The City of Mission Viejo announced on 6/23 they’re asking a judge to change the terms for their city council from 2 years to 4 years from a previous Nov 2018 election, taking 3 candidates off the upcoming Nov ballot and protecting their seats for an additional 2 years.

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Ok, so try to stick with me. CA has a Voting Rights Act requiring all voters have an equal standing in the election process. Mission Viejo was found to be "racially polarized", not giving their minority community members an equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidate.

Southwest Voter Registration Education Project sued MV for being out of compliance. July 20, 2018 the two parties came to an agreement that MV “shall employ cumulative voting” starting Nov 2020. Additionally, the election in Nov 2018 would be changed to a 2 year term from 4 yrs.

That agreement made it so in the Nov general election 2020, all 5 seats would be up for election. Giving MV one full board vote with this new “fair” cumulative voting system. After that, MV would go back to their previous 4 year term limits.

Now, whats a cumulative vote?

Cumulative vote would give every MV voter in Nov 2020 5 votes. One voter- 5 votes. If they vote for 5 different candidates then all 5 would get one vote each. If they vote for 1 candidate, that candidate would get all 5 votes. Vote for 3 and each one would receive 1.67, etc.

The idea behind cumulative voting is if you have minority voters spread across the city and not in select areas, their vote would be heard. Instead of splitting into districts, where you may split the minority votes within the district keeping their vote still too small.

The alternative is district voting (being done in neighboring areas). But MV council did not want to split. Some residents suggest that current long term city council members would end up being grouped together in one district, forcing them to run against each other for one seat.

Now, after this agreement took place in July 2018 the City of MV announced to residents that the Nov 2018 election for 3 seats would be for a TWO YEAR TERM. The same council members were voted back in: Greg Raths, Ed Sachs, and Wendy Buchum.

The other 2 additional seats voted in in Nov 2016 (Brian Goodell and Trish Kelley) were grandfathered in by the judgement and allowed to complete their full 4 year terms. So, they would expire 2020, just like the Nov 2018 candidates that were elected for a 2 year term.

Now, the big “whoopsie”- Sec of State Alex Padilla is telling MV that cumulative voting would not be allowed in 2020- “it is up to the legislature to authorize any alternative voting system and the creation of voting protocols are insufficient under current state law".

MV City Attorney and SoS Padilla have gone back & forth. Leading us to this 6/23 announcement from Attorney Curley that they are asking a judge to allow the 3 council members who ran in 2018 for a 2 yr term to be extended two more years. Their term would be extended until 2022.

The council members who ran in 2016 (Goodell & Kelly) who were grandfathered in 2018 would then run in 2020 alone. That would buy the city two more years to figure out how they can get their elections into compliance with the 2001 California Voting Rights Act.

21 years later.

Remember, Greg Raths ran for the 45th district in the primaries. Katie Porter and Greg Raths moved on to the Nov 2020 election. This brings into question whether he could have run for city council and congress on the same ballot. OC Registrar of Voters said it was questionable.

Video above (1st tweet) said a judge would decide. However, on 6/11 Ed Sachs told a resident that he was not up for election in Nov 2020 but instead Nov 2022. 12 days before the closed session item was announced at the mtg. He has since responded claiming 2018 was a 4 yr term.

Since 6/23 the city has updated all of the council members online profiles to change their term expirations to reflect the decision/announcement (that is still supposed to be approved by a judge).

No formal announcement has been made made by the city to notify residents their council members extended their own terms. Sachs seemed to even deny it happened (above). Cathy Schlicht, former council member, brought it to the attention of residents via social media.

It seems like all residents should be asking- how can a vote for a 2 yr term be changed to a 4 yr term AFTER the election? This sounds like an abuse of power to secure the same city council and to cont to keep minority community members from having an equal standing.

Please read thread:
@ocregister @VoiceofOC @RepKatiePorter @AlexPadilla4CA @GavinNewsom @OCRegistrar @KTLA @ABC7 @CA45Indivisible @DPOC @canyondems @NBCNews

One last thing, do you think there is any significance in the term limits saying a term only counts if 731 days? Would that suggest they are not taking the 2 year term (agreed upon in settlement) into consideration when saying 3 term maximum? So they could serve 3 + this 2 yr?

The saga continues...

Mission Viejo City Councilman Ed Sachs (who was mayor in 2018) continues to tell the community that the 2018 election term was a 4 year term, even after a signed copy of the resolution was posted for his review.

In addition, former councilwoman Cathy Schlict has clarified that as of April the bills have hit $379,000 on this.

What happens next? Another possible very expensive lawsuit for MV? A special election? In addition, MV is still keeping their meetings closed from the public.