Voter Suppression is a phrase thrown around a lot. Remember Cambridge Analytica? That was the data consulting firm that worked with Facebook to harvest personal data of millions of users to help sell more stuff to us. Steven Bannon was their vice-chair who only stepped down to help work on Trump’s campaign in the 2016 election.
This was the same firm, which under Bannon’s direction, specifically studied methods and implemented algorithms to disengage black voters through advertising on social media, and discourage left-leaning subpopulations from voting using implicit biases and targeting “inner demons” in order to impact the 2016 election. That's demonstrable voter suppression.
Other forms of suppression that exist within the electoral system are voter purges (where registered voters are unregistered if they don’t vote to a standard), arbitrary restrictions at polling locations like hours, barriers like ID laws that put a financial onus on a voter to purchase a driver’s license, even passing laws that criminalize mistakes in casting a ballot in a convoluted electoral system.
An ACLU brief on voter suppression cites 400 anti-voter bills have been introduced in 48 states including restrictions and barriers to easily accessible voter registration. Right now, 1 in 16 Black Americans are unable to vote due to suppression laws. Minority populations including Native Americans have fewer polling locations in their communities, and are less likely to get off work in time to vote. And one sixth of Americans with disabilities find it difficult to cast a vote.
In Kern County, despite Kevin McCarthy not taking a stand on anything unless it benefits his wallet and party, we see the effects of gerrymandering on the ground. Not a theoretical threat, gerrymandering is a result of a toxic, swampy culture of politics and power in Kern County and it shutting down any minority or progressive movements since the 2010 census and 2011 redistricting.
My ADEM colleague, Jeff Heinle, is an example of how the 2011 redistricting was meant to gerrymander and stifle the vote and representation of progress in Kern County and our Board of Supervisors.
Kern County and the MALDEF Case: Luna v. Kern County
Kern County is the third largest county by geographical area, and by topography, history, and general isolationism. It is only metro area is Bakersfield, so most other communities outside this city are rural with highly differing needs that the urban, diverse core of Bakersfield and Oildale, its sister north of the Kern River.
The MALDEF case was the first challenge to defend voting rights in California since 2001, and the county was found guilty of participating in racially-charged gerrymandering. The 2011 map for the Kern County Board of Supervisors was built off data from the 2010 census, but the implementation of the data proved to maliciously prevent Latino voters from being represented in the electoral process. This was in reaction to the growing Latino numbers in the conservative stronghold of Oildale.
The 2011 redistricting changes cut out a growing, wealthy Latino community in North Bakersfield and Oildale. to include it as part of District 4 which was a primarily white and conservative stronghold of distant North East Kern County. The redistricting suppressed the collective Latino vote. Latino voters who were wealthy enough to move out of the rural and traditionally underserved District 5 were now diluted into District 1 and 4, while keeping District 3, 1, and 4 conservative white strongholds representing a growing minority of the voting populace.
This pretty much prevented any minority from winning a Board of Supervisors election unless they were from District 5, the progressive movement or diversification in our electoral body would be squashed. This was candidate Jeff Heinle, a progressive bipartisan retired fire captain and EMT, was drawn out of representing District 3, to be out-voted in a race against the conservative stronghold of northeast Kern interests in District 1. In other words, Supervisor Maggard and others on the board took the opportunity to move the lines in such a way that progress was voted out of District 3 that he resided in for 20 years during the 2018 primary. The caveat was he could still participate in the general but would have to move if he won.
Ironically, this 2011 Supervisorial District Map gave Lake Ming and the Kern River Golf Course to the Mayor of White Oildale, Mike Maggard, who would block the construction of a multi-use trail around the perimeter of the green.
LA County’s Redistricting Process Compared to Kern County
LA County literally has an independent public commission of 14 residents, including randomly chosen and procured applicants through their public application process. I can literally access the submitted applications online, view the process by which commissioners are selected, and also shed a tear for the missed opportunities of Kern County’s redistricting.
LA’s commission includes a specialized easy to navigate website that is completely separate from their county government site. Their website includes information and an online request to submit public comment, instead of Kern’s email or phone-in system that was highly undesirable in a 21st century pandemic. Their redistricting outreach program includes workshops where staff trains residents in multiple languages on how to use free mapping software with census data that residents can view and make informed decisions from, Instead of placticized dry-erase papers of the whole county that residents are expected to draw on.
Kern County residents get huge maps and agenda items on regular county Board of Supervisor meetings, with boring bureaucratic updates about this integral democratic process. I’m ashamed I didn’t participate in this as an ADEM delegate, but I’m also ashamed of the process provided in my community. According to the ACLU, I've already failed in improving my community by not participating in the process.
Through the Luna v. Kern County decision, voters were finally allowed a “reasonable opportunity to participate meaningfully in the political process” and potentially be represented in electoral bodies in the region. However since then, the redistricting process in Kern County has been lackluster, if at all reasonable.