randomWalks

WIRETAP - Affirmative Action Showdown

[T]he October 7th election itself has come into question by U.S. District Court Justice Judge Jeremy Fogel, as reported in the California Contra Costa Times on August 16th. The Times reported that The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in San Jose has filed a lawsuit under the federal Voting Rights Act demanding that federal officials examine the recall election process before it moves forward. They claim that Monterey County has consolidated polling locations to the disadvantage of people of color and has hired very few Spanish-speaking poll workers. The Times explains that the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to protect minority voters primarily in the South who faced discrimination at the polls.

This is an excellent example of the kind of civil rights violations that would not be investigated if Prop 54 were passed. If Prop 54 were currently in place, such a lawsuit would be unsuccessful because there would be no official record of where people of different races or ethnicities lived in California. CFJ's BJ Victor says simply, "Without the data, we can't prove that institutionalized racism is alive and kicking."