County Files to Dismiss Case Alleging Voters' Rights Violations

Attorneys for San Mateo County today filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed in April that alleges the county's system of holding countywide elections to vote for its Board of Supervisors discriminates against minority residents.

Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area said in its April 14 civil suit that the county's at-large rather than by-district elections dilute the voting power of Latino and Asian communities, which combined make up nearly 50 percent the county's population.

"The motivation for bringing the suit is that there is a voting system in place that dilutes Latin and Asian voting power," Lawyer's Committee director of litigation Robert Rubin said.

The lawsuit claims that the diminished ability of some minority residents to elect representatives to the Board of Supervisors is a violation of the California Voting Rights Act, Rubin said.

Joe Cotchett, an attorney representing the county, said that San Mateo is a charter county, and as such is entitled by the California Constitution to choose its own system of electing supervisors.

The state's 12 charter counties have the option to conduct supervisorial elections by district or in at-large elections.

"We are a charter county and under the Constitution we are allowed to do that," Cotchett said. "Our system is constitutionally correct."

Today's motion to dismiss the case was based on that constitutional right, Cotchett said.

Of the state's 58 counties, San Mateo County is the only one that elects its supervisors with at-large elections.

The option to switch to district elections has been put before voters on three occasions -- most recently in 1980 -- and each time has failed to pass, Cotchett said.

The preservation of at-large elections is in the best interest of the people of San Mateo County, Board of Supervisors president Carol Groom said in a statement.

"At-large voting honors the principle that public officials are accountable to the entire community," Groom said.

Rubin disagreed. "I think that the folks in the Asian and Latino communities feel otherwise," he said. 

-Bay City News