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:2GE San Marcos Election Analysis - Final Report / January 10, 1994 / Page 5 1} the minority population of the jurisdiction must be sufficiently large and geographically compact to construct viable districts 2} the minority population of the jurisdiction must be politically cohesive 3} the Anglo population must vote as a bloc to effectively and consistently defeat candidates favored by the minority population. The Gingles criteria provide a useful point of departure to consider the prospect of districting San Marcos City Council. The question is, how does San Marcos stack up against the Gingles criteria? We will consider the last two criteria first, then proceed to the first criterion. With respect to the second criterion, our analysis indicates a relatively high degree of political cohesiveness among Hispanic voters. Candidates preferred by Hispanic voters between 1980 and 1993 enjoyed typically high levels of support, especially Hispanic candidates. This can be seen in both Table 1 and the Appendix Table. Political cohesiveness between Black and Hispanic voters is more difficult to judge, given the statistical limitations we previously reported regarding elections available for the analysis of Black voting patterns. Judging from limited results, we can call Black and Hispanic voters politically cohesive, at least to some extent, when a race involves an Hispanic candidate. Considering all races, howeveF, and not just those involving Hispanic candidates, Black and Hispanic voters appear less cohesive. The third Gingles criterion can be approached at two levels. First, interpreting the criterion strictly, where the focus is the election fate of the "preferred candidates" of minority voters, we found a measurable (but not extremely disturbing) difference between the election success rate of candidates favored by Anglo voters and those favored by Black and Hispanic voters. Among elections for which majority/plurality support could be determined, candidates favored by Anglo voters won about 86% of the time, while candidates favored by Black and Hispanic voters won about 63% and 55% of the time, respectively. This is hardly evidence of an Anglo voting bloc working to defeat "preferred candidates" of-minority voters. The third Gingles criterion can be approached at a second level, one which focuses more narrowly on the election success of minority candidates. One can argue that minority voters, who obviously are interested in the fate of "preferred candidates" generally, may also be concerned about the fate of minority candidates they favor; indeed, this is an important issue in communities characterized by racially polarized voting. Judging from our analysis of City elections between 1980 and 1993, there is evidence of racially polarized voting. The degree of polarization is not disturbing, however, particularly when one considers Anglo "cross-over" support for Hispanic candidates. Of the 15 elections in Table 1, Anglo voters gave at least 20% support to Hispanic candidates in 9, including 3 with clear majority support. We hesitate to label Anglo voters supporting Anglo candidates in these elections a "voting bloc," in the usual extreme sense of the word. Anglo opposition to Hispanic candidates in these races simply does not have the usual trappings of a voting bloc, where we might expect 90% or more of the Anglo voters to consistently oppose Hispanic candidates, who,