Nonpartisan coalition moves to protect black voters

By BARTHOLOMEW SULLIVAN  Knox News
September 23, 2004

Fearing that efforts are under way to suppress the black vote in a way that could aid Republicans, a coalition of civil-liberties groups is undertaking a massive effort to educate election officials and prospective voters.

While Bush-Cheney campaign and GOP officials say the concern is baseless, a nonpartisan effort is moving to thwart tactics perceived to benefit Republicans by targeting black voters and other minorities.

The Election Protection Coalition plans to mobilize thousands of trained poll watchers and lawyers on Nov. 2. The coalition of more than 60 groups includes the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the League of Women Voters, People for the American Way and the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

"This is expected to be a close election and every vote is expected to make a difference," said NAACP Chairman Julian Bond. "If anybody is frightened away from the polls, or tricked away from the polls, or kept from casting a vote, all of us are suffering. This is an assault on democracy."

Bond said his concern is that intimidation, which he said was once largely the practice of Democrats in the South before the 1965 Voting Rights Act, "is now almost exclusively a Republican tactic."

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson laughed when told of Bond's accusation and said she had never heard of the Election Protection Coalition. But she said RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie has proposed to Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe the creation of bipartisan teams of lawyers, with "embedded" reporters, to watch polls where either side believes problems might occur.

In a July 18 letter, Gillespie pledged that, "if any instance of voter intimidation or voter fraud by Republican supporters is brought to my attention, we will stop it immediately," adding, "I know you will do the same if similar activities by Democratic supporters are brought to your attention."

Among those seeking to educate, the ACLU of Tennessee is planning to make available a four-page, pocket-sized "voter-empowerment card," explaining rights if voters find themselves stopped or challenged.

"Our commitment is that people know what their rights are when they go to the polls, so we don't see what happened in 2000, when people were turned away," said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nashville.

Mississippi, "for obvious historical reasons," will have teams of poll watchers on the ground as one of 14 "Priority 1" states, said Kim Alton, counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin are also on the committee's "Priority 1" list.

In those and other states, including lower-priority Colorado, California, Alabama and Tennessee, the coalition is asking people with voting concerns to report them at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683).

It's all in response to the concern that not-so-subtle efforts have already been used, and others could be under way, to keep black voters, who traditionally vote overwhelmingly Democratic, from having their votes counted.

Coalition members cite these reports:

-A Michigan Republican state senator, John Pappageorge, this summer said the GOP had to "suppress the Detroit vote." Detroit is more than 80 percent black.

-In Orlando, Fla., plainclothes officials with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently questioned elderly black voters about irregularities in a March 2003 mayoral election. Those questioned reportedly felt intimidated.

-In Waller County, Texas, the retiring district attorney has been sued in federal court for alleged civil-rights violations after saying he could prosecute students at predominantly black Prairie View A&M University if they tried to vote using the campus as their permanent address. He later backed off that position.

-In Baltimore, in 2002, notices were posted warning, falsely, that parking tickets and overdue rent had to be paid before voting.

- In black sections of Louisiana, in 2002, fliers trumpeted a special election - giving a date two days after polls closed.

-In 2003, in South Dakota, state and federal agents interviewed 2,000 Native Americans in connection with vote-fraud concerns.

- In Florida earlier this year, officials abandoned another purge of felons from voting rolls after Florida newspapers obtained records showing that the 2004 list would have improperly made thousands ineligible, and appeared to target blacks.

"Florida is, unfortunately, a suspect state," said Bond. "You've got to be alert in Florida, just because of their past behavior."

Anyone who goes to the trouble of voting wants that vote counted, but it's now widely known that many voting machines deployed across the country can't provide written verification of votes, and can't be reliably audited. The concern that a successfully rigged election is possible this year is in the air in coffee shops and beauty parlors - and on op-ed pages - across the country.

The Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, in Palo Alto, Calif., is an Election Protection partner helping to organize volunteers around the issue of voter-verifiable paper trails. Erik Nilsson, chairman of its working group on voting technology, says 8,000 have signed on so far.

"We're trying to identify problems and help people resolve those problems on Election Day, if possible," said Nilsson "If people don't get to vote, or there are problems with how their vote was handled and the possibility that their vote wasn't counted, we're going to document that."

Impact 2004, a group of law students "organized to ensure the integrity of the voting process," is also coordinating poll watchers as a coalition partner.

On the ground, Bush-Cheney campaign officials say the effort to draw attention to possible suppression efforts isn't having any effect.

Some critical of media attention to possible Election Day irregularities say that not enough attention is being paid before the vote to fraudulent absentee-ballot mills, double registrations and alleged outright vote-buying in poor areas that they perceive will benefit Democrats.

America has a rich history of allegedly stolen elections, from Lyndon Johnson's highly irregular Texas Senate victory in 1948 to John F. Kennedy's razor-thin victory in 1960.

The lack of an overt sign of a problem at this stage is perhaps best explained by Rhodes College political-science professor Marcus Pohlmann: "It's kind of hard to imagine a national campaign or national party getting behind something that's really borderline illegal, at least in spirit."

But as a partisan strategy for Democrats, calling attention to the suspicious disenfranchisement of black voters in 2000 can't hurt.

"Even if all there is are suspicions, it does create a useful rallying point," Pohlmann said.

Poll watchers organized by the coalition will be instructed to observe any suspicious efforts to intimidate voters. They'll take names and photographs and involve local polling officials and law enforcement, if necessary. They'll also carry forms that read, "Warning: Intimidating, harassing or improperly challenging voters violates federal and state law..."

Asked about any such efforts, Eliott Mincberg, legal director of People for the American Way, said: "We've seen very little ... in terms of concrete signs of plans for voter suppression and intimidation. But that's not unusual because these plans are designed to operate under cover until Election Day, when they're sprung."