Black Media Warns Sequel to 2000 Vote Fiasco Looms in Florida
NCM Report, News Analysis, Danielle Worthy, Posted: Sep 01, 2004
In this country, the idea of fairness in voting has been dismantled by past misdeeds, growing distrust and new scandals.
The 2000 elections permanently marred the reputation of the electoral system for many voters, especially blacks. Those elections made it clear that decades after the end of voter discrimination under Jim Crow laws, blacks still face voting systems that are rigged against them.
On Election Day 2004, everyone’s attention will turn southward, toward Florida to be exact -- the quintessential battleground state. But months before the actual casting of ballots, Florida already is embroiled in an electoral controversy rooted in discrimination.
When the Miami Herald broke the story this July of a flawed felon list that mistakenly included a large number of eligible black voters, the state was propelled back into immediate notoriety.
The black press jumped on the story and has followed it closely since its arrival. As the “newsworthiness” of the story fades in and out for mainstream media African American publications have steadfastly tracked each emerging detail. For black voters, the implications are too important to ignore.
Bill Alexander, a writer for BET.com, posted an article headlines "A Mess in Florida" on the website July 17 directing attention to the latest fiasco.
“Florida politics too often have been birthed in outrageousness and burped by shamelessness…(the) controversial Florida presidential vote count of 2000 is on it’s way to a sequel.”
Alexander explains that more than 2000 voters, a large number of whom were African American, were “accidentally” placed onto the list of 47,000 ineligible voters of ex-offenders, an irregularity that was discovered by the Herald. The pressure put on the state after the list was made public and the enormity of the error triggered the resignation of Ed Kast, head of Florida’s election division.
Several media organization sued to have the list made public. The Westside Gazette, a Miami newspaper serving a predominantly black community, immediately published a story when a Florida court ruled on the issue in favor of the plaintiffs, calling on officials to release the controversial list of 47,000 supposed ineligible voters.
The decision, considered a “victory” by many, was seen as a crucial first step in resolving the crisis, according to the Aug. 6th article in the Gazette
Yet there were some in the black community who felt more needed to be done.
Kweisi Mfume, head of the NAACP, began calling on U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to stop the chaos, according to the Aug. 8 Amsterdam News in an article written by J. Zamgba Browne.
“We are now seeing the nightmare of unjustified disenfranchisement unfolding before us, especially in Florida,” Mfume was quoted as saying in reference to the rule that prevents ex-felons from voting.
Due to the efforts of Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from Oakland, Calif., and twelve other members of Congress, the Bush administration has heeded to the pleas for an outside, nonpartisan observer in Florida.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has been called on to watch over this year’s presidential elections according to the Aug. 18 edition of the San Francisco Bay View.
Another problem with the felon list is that in Florida ex-felons are not automatically returned their right to vote once their sentence is complete. Instead, they have to petition for their rights to be reinstated and go through a complex bureaucratic process.
Unfortunately, the voting irregularities in Florida are not limited to the felon list. In fact the problems go much deeper. Black news groups are publishing some unsettling findings.
Black Web America.com published a story Aug. 17 that looks directly at the issue of voter intimidation by the state's Republican Party and its top law enforcement agency.
Sherrel Wheeler Stewart described by Democratic activists in Orlando who believe the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) zeroed in on black voters during an investigation into voter fraud.
After the close March mayoral race in Orlando, defeated candidate Ken Mulvaney summoned the FDLE to look into the absentee ballots cast that prevented a runoff from occurring.
While the FDLE contends there was no malicious intent and interviews were conducted with “sensitivity,” activists alleged that the agency was bullying voters on behalf of Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the incumbent President Bush.
A spokeswoman for the Voter Protection Coalition in Florida, Alma Gonzalez, was quoted in news reports at the end of July as saying:
"FDLE agents showed up at the homes of absentee voters, many of whom were minorities and asked them if they had really voted, if they had actually sold their votes, and otherwise questioned them in an unfriendly manner while revealing their side-arms."
She added, “This is unacceptable.”
In The New York Times, African American columnist Bob Herbert wrote an editorial entitled “A Chill in Florida.”
Herbert noted that while the FDLE claimed to just be doing their job by having state troopers talk to elderly black people in their homes about voter fraud an investigation done earlier in the spring found no such fraud occurred.
“Why go forward anyway?" Herbert wrote. "Well, consider that the prolonged investigation dovetails exquisitely with that crucial but unspoken mission of the G.O.P. in Florida: to keep black voter turnout as low as possible."
Doing just the opposite -- keeping black voter turnout high -- has become the unspoken mission for many since the 2000 elections, and recent events have only galvanized their efforts.
Hazel Trice Edney, a writer for the NNPA (National Newspaper Publishers Association), also known as the Black Press of America, reported in an article posted on The Sacramento Observer's website that there are numerous groups and individuals working hard “to make sure the Black vote is cast and counted.”
Specifically, the Aug. 17 article focused on measures by programs like Election Protection, a project run by the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation that will have lawyers and law students at precincts all over the nation.
They also set up a toll free hotline so anyone who has questions or is concerned about their rights can talk to lawyers and voting rights experts.
Related Stories:
Florida's Provisional Ballot Law Draws Lawsuit
More Blacks Going to Prison in 17 Key Election States
NAACP: Don't Purge Voters from the Rolls
Florida Felon Purge List Made Public
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