211224 DRAFT CVRA-Election System Community Forum Informational PresentationFrom:Peter Grant
To:Peter Grant
Cc:Fred Galante; Alisha Farnell; Christina Dizol
Subject:DRAFT CVRA-Election System Community Forum Informational Presentation
Date:Friday, December 24, 2021 11:13:52 AM
Attachments:Cypress CVRA Overview Preso w Notes.pdf
Mayor and Council (via bcc),
Happy Christmas Eve!
Included with this email is the DRAFT informational presentation for the community forums. Because
this is a draft, please do not share it. Communications LAB and I expect it will continue to be refined
until Monday’s 430p meeting. We’ll have hard copies for you Monday and it will be displayed on the
monitor in the board room and on the webinar.
Your subcommittee has reviewed and commented on a previous version of the presentation which
will, ultimately, evolve into a 20-30 video (with animation) for the community forums to inform
community input. It will also be available for through the website and channel 33.
We’re sharing the draft today to give the City Council as much time as possible to review it and
provide comments to me. I will call you late morning/early afternoon Monday to collect feedback for
any last minute refinements. And, of course, your review, consideration and adjustment of this
presentation is one of the primary purposes of Monday’s meeting. If it’s easier for you to email me
comments on the draft before I call you Monday, that’s great too.
Many of the slides contain notes Communication LAB will be using to scrip the presentation voice
over and your input on those is most welcome too.
Thanks and happy/merry,
Pete
Peter Grant
City Manager
City of Cypress
Office 714-229-6680
Cellular 714-335-1685
pgrant@cypressca.org
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•Nationwide protections for voting rights
•Prohibits any state or local government from imposing voting laws that result in
discrimination against racial or language minorities
•Examples include literacy tests, moral character tests, property-ownership,
grandfather clauses, poll taxes, etc.
•Section 5 -Certain jurisdictions must receive pre-approval when implementing
changes, overseen by US Attorney General or US District Court of DC
•In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled that there are conditions that must be met to
prove minorities have been disenfranchised:
•the affected minority group is sufficiently large to elect a representative of its
choice,
•that the minority group is politically cohesive, and
•that white majority voters vote sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the
minority group’s preferred candidates
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•Expands upon federal voting rights act
•Provides additional, statewide protections for voting rights
•Makes it easier for minority groups to prove their votes are being diluted by “at-
large” elections
•Applies to all 58 Counties, more than 480 cities, more than 1,000 school and special
districts
•CVRA eliminated one of the federal requirements to prove disenfranchisement:
demonstrate specific geographic district where a minority could establish a majority
voting concentration.
•This difference between the federal and state law make it easier for plaintiffs to issue
a challenge and/or file a lawsuit against local governments and eliminate at-large
elections where it is believed that disenfranchisement has taken place.
•When plantiffs are successful, the local agency must transition its election system
within 90 days.
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Since its passage in 2002, CVRA has triggered a “quiet tsunami” of change in the
California election process
•216 school districts
•34 community college districts
•137 cities
•35 water and other special districts
•All counties BOS are now by-district
•Prior to 2002 only 29 of California’s 482 cities elected Councilmembers by-district.
•In less than 20 years, that number jumped to over 160 in 2020
•Many of the jurisdictions noted here transitioned to By-District elections voluntarily.
But others have changed after receiving a CVRA Challenge notification.
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•In the City of Cypress’ case, the City has received a challenge letter from attorney
Kevin Shenkman on behalf of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project
and its members residing in the City of Cypress.
•The challenge alleges that the City’s current at-large electoral system for members of
the City Council is racially polarizing and results in minority vote dilution.
•Therefore, according to the challenge’s assertions, the City is in violation of the CVRA
•The City is currently assessing the merits of the challenge letter, carefully reviewing
its current electoral process and seeking expert advice on next steps.
•CVRA Challenges are complex and difficult to defend, they are also very expensive to
the defendant. When jurisdictions lose such challenges they are responsible for both
sides expenses.
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•Currently, the City Council is assessing the merits of the challenge and seeking expert
assistance.
•This includes an initial demographic study of the City’s population, past election
history, and willingness to defend against a challenge.
•Furthermore, in many cases, cities that have not changed the election process
voluntarily faced formal lawsuits that changed the election process involuntarily and
without community input.
•All of these elements are being reviewed and weighed as part of the deliberative
process.
•The main question is whether to remain in an at-large election system or transition
to a by-district process.
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•At-Large election systems are typically the trigger for a CVRA Challenge
•It is this system that the City is currently utilizing and reviewing at this time.
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•Orange Unified School District utilizes At-Large / By-District voting. All voters may
vote for candidates in each of the Trustee Areas on the ballot, but the Candidates
must run from, and live in, a particular Trustee Area.
