The motivator for many of the districts is to avoid lawsuits for violating the California Voting Rights Act, passed by state lawmakers in 2002. That law prohibits at-large elections when they hinder the ability of a “protected class” of people, such as Latinos, to elect candidates from their community.
Corona-Norco Unified School District board member Jose Lalas won re-election in November.
The recent Corona-Norco school board election proved to be a good testing ground to study whether minorities are underrepresented on the board because of the way its elections are structured.
The November Corona-Norco Unified School District board election was the first in recent years in which a Latino candidate ran. A Press-Enterprise analysis of the race’s voting patterns suggests Latinos could be at a disadvantage in elections where candidates run across an entire district rather than in parts of the district.
Precinct results showed that Latino candidate Mary Ybarra did better in areas where voting-age Latinos were more concentrated.
Ybarra, who lost the election, captured about 23 percent of all votes in precincts where voting-age Latinos made up 50 percent or more of the population. As the number of voting-age Latinos decreased, so did her votes.
School district officials say they don’t think minorities are disenfranchised and are changing the election system to avoid a lawsuit That change would re-structure elections to prevent racially polarized voting.
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