Appeals court: Farmers Branch does not violate voting rights of minorities 2:18 PM CT
02:24 PM CST on Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Associated Press
A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court ruling against three Latino voters who tried to change how council members are elected in a Dallas suburb.
Farmers Branch has been trying to drive illegal immigrants from the city through a series of ordinances. The voting-rights lawsuit alleged that the city's minority vote was diluted by its at-large City Council system. The plaintiffs wanted to create single-member districts, arguing that Hispanic citizens of voting age would form a majority of the voters registered in one of the proposed districts.
The three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument. In a ruling Tuesday, the New Orleans-based panel insisted that the number of minority citizens of voting age in a proposed district must form a majority of the total population of its voting-age citizens.
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