Single-member commissioner districts would benefit Fremont County like the ward system benefits the elections of city council members in Riverton, the city's mayor said Thursday in federal court in Casper.

"The system works for city government," John Vincent said during testimony as the last witness in the ninth and final day of a voting rights bench trial before U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson.

Five Indians, who are members of the Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation, claim the at-large, or countywide, system of electing commissioners results in discrimination by diluting Indians' voting strength, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in October 2005.

They want the federal court to pressure the county to create single-member districts, one of which would include the reservation.

However, attorneys for Fremont County have responded that the dispute centers not on race as required by the Voting Rights Act, but on myriad issues related to the history of American Indians.

Attorneys for the county and the Indians elicited testimony over the course of the trial from experts in statistics, demographics, political science, history, Indian studies, tribal members, current and former commissioners, County Clerk Julie Freese, and Vincent.

The attorneys submitted their trial briefs as opening statements.

With the conclusion of testimony, the court reporter will prepare the trial transcripts and send them to the attorneys, who have 60 days to prepare their reports for Johnson. He will then consider their arguments and render a decision.

An appeal is likely regardless of the outcome.

On Thursday, Commissioner Pat Hickerson and Freese testified for the county under questioning from Scott Detamore of the Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation.

Hickerson spoke about agencies in the county, social services provided by Fremont County, hiring county employees and observations of racism.

He also defended the current at-large system of electing commissioners, saying the system provides a greater diversity of candidates, more choices for voters, and encourages candidates to consider the needs of the entire county.

A single-member system would result in commissioners primarily representing their own constituencies, Hickerson said.

He and Freese told the court racism was not a factor in hiring or providing social services.

Freese outlined some of the difficulties her office has had with recruiting American Indian election judges at polling places on the reservation.

American Indians also are under-represented in county government employment, she said.

Everyone should have an equal opportunity to participate in the political system, and Freese said the at-large system should be changed if it is shown it doesn't offer that opportunity.

Hickerson, Freese, and Vincent said they haven't seen much overt racial discrimination against Indians.

Vincent, though, had to deal with some complaints about the actions of Riverton police when he became mayor in early 2003, he said under questioning from the Indians' attorney Laughlin McDonald of the Atlanta office of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc.

He doesn't get calls like that now, and added the city and the tribes have improved their relationships markedly.

The single-member system that works well for Riverton with council members from wards would work well for the county, too, he said.

Council members from individual wards don't ignore citywide issues, and he believes commissioners from single-member districts would keep all of Fremont County in mind during decisions, Vincent said. "When people are elected to those offices they rise to the common good."

Reporter Tom Morton can be reached at (307) 266-0592, or at Tom.Morton@casperstartribune.net.