•Another example, Cumulative Voting, means voters may cast as many votes as there
are seats up for election. If, for example, five seats are up for election, a voter may
cast five votes for a single candidate or distribute his or her votes among several
candidates. The candidates with the highest number of votes are elected.
•In 2020, the City of Mission Viejo became the first California city to adopt cumulative
voting for municipal elections because Single Member District elections would not
resolve the CVRA challenge the City had receive on behalf of Latino voters. However,
the city is now re-evaluating the process.
•Should the City decide to change its current process, there are many options to
review
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•The City Council must determine whether it wishes to defend or accept the
Challenge.
•In either case, The City of Cypress will seek public input and feedback from the
community.
•It is important to the Council that community voices are heard.
•This community input will include:
•Robust Community Outreach effort
•Multiple Town Halls
•Public Hearings as part of regular City Council or special meetings TBD
•Final determination by City Council at a regular or special meeting,
possibly in April 2022
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NOTE: These may be shown as individual graphics
•Palmdale: $4.5 million
•Modesto: $3 million
•Anaheim: $1.1 million
•Whittier: $1 million
•Santa Barbara: $600,000
•Tulare Hospital: plaintiff attorneys paid $500,000
•Madera Unified: plaintiff attorneys asked for $1.8 million, but received about
$170,000
•Hanford Joint Union Schools: $118,000
•Merced City: $42,000
To date, the City of Santa Monica which has been fighting their CVRA challenge, has
spent more than $10 million dollars in legal fees alone. If they are unsuccessful, they
will also be responsible for the plaintiffs legal fees by CVRA mandate.
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•Based on the initial assessment provided by the Demographer, it is not clear that the
City of Cypress is in violation of the CVRA
•This is not unusual –Many cities have faced similar issues
•As part of the deliberative process the City Council will discuss the matter fully
•Next steps may include a more detailed and in-depth analysis.
•However, even when inconclusive, jurisdictions are presumed to be in violation
unless they can prove otherwise.
•The costs to defend ( and possibly lose) a CVRA challenge are VERY HIGH often
running in the millions of dollars.
• Examined all Cypress City Council Elections from 2012 to 2020.
• There is some important caveats to this analysis:
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• There are very few precincts to analyze, from a maximum of 63 to a low of 36.
• Further, these election all involve voters with multiple votes and many
candidates.
• Finally, there no homogeneous Asian precincts. The maximum precinct only
has about 35.5% Asian voters.
• This means the estimates are not reliable and require further study and more data.
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This is 2010 census data -Need 2020 Census Data to update this info
Cypress is a diverse community
As shown by our current demographics, Cypress’ population is 47,802 residents strong
and comprised od:
•53% White
•30% Asian Pacific Islander
•17% Latino
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ELECTION HISTORY
•The following election history underscores the complexities of the issue.
•The CVRA Challenge the City received specifically referenced Asian voters and the
possibility of racially polarized voting and/or vote dilution for this protected class.
•Using this available historical data, a demographer conducted an initial study to
ascertain if a violation had occurred relative to Asian voters.
•In Cypress’ case, the data is unclear. In both 2020 2018 elections, candidates who
won were favored by voters overall, including Asian voters.
•However, in each year, there was also one other candidate who was also preferred
by Asian voters who WAS NOT elected.
•Because not all candidates preferred by Asian voters lost, the results are deemed
inconclusive.
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ELECTION HISTORY (narrative told over both slides)
•The following election history underscores the complexities of the issue.
•The CVRA Challenge the City received specifically referenced Asian voters and the
possibility of racially polarized voting and/or vote dilution for this protected class.
•Using this available historical data, a demographer conducted an initial study to
ascertain if a violation had occurred relative to Asian voters.
•In Cypress’ case, the data is unclear. In both 2020 2018 elections, candidates who
won were favored by voters overall, including Asian voters.
•However, in each year, there was also one other candidate who was also preferred
by Asian voters who WAS NOT elected.
•Because not all candidates preferred by Asian voters lost, the results are deemed
inconclusive.
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How will the districts be created?
•Cypress is committed to an open and transparent process.
•A public process would begin to draw the maps.
•Map drawing tools would be available on-line for anyone to create a map for
consideration.
•Public meetings would be held to explain the guidelines for drawing a map.
•Maps can be created during the public meetings.
•With public input, similar maps may be combined.
•It is expected that three or four maps may emerge for public comment.
What redistricting principles are used?
Districts must:
•Include communities of interest
•Be compact
•Be contiguous
•Have visible (natural and man-made) boundaries
•Include respect for past voter selections
•Plan for future growth
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•Now is the time to take community questions during our program today.
•You may also submit a question online (insert url/email address here)
•Take the online survey (insert url here)
•Leave a message on the City hotline (TBD?)
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