Districting Materials
The California Voting Rights Act, Elections Code §§ 14025-14032
Additional meeting videos, meeting and forum presentations, news releases and other useful reference materials will be added here as they become available.
Background Information
- The City received a demand letter dated December 11, 2015 from the Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund (MALDEF) alleging the City’s “at large” system of electing City Council members violates the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) and must be converted to afford Latino voters an equal opportunity to elect City Council members.
- The demand letter threatened a lawsuit if the City did not comply with MALDEF’s demands. After evaluating the merits of the letter with the City Attorney’s Office and analyzing other cities’ losses under similar threats, the City entered into a settlement agreement with MALDEF in February 2016, which was subsequently amended.
- One intent of the settlement agreement is to create at least one district in which Latinos constitute a majority of the citizen voting age population.
- Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the City placed Measure NN on the November 2016 ballot to ask voters whether Placentia should amend its current “at large” system for electing officials to a “by-district” system. Placentia voters approved the measure 11,135 (60%) to 7,536 (40%).
- The City could be exposed to financial liability in the millions of dollars for not complying with the California Voting Rights Act.
- Other Orange County cities already making this change include Anaheim, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Lake Forest, San Juan Capistrano and Stanton.