Local Election Reform

“Vote Threatens Ruling Coalition” (Opinion, Feb. 24) illuminated that Santa Monica’s at-large election system enacted in 1946 was inspired in part by the racist intent to keep African Americans out of government. Long ago the Voting Rights Act eliminated similar at-large election systems from the South and replaced them with more democratic, district-based systems.

Passage of the district electoral reform Veritas measure on the November ballot will not only allow “progressive” Santa Monica to catch up with Dixie but it will liberate the city’s rich, creative and diverse points of view currently shackled by the politically dominant, well-financed slates.

Paul DeSantis

Santa Monica