At-Large Voting Wrong for Oxnard

A story Dec. 1 attempted to explain the recent election defeat of former Oxnard City Council member Andres Herrera, but the story falls short of the reality of Oxnard’s at-large election system.

Everyone gets to vote for two candidates in the at-large system. But supporters of Herrera and John Zaragoza played competitive “hard ball tactics” during the election, leaving many Latino voters divided between the two candidates.

As a result, many Zaragoza supporters did not vote for fellow Latino Herrera, as they cast their “second vote” largely for Bedford Pinkard. Did the Herrera supporters also vote for Zaragoza? No, they voted for Pinkard, too!

Had the election been by district, with one single vote per voter, Herrera would probably be on the council as the member from his favorite district. Also, in a single-member district, Herrera would not have needed so much fund-raising, reducing the concerns that he might be putty in the hands of outside developers.

There was an effort several years ago to put a district election initiative on the local ballot that would have eliminated at-large voting in favor of six council districts, plus a full-time mayor. This was seen as bad news by City Hall insiders and some of the favored political elite from north Oxnard, who for years established themselves as the local power brokers. The initiative did not qualify for a slight shortage of qualified signatures.

The at-large system tends to make it more difficult for challengers to win elections because raising money is not that easy, unless one goes to the power brokers for the money. This causes “good people” to enter a “bad system.” In addition, people get elected with a range of 20% to 25% of the vote. What ever happened to the idea that a winner should get over 50% of the vote, like Mayor Manuel Lopez did?

District elections should be reconsidered as the best way for Oxnard to resolve fair representation of all citizens throughout the entire city, and allow “good people” to work in a “good system.”

GILBERT G. BEEZLEY, Oxnard