Gainesville has an ugly history of discrimination and the city’s at-large voting system is violating the federal Voting Rights Act, a speaker said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, was one of several speakers opposing the at-large system, disputing city claims that the at-large system provides good and equitable representation of all residents by allowing all voters to choose a representative for each ward. Some of the speakers came to the meeting because they had heard someone with the city was planning to read a statement about the dispute between the city and the Latino officials’ group at the meeting.