By Dr. John E. Warren – Publisher
The people of San Diego’s African American community, in particular, should be paying close attention to the election challenge in the City of Chula Vista, Ca. There an election for a City Council Seat hangs on a two vote margin by the winner, John McCann, who has been sworn and seat. Supporters of Steve Padilla, who lost to McCann by two votes, are now challenging the Provisional Ballots which were voted but not counted in hopes of getting a judge to allow at least three to be counted. What becomes clear here is the fact that every vote counts and yet in our communities we still have people making excuses for why they don’t vote and why their votes don’t count.
As our communities of color in particular struggle with the 182.5 issues and juries that don’t look like us, let us remember that jurors are selected from among those people who are registered voters in a community. If you don’t register to vote, then you don’t count. This being said, there should be no community meeting without voter registration cards on hand, and those in doubt should fill out a new card and sign up with intention of casting a vote in the next election. In recent elections in the state of California, the amount of attention paid to the African American community has diminished to the extent that it almost no longer exists. Dollars for Voter Registration are being sent and spent in the Asian and Latino communities with heavy media coverage of the successes. What is also apparent is the degree to which the Latino and Asian communities speak collectively for their communities.
If we are to do better and have better, then we must start now with the idea of holding accountable those who seek our support. In the Reynolds vs. Sims case 377 US 533 (1964) the U.S. Supreme Court established the “One Man, One Vote Rule” dealing with political districts of unequal size resulting in under-representation of some citizen’s interest and over-representation of other’s. Today our battle with under representation is not due to outside forces like gerrymandering a political district, but rather on under involvement and apathy on the part of the people who should be voting and won’t.
