Voters in Yakima will make history today when they elect their first Latino city council person.
Yakima once chose its representatives through at-large voting, where each councilperson was elected by the whole city. But a string of challenges throughout the West is gradually remaking local elections.
Yakima attracted national attention earlier this year when a judge ruled that Yakima’s elections violated the Voting Rights Act and stifled the voices of Latino voters. At the time, none of Yakima’s elected officials lived in the poorer, heavily Latino parts of town, and people like Francisco Reyes say it showed.
"This streetlight was dark for a month and a half," he said. "We kept calling and calling."
Calls to the police, too, often go unanswered for hours. But for Reyes, hopeful changes began even before election day: this year, for the first time ever, a candidate came and knocked on the door to ask for his family’s vote.
