Three Compton residents sue city, allege voting rights violations

[DAL]

Three Compton residents are suing the city for alleged violations of the California Voting Rights Act, contending that the city's elections are stacked against Latino candidates.

The complaint filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleges that the at-large elections for City Council seats have the effect of diluting the Latino vote. Three Compton voters -– Felicitas Gonzalez, Karmen Grimaldi and Flora Ruiz -– filed the suit against the city and City Clerk Alita Godwin.

City offices are closed on Friday, and the city attorney could not be immediately reached.

The mayor and the four members of Compton's City Council are African American. Compton was long seen as a primarily black community, but Latino residents now make up about two-thirds of the city's population. The suit alleges that although Latino candidates have run for council seats in a number of elections, no Latino candidate has been elected since at least 1999, and possibly ever.

Compton council members represent specific geographic districts within the city, but voting for each seat is not restricted to residents of the district. The suit alleges that the at-large elections violate the California Voting Rights Act of 2001.

A previous Times analysis of voting patterns in the cities of southeast Los Angeles County found that Compton was one of a number of cities with large immigrant populations and a pattern of extremely low voter participation. In at least three municipal elections since 2005, less than 10% of the voting-age population cast ballots, the analysis found.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...iolations.html

[ateamer]

The four cities in this county all used to have at-large elections. One of the cities now has district elections following a lawsuit that claimed that Hispanics were being denied, yadayadayada. When residents in another city tried to get district elections, the same group who sued to get districts was now opposing them, and so far has blocked it. In that case, they don't want district because the extreme leftist university students would only control one seat instead of all five.

[RLRay]

It is a know fact that few Latinos do vote in Compton, but Blackavar touches on a suspicion that I have held all along. I have suspected the reason that they do not vote is because they are not eligible because they are in this country illegally. I approached some of my neighbors who have admitted to being 'illegal' and offered to help them with the paper work and study what they needed to know to become legal and they chose to stay illegal and take their chances. I totally do not understand their thinking especially when people are willing to help them become legal. You would think though, that with Latinos being 65% of the population (in Compton) that more would be involved in the political process.