A federal court ruled a Kern County redistricting plan violated the voting rights of Latino's.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four Latino's in April 2016.
The redistricting plan, which was adopted by the Kern County, California Board of Supervisors in 2011 violates Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a federal judge determined Friday.
It was determined that the redistricting plan unlawfully denies Latino's the right to elect the candidate of their choice, a judge decided.
“After hearing and considering 11 days of trial testimony from Kern County residents, demographers, political scientists and historians, and from the Supervisors themselves, the court found that the current supervisorial plan renders the elections for Board members not ‘equally open to participation by Latino voters’,” said Denise M. Hulett, MALDEF national senior counsel and lead counsel in the case. “The Latino voting community has been unlawfully divided for decades. What the Board ignored, the court now will remedy.”
U.S. District Court Judge Dale A. Drozd will hold a hearing regarding the next step in order to remedy the plan on March 6th.
