DATE: Thursday, August 7, 1997              TAG: 9708070479

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS AND KAREN WEINTRAUB, staff writers 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   86 lines

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES BEACH VOTING SYSTEMCIVIC LEADER CONTENDS AT-LARGE ELECTIONS WILL UNFAIRLY DILUTE MINORITY RIGHTS.

Nine months before Virginia Beach holds its first City Council election under a new voting system, a civic leader is challenging that system in court as biased against minorities.

Carolyn Lincoln, a Bellamy Woods resident who runs a women's advocacy group called Baby Steps, filed suit Monday in Norfolk's federal court. She claims the new election system, which allows all Beach residents to vote for all 11 City Council and 11 School Board members, unfairly dilutes minority voting rights.

``This is our back-door way of forcing a ward system,'' said Lincoln's attorney, John W. Hart of Virginia Beach.

The lawsuit asks the court to create a modified ward system with one district having a majority of minority residents, and to declare the 1996 referendum on the issue invalid.

Hart and Lincoln said the lawsuit is backed by an informal group of nine Virginia Beach residents, but they would not name its members.

City Attorney Leslie L. Lilley, who had not yet received the lawsuit, said he is surprised that anyone could raise objections to the new voting districts after the very public process used to develop them.

``This process was perhaps the most open process that we've ever had on anything,'' Lilley said Wednesday. ``We've had maps on display in the libraries, multiple public hearings, solicited every organized group in the city, so we could address everybody's interests and everybody's concern and I'm unaware that this person has ever raised a concern.''

The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees implementation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, has signed off on both the new district map and the at-large system.

The new districts were drawn up last year after voters decided they wanted to keep electing all council and School Board members at-large. The seven district representatives on each body must live in the district they serve, but receive votes citywide. The new district lines will take effect in May, at the next municipal election.

The General Assembly required the council to hold the referendum and to equalize the population of the seven voting districts, which formerly ranged from 1,000 to more than 150,000.

In her lawsuit, Lincoln argues that Virginia Beach's new election system hurts blacks and other minorities who seek election.

The lawsuit notes that only two blacks - John Perry and Louisa Strayhorn - have been elected to the City Council in its 34-year history. The lawsuit says this is because whites use ``block voting techniques'' to stop black candidates.

``We have a great city,'' Lincoln said Wednesday. ``We have to give our kids, if we want them to buy in . . . we have to make sure when they see our City Council, they see themselves reflected.''

The lawsuit claims that there are enough minority residents in a ``geographically compact'' area to constitute a majority in ``a reasonably drawn, balanced voting district'' in Virginia Beach.

In 1992, however, a study by the American Civil Liberties Union reached the opposite conclusion. The ACLU said a black-majority district could not be drawn in Virginia Beach, but an ``influence district'' with a minority population of 20 percent to 30 percent could be created.

Soon after, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People proposed a voting district that was 43 percent black, linking several neighborhoods in different parts of the city.

According to the 1990 U.S. Census, about 20 percent of Virginia Beach's residents are from minority groups: 14 percent are black, 4 percent are Asian-American, and 2 percent are from other backgrounds.

An election consultant hired by the council determined that the city's minorities were too dispersed to create a voting district that would meet the Justice Department's criteria.

The lawsuit filed Monday also accuses the City Council of ``manipulating'' the wording of last year's referendum.

The May 1996 ballot question offered voters a choice between two election systems: one in which all City Council members are elected at-large, the other with some districts electing their own representatives.

The ballot question concluded: ``If you wish to vote for all 11 council seats, vote YES! If you prefer to vote for only 5 of the 11 council seats, vote NO!''

The lawsuit says Councilman John Baum proposed this wording ``in an effort to ensure that the city maintained an at-large system and in an effort to increase his individual chances of election to the City Council.''

The state Board of Elections challenged the ballot language, but a Circuit Court judge ruled that the council could word the initiative as it liked. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Carolyn Lincoln KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS

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