearly impossible for people to make a living at home. Cutbacks in the U.S. sugar quota last year crippled the chief export industry and displaced thousands of agricultural workers. The refugee flight serves as an escape valve for social discontent, as well as a source of foreign earnings: the emigrants send home an estimated $280 million each year. Concedes Andres Moreta Damiron, the Dominican consul in San Juan: "Our government needs this injection of money...