This act will cost millions and allow for manipulation of election results

The only sure beneficiaries of “Washington Votings Rights Act” are lawyers [“Ensuring voting rights,” Opinion, Feb. 2].

The Seattle Times got it wrong in the editorial supporting the Act moving through the Legislature. The “Election Chaos Act,” as it should be termed, would allow for manipulation of election results in the courts, wouldn’t ensure better representation of minorities, and will cost small cities and school boards millions of dollars.

Attorneys are the only sure winners if the law passes, based on California’s example. Since the California Voting Rights Act passed in 2001, the San Francisco Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (who pushed for passage of the law) has collected over $4 million in fees from California school districts.

And it insults minorities by assuming they vote solely on whether a candidate is similar in race, color or language. Consider Modesto, Calif., where in 2010 a majority Latino district elected a white Republican — who was a longtime resident of the community — instead of a Latino Democrat.

The federal Voting Rights Act was intended to remove race as an issue from elections. This law turns that notion on its head by requiring that race be an issue. America is a melting pot, not a nation of fragmented and suspicious groups.

— Jonathan Bechtle, Freedom Foundation, Olympia