-Caveat Lector-
I dare say we would not have heard one peep out of all of this if
the candidate of the JessieJackson/NAACP had won as planned and
schemed. As it is, even with no evidence of anything being done
differently than in prior elections (which were just fine with
them) we will never seen the end of this. Note this does not even
give any voice at all to the two dissenting voices and their
reasoning. Well, M. F. Berry has said that only blacks have civil
rights so I guess that is what this is all about. To bad it was
black poll workers doing the majority of the mischief about which
so many complaints were made.
~Amelia~
Task force calls for election probe
Say 2000 election was unfair, voting technology not to blame
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - The Justice Department should immediately
investigate claims that the 2000 elections were unfair and violated
people's civil rights, says a report issued Thursday by a panel of
election administrators. The panel said the problems stemmed from
inadequate laws and procedures for counting votes, not voting
technology.
'We didn't suddenly become stupid in one election.'
- DOUG LEWIS
Executive director of the Election Center THE NEW REPORT
was put together by a task force of about three dozen elections
officials and sponsored by the Election Center, a nonpartisan,
nonprofit center created to help elections officials do their jobs.
The task force reviewed the close presidential contest
between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore, which was
not decided until after a bitter 35-day post-election legal battle
over the Florida results that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme
Court.
"We didn't suddenly become stupid in one election," said
Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, at a news
conference. "And yet there is this tendency to believe that because
there were problems we now need to have someone stand over us and
guide us through this process."
The report focuses on the finding by the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights that black voters' ballots were disproportionately
tossed out.
"Allegations reported to the national Commission on Civil
Rights during its hearings on Election 2000 are serious and must be
investigated," says the report.
A Justice spokesman responded that complaints have been
investigated as they came up ever since the election.
The civil rights commission's June report said that more
than half of the rejected ballots were cast by black voters, even
though they made up only one in 10 voters. The commission also
found that disabled voters and those with language barriers had
trouble voting. It suggested widespread violations of the Voting
Rights Act.
STRONG DISSENT
Two commission members appointed by Republicans strongly
dissented.
"Since the November election, the Department of Justice
received thousands of complaints from citizens about the election,"
said Dan Nelson, a spokesman for the agency's civil rights
division. "All but 12 of those (in Florida) were closed by early
January and the Department of Justice continues to investigate
these 12." He would not specify the nature of those complaints.
Some complaints in other states are also being investigated, Nelson
said.
Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center,
said it is important that the Justice Department thoroughly
investigate all of the complaints made to the civil rights
commission and determine their legitimacy. He said any public
perception that the elections were fair is just as important as
whether there were actual problems.
Of the Justice position that they're thoroughly
investigating the complaints, Lewis said Thursday: "If they have,
they haven't done it very publicly, most of us are unaware that
they have done this."
PLAGUED BY PROBLEMS
The civil rights commission's six-month investigation of the
contested Florida vote found the election was plagued by faulty
machinery, problems with access to polling places and faulty
purging of voter rolls.
The task force said laws, policies and procedures were at
the center of the problems - not voting technology.
And it dismissed any legislation that would impose
widespread federal election rules on the states.
The Election Center's report follows the release of an
election study headed by former Presidents Carter and Ford, and a
report from the bipartisan, nonprofit organization at Georgetown
University, known as the Constitution Project.
Election administrators did not support a suggestion in
another report released recently by former Presidents Gerald Ford
and Jimmy Carter that Election Day should be made a national
holiday, but warned Congress to carefully study the costs and
benefits of that move.
The Election Center task force also recommended that:
Local canvassing boards be bipartisan or nonpartisan. In some
localities, the canvassing board is made up strictly of one party,
usually the dominant party in that county.
Statewide rules for when counties must hold a recount be uniform
and not differ from one county to the next.
No legislation be enacted forcing uniform poll hours throughout
the nation.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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