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Dublin officials recently announced the start of their public outreach efforts in the shift to district-based elections, following a vote in favor of the move by the City Council in February, which was prompted by a letter challenging the city’s previous at-large election process.
“Currently, Dublin elects four City Councilmembers and the Mayor at-large,” city officials said in an announcement on Monday. “Under district-based elections, the City will be divided into separate districts of equal population. Dublin voters will vote for one Councilmember who resides in their district to represent their district as a whole. The office of Mayor will continue to be elected at-large by all City voters.”
The move means that city officials are tasked with approving district maps that would go into effect in the next regular election cycle, with the goal of finding ways to draw district boundaries that make populations as equal in number as possible, while also working to accommodate physical boundaries such as highways and bodies of water.
In addition, the process of drawing district lines is intended to be guided by respect and accommodation for “communities of interest,” which can be particularly challenging for officials to identify without robust input from residents on the ground, according to city officials.
“The City encourages the public to provide input to ensure “communities of interest” are taken into account during the district drawing process,” Dublin officials said in the statement this week. “A ‘community of interest’ is a neighborhood or community that would benefit from being in the same district because of shared interests, views, or characteristics.”
Communities of interest can include existing neighborhoods, as well as communities who share various demographic characteristics that can lead to common needs for social and health services. The council member elected to each district must be a resident of that district.
The City Council will begin seeking community input on the drawing of district boundaries in a public hearing at their next regular meeting on April 19.
The initial hearing, as well as the second one on April 28, will be aimed at seeking input on how the districts should be composed prior to the drawing of draft maps, with two more public hearings set to be held after the release of the maps.
The change to district-based elections was prompted by a letter from the Malibu-based office of law firm Shenkman and Hughes, which alleges the city’s practice of at-large elections as being a violation of the 2001 California Voters Rights Act (CVRA). The letter was sent on behalf of Southwest Voter Registration Project and the members who live in Dublin.
“(V)oting within the City is racially polarized, resulting in minority vote dilution, and, therefore, the City’s at-large elections violate the California Voting Rights Act of 2001,” the attorneys alleged in the letter dated Dec. 29, which the city received on Jan. 4.
“The CVRA disfavors the use of so-called ‘at-large’ voting — an election method that permits voters of an entire jurisdiction to elect candidates to each open seat,” they added.
The letter proceeds to point to the history of at-large election methods as being the target of voting rights advocacy, on the grounds that it results in “vote dilution” which puts minority voters at a disadvantage in affecting the outcomes of elections.
Attorneys proceeded to point to the city’s high proportion of residents of Indian descent according to the latest census data, and the lack of Indian American representation in the city’s governance as “revealing” of an overall system that dilutes the votes of the city’s residents of Indian descent.
“In the City’s most recent elections the fate of Indian candidates, when they do emerge, has been unsuccessful,” attorneys said in the letter. “In the City’s 2020 election for both Mayor and City Council, all Indian candidates lost their bids.”
The attorneys point to Arun Goel’s loss in his 2020 bid for mayor, as well as Sri Muppidi’s and Samir Qureshi’s losses in their runs for the City Council the same election, as well as Goel’s and Bobby Khullar’s losses in runs for the council in 2018, as evidence of “racial polarization” according to the CVRA.
“Given the racially polarized elections in Dublin’s elections, we urge the City to voluntarily change its at-large system electing its City Council,” the letter concludes. “Otherwise, on behalf of residents within this jurisdiction, we will be forced to seek judicial relief.”
Cities hit with such demand letters have tended to convert voluntarily rather than fight the issue, deeming subsequent litigation as unwinnable given past court rulings in California.
The council took up the matter at their Feb. 15 meeting, and voted unanimously to adopt a resolution shifting from at-large to district-based elections.
The CVRA was recently amended to allow jurisdictions the option of shifting to district-based elections by initiating discussions within a 45-day period of receiving a legal threat alleging CVRA violations, allowing them to avoid the costly legal fees that would come from attorneys following through on litigation.
Under the timeframe proposed under the resolution approved by the council, final maps would be tentatively due for council approval by late August, following a substantial public outreach process.
Following the pre-map hearing on April 19 and workshop on April 28, the city will hold an additional workshop on May 4, followed by four more public hearings on May 17, June 21, July 19 and Aug. 16.
They have also created a dedicated portion of the city’s website for information on the shift to district-based elections and the ensuing process of drawing and finalizing district boundaries.
