The at-large method of electing Fremont County commissioners violates the voting rights of residents of the Wind River Indian Reservation, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday against the five commissioners and county clerk.

So five reservation residents - members of both the Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho tribes - want the federal court to prohibit Fremont County commissioners from using the at-large method, and to not block an election for a redistricting plan for single-member districts, according to the complaint filed by the plaintiffs' attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Berthenia Crocker of Lander.

If the commissioners don't conduct timely elections for a redistricting plan, the plaintiffs want the court to implement a redistricting plan and schedule the elections so the county complies with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to the complaint.

"The at-large method of electing the Board of County Commissioners of Fremont County was enacted or is being maintained with the discriminatory purpose of diluting the voting strength of Native Americans in violation of plaintiffs' rights guaranteed by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments," according to the complaint.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne.

The plaintiffs are James E. Large, Gary Collins, Emma Lucille McAdams, Patricia Bergie and Pete Calhoun.

Four attorneys with the Atlanta office of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc. also represent the plaintiffs.

The Baldwin & Crocker P.C. law firm referred questions to Laughlin McDonald of the Foundation, but he was not available for comment.

The defendants, who are sued only in their official capacities, are commissioners Doug Thompson, Lanny Applegate, Jane Adamson, Gary Jennings and Pat Hickerson; and County Clerk Julie Freese.

Fremont County Attorney Ed Newell has not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on it, but he suspected that it might be coming because of recent requests for voting records, he said. "I need to look at it, read it, and get an answer to it," he said.

Newell is aware of similar litigation in Montana and South Dakota, but he doesn't know how those cases were resolved, he said.

County Clerk Freese said after the Nov. 2, 2004, general election, representatives of the ACLU began asking for voting records of every race and every election going back several years.

"The ACLU has been asking for tons of returns, and abstracts of returns," Freese said.

Fremont County had debated commissioner representation 13 years ago, she said.

In 1992, Fremont County voters turned down a ballot initiative proposal to create five commissioner districts, Freese said.

The county has a five-member board of commissioners who are elected from the county at-large. The four-year terms of office are staggered, and the elections are partisan, according to the complaint. The next election for commissioners is in 2006.

Fremont County has 35,804 residents. Of those, 7,113 or 19.9 percent are Native Americans. Native Americans compose 16.3 percent of the voting age population of the county, according to the complaint.

American Indians are numerous enough and geographically compact that they would constitute a majority in at least one single-member county commission district, according to the complaint.

They have organized for political purposes; tend to vote as a bloc; share common social, economic, historic, tribal and other characteristics; have a unique political status with the United States; have been subject to individual and official discrimination including the right to participate equally in the political process; and bear the effects of discrimination in education, housing, employment and health services, according to the complaint.

Voting in Fremont County is racially polarized, which has discouraged American Indians from running for the board of county commissioners, according to the complaint.

"The at-large method of elections for the Board of County Commissioners denies or abridges the right of plaintiffs and Native Americans to vote on the basis of race or color, or membership in a language minority."

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