[EL] Voting Rights Act Challenges to Election Timing

[Rob Richie]

I've seen several California VRA settlements where moving the election
 date was a part of the settlement. Outside of California, the ACLU of
Maryland publicly explored a lawsuit against Greenbelt (MD), and
accepted its decision to move the election to a a time of year with
higher, more representative turnout that, combined with an increase in
size of the council, did contribute to election of a more diverse
council.

Note that one of the interesting apparent impacts of going to ranked
choice voting in the four Bay Area cities with is a significant uptick
in election of people of color and women. - -white men now hold about
one in ten of the 52 seats elected by RCV there. Although the system
is still winner-take-all as applied in single winner elections, it
means all candidate are at the table when the largest, most
representative turnout participates. We're in the midst of a less
anecdotal analysis  of the possible correlation, and should  have that
study done this summer.

Rob Richie, FairVote
Website: www.fairvote.org
Landline: (301) 270-4616

> On May 16, 2016, at 12:23 PM, Aaron Lawrence <aaron.lawrence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Listmates,
>
> I'm looking at the issue of extremely low turnout local elections scheduled during "off years." Is anyone aware of any (successful or otherwise) challenges under Voting Rights Act to this sort of scheduling of an election by a local government? (i.e. where it was contended that scheduling the election during an "off year" where turnout is predictably very low results in the abridgment of voting rights?)
>
> (California recently addressed this issue to an extent through SB 415, which goes into effect over the next several years and generally moves towards consolidating local elections with higher turnout statewide elections, but I was curious of the extent to which this issue has been addressed in the courts.)
>
> Aaron Lawrence, Esq.
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