On Election Day, voters arrived at a strip mall in the Orange County enclave known as Little Saigon. “POLLING PLACE,” a large sign announced in Vietnamese. “Together, let’s vote.”
But the strip mall wasn’t an official vote center. The nearest one was just up the road, at a community center in Westminster.
The office was in fact the headquarters of Apogee International, a skincare company owned by Kimberly Ho, vice mayor of Westminster. The location doubled as Ho’s campaign headquarters for her ultimately successful bid for reelection to the City Council.
It’s not yet clear whether the voting site, which is under investigation by Orange County authorities, was in violation of any election laws. Some of those involved in politics in Westminster’s large Vietnamese community defended it Wednesday as a natural outgrowth of a robust political culture that goes to great lengths to encourage voting. Others questioned whether Ho’s campaign had gone too far.
Read the full story at LATimes.com.
