The Franklin County Public Utility District will transition to a district-based election after reaching a settlement with plaintiffs of a voting-rights lawsuit, the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Morfin Law Firm announced in a news release Monday.
A group of voters in southeastern Washington’s Franklin County alleged that the agency’s electoral voting system violated the Washington Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of Latino residents who live in the public utility district, which provides various services, including electric service and broadband, for county residents.
Currently, the Pasco-based agency’s three commissioners are elected in a hybrid system — districts are used in the primary and then transition to at-large for the general election. Under the settlement, the Franklin County PUD will transition to an entirely district-based election in 2026.
The PUD will use district boundaries created in a 2022 update of its map, with District 3 having a high concentration of Latino residents.
Attorneys from the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Morfin Law Firm notified the Franklin County PUD in June 2024 of the alleged voting rights violation, urging the Franklin PUD to adopt a district-based system. They filed suit in September.
The settlement is the latest push by advocates to enable Latino voters to vote for the candidate of their choice at all election levels. In 2022, Franklin County settled a different lawsuit that contended that the election system for its county commissioners violated state voting rights law. That settlement led to the implementation of a district-based system last year.
“Latino voters in Franklin County have continued to vindicate their voting rights by challenging at-large methods of election and changing election systems to districts,” said plaintiff Gabriel Portugal, president of the Tri-Cities LULAC, the local chapter of the civil rights organization, in the news release. This change will have an impact on all people in Franklin County.”
