YAKIMA, Wash. -- Latinos in a Washington state community are fighting for fairness in elections.
In Yakima County, members of the county commission have remained white even as the Latino population has soared. Robin Engle, communications and development director for the immigrant rights group OneAmerica, said it's allowing the board to ignore the concerns of the Latino community.
"The very slight white majority in Yakima County is functionally able to win each of those three seats in virtually every election cycle," she said. "Only one, I believe, Latina candidate has ever won to serve a seat in the Yakima County Commission."
Commissioners are elected countywide. Critics of the current system would like to see Yakima County implement ranked-choice voting, Engle said. OneAmerica and four Latino voters have said they'll sue the county if elections aren't changed by July 13. Commission members have asked for an extension. They have said they're concerned about these issues and want to work collaboratively with residents to fix them.
Regelio Montes, a community activist in Yakima who signed the letter to the county commission, said the Latino community feels ignored, and not only because of the voting system. Commission meetings were changed to mornings, when many people are at work, and voting material and hearings aren't translated into Spanish. Montes said he feels the community has been discouraged from voting.
"We want someone that will represent everyone and focus on the whole county, and to take us as part of the community, too," he said.
If the county doesn't change its elections voluntarily, Engle said, OneAmerica will challenge it under the state's Washington Voting Rights Act, signed into law in 2018.
"It's a tool where voters can challenge their local municipality's election system if they feel their vote is being suppressed," she said, "and that challenge can have teeth."
Engle said her group is researching other localities where unfair election systems might also be challenged under the Washington Voting Rights Act.
The letter to the Yakima County Commission is online at weareoneamerica.org, and the text of the Washington Voting Rights Act is at crosscut.com.
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Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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Unions, environmental groups and other progressive organizations are leading the charge to reform California's referendum process, which allows voters to repeal laws passed by the legislature.
Assembly Bill 421 came about after the oil industry gathered signatures to repeal a law blocking new drilling in neighborhoods.
Asm. Isaac Bryan, D-Los Angeles, who introduced the bill, said the current system incentivizes signature gatherers to mislead voters.
"The oil companies then spent nearly $25 million in 90 days to gather the signatures to pause the law, so they could apply for new drilling permits and put it on the referendum," Bryan recounted. "And there was hours of documented video evidence that many of the signature gatherers were just outright lying to people."
Currently, it is legal to word a referendum in a confusing way, in which a "yes" vote would overturn the law in question. Under the proposed bill, voters would simply decide whether to keep or repeal the law. The California Chamber of Commerce opposes the measure, arguing it would make signature gathering more expensive and should require a constitutional amendment.
Bryan added the bill would require signature gatherers to wear a badge with their name, identification number and photo.
"Folks should have to have adequate training and also be registered," Bryan contended. "So that it's clear that, if they are violating the ethics of signature gathering, that can be reported in a way that's accountable."
The bill would require petitions to identify the referendum's top three donors and mandates at least 10% of signature gatherers be community-based volunteers. The bill has already passed the State Assembly. Its next stop is the State Senate Elections Committee.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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A court hearing next week could help determine whether an eastern South Dakota mayor will face a recall election. Events are rare for this state, but there is a strong appetite for "direct democracy," according to one expert. The legal wrangling surrounding a possible recall vote concerns the mayor of Baltic, with the next hearing scheduled for June 15th.
Joshua Spivak, author and senior research fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College and expert on recall elections, said South Dakota law prevents statewide officeholders from being recalled; it has set a tone that even local leaders have rarely. But he said residents and activist groups are showing a lot of interest in statewide ballot initiatives.
"Voters like this," he said. "And it's not a conservative and it's not a liberal position to like direct democracy."
Spivak added several proposed statewide ballot questions are already going through approval stages for the 2024 election. It follows high-profile questions put before South Dakota voters in recent years. He described it as a "counter-pushback" toward legislative efforts to add more requirements for initiated measures. Those who support such moves worry about what they call "citizen lawmakers" working around the Legislature.
In states where restrictions to circulating petitions for ballot questions have been added, it has often been Republican lawmakers pushing for those changes. So far, Spivak explained, those policymakers have not paid the price come election time. But he added it is fair to question if their constituents will eventually have a change of heart.
"There is a strong possibility, especially if somebody's running an insurgent campaign against these election officials saying, 'Hey, I support your right to make your own choices.' They didn't," he said.
Experts say the dynamic is interesting for South Dakota because it was the first state to adopt the initiative and referendum process on a statewide level. As for recall elections, Spivak's research notes there is only one documented vote happening in South Dakota in the past dozen years. That happened in Whitewood, where the election official in question survived the effort to vote them out of office.
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The Keystone State's general election is less than six months away and a nonpartisan, grassroots organization is already getting the word out to residents about the importance of voting and voter registration.
Pennsylvania has more than 8.7 million registered voters, but it is estimated the voter turnout during the municipal primary election was only 27.5%.
Becky Wyss, president of the League of Women Voters of Westmoreland County, said they are hoping to see a better turnout in November.
"The turnout was very light in Westmoreland County," Wyss pointed out. "I looked up the newspaper accounts of it. And the overall turnout for the primary was 29%. But that's up from 24.5% in 2019 when many of the same races were on the ballot."
Wyss noted they are committed to having Vote411.org set up for Westmoreland County in time for the general election. The League's national website is a one-stop shop for election information. Anyone can check their voter registration status, find their polling place or request a mail-in ballot. By entering a mailing address, voters can also see a guide to the specific races and candidates on their ballots.
Wyss explained turnout may have been low because of uncontested races, and independent voters may have been unsure about how Pennsylvania's closed primaries work. The League held a "Timely Topics Speaker Series," to help educate voters, and Wyss encouraged residents to attend the next speaker series.
"In the fall, we have two speaker series on the school board," Wyss said. "One is on school board governance. The second is on financing for schools. So we're hoping that will generate a lot of interest in getting people out to the general election. Because school boards, there's just a ton of school board elections going on right now."
Judy Clack, vice president of voter services for the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh, said the overall turnout there improved from 16.5% four years ago to 31% this year. She noted the district attorney and county executive race was contested this time, but four years ago, it was not contested.
"Mail in, 35% of our 31% who voted, voted by mail, 35% in Allegheny County, and our county has become very supportive of mail-in voting," Clack observed.
Clack added voting integrity is a top priority and contends the election process in Pennsylvania is secure.
"There is no fraud in Pennsylvania," Clack contended. "If you get a mail-in ballot, it is keyed to your voter registration. When you return it, they scan it and they see Judy Clack turned in her mail-in ballot. That is given to where my polling place is, and so I could not go vote again."
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