Voting in San Clemente will soon look very different after city officials switched from at-large elections to district elections after facing the threat of a voting rights lawsuit. 

San Clemente officials grappled with issues faced by city officials throughout Orange County during the switch to district elections: How to draw voting districts without splitting up communities. 

After holding several public hearings regarding the issue throughout the year, a final voting district map was approved on April 16 by City Council addressing concerns over a community being split in two. 

“This task has not been easy. People have had some disagreements along the way but I appreciate the unity the council has shown in leading the city to its first ever district map,” said Sarah Schneider, a founder of the Southwest San Clemente Alliance at the April 16 city council meeting. Sheneider is also a city council candidate in the upcoming election.

In by-district elections, cities are split up into districts and voters can only vote for a candidate who lives in their district – similar to how Congressional representatives or state legislators are elected.   

In at-large elections, voters across the city can vote for as many candidates as there are council seats up for grabs. For example, if three seats are up for election, voters can vote for three candidates – the top three vote-getters are then elected to those seats.

For the 2024 election officials from districts three and four will be up for election while districts one, two and the at-large mayoral election will be voted on in 2026. 

The council originally voted in November 2023 to approve district elections to avoid a lawsuit under the California Voting Rights Act – a similar move taken by cities throughout California as no city has successfully defended itself against a voting rights lawsuit.

In June last year the city was given a letter from an attorney on behalf of a San Clemente resident alleging that they were in violation of the act. 

The letter said “A review of San Clemente’s voting results appears to illustrate that they are racially polarized, resulting in minority vote dilution.” 

The original proposed map separated San Clemente into four districts. However the main concern that halted the approval of a final map was the community of Pier Bowl in the proposed districts three and four which was remedied with the adoption of map 120. 

According to a staff report, “The only difference between Map No. 109 and Map No. 120 is that it moves the boundary between Districts 3 and 4 to Trafalgar Canyon and therefore keeping the Pier Bowl specific plan area together in District 3.”

The council voted 4-1 to approve map 120 with Mayor Victor Cabral dissenting at an April 16 meeting. 

“I think we’ve all made our positions clear. We’ve all debated this many times,” Cabral said. 

San Clemente isn’t the only city to struggle with carving districts after being threatened with a lawsuit in recent years.

Earlier this year, two Cypress City Council members raised concerns about how officials were cutting up their city into districts, arguing that it would break up the business park in two districts and keep a councilwoman out of office.

Wayne Eggleston, a member of Southwest San Clemente Alliance, said the district zoning comes down to Monterey Lane in the Pier Bowl community. He said that the two sides of the street didn’t share common interests. 

“Pier Bowl is one unit. It is a historic area and it has its own specific plan and we all need to be united,” Eggleston said. 

According to a staff report, “A ‘community of interest’ is a population that shares common social or economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation.”

The guidelines also require nearly equal populations in each district. 

Map 109 was the original adopted map during the city council meeting on Nov. 7 but was met with criticism over district lines. 

“This process was not a process that we chose. It’s not one that we created. It was forced on us by the state of California and we did our best with the process that was given to us,” Cabral said during the Nov. 7 meeting. 

[Read: San Clemente Adopts District Map, Boundaries Still Under Debate]

The law says that if at-large elections prohibit voters in a protected class from electing someone of their choice then a city needs to switch to district elections. 

“We decided which map, offered by the public, not created by us, would be the best map for us and we decided at this last meeting that we wanted one that didn’t show any political influence. It just went down major streets,” Cabral said at the Nov. 7 council meeting.