Posted on 08/25/2004 6:35:00 AM PDT by kattracks
CNSNews.com) - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People announced it is sending a team of lawyers and election workers to observe Florida's Aug. 31 primary election -- and to help voters who may have problems trying to cast their ballots.
"The NAACP will not allow another 2000 voter fiasco to occur," said NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume. "We will have observers and lawyers on the ground to assist voters and to make sure they are not intimidated. Our goal is to see that all eligible voters register and vote, and that every vote is counted."
Mfume also is demanding that "objective Justice Department election monitors, not affiliated with either major political party," be sent to Florida to observe next week's primary.
Mfume said the NAACP decided to send a rapid-response team to the Florida primary, following reports that elderly black voters may have been harassed and intimidated during last spring's mayoral race in Orlando -- and because of "recent attempts by state officials to illegally purge over 2,000 registered voters."
The NAACP noted that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is under investigation after reports that its agents went door-to-door in black neighborhoods collecting evidence about possible absentee-ballot fraud during last spring's Orlando mayoral race. The New York Times reported that many of the elderly voters were "frightened" to have armed state police question them.
During the 2000 presidential election, some Florida voters complained that they were harassed on Election Day by a Florida Highway Patrol traffic checkpoint set up near a polling place.
A recent poll by the Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Florida Times- Union found two-thirds of African American voters in Florida had little or no confidence in the voting system, the NAACP said.
As part of its election-monitoring effort, NAACP lawyers plan to conduct training sessions on "election protection," and they will teach Florida voters how to use the new touch-screen voting machines. "This will be followed by an intensive get-out-the-vote campaign in preparation for the November presidential election," the NAACP press release said.
"The election of local leaders and the next president of the United States is too important to trust the process to Florida election officials," Mfume said. "We saw what happened the last time we did that," he added.
The NAACP calls itself a nonpartisan group, but it supports liberal causes, and its members have given an enthusiastic reception to Democratic candidates -- most recently, Sen. John F. Kerry, who spoke at the group's annual convention. President Bush declined an NAACP invitation to speak because of the group's liberal leanings.
Recent calls to send election monitors to U.S. polling places is a direct result of the close -- and contested -- vote in the 2000 Florida presidential election. Some say its part of a strategy to discredit the election results in battleground states -- even before the ballots are cast.
The AshcroftJustice Dept has been monitoring elections ever since the 2000 presidential election. Mfumeissofullashit his eyes are brown!
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http://www.firstcoastnews.com/politics/articles/2002-11-04/observers.asp
"ELECTION NEWS 2002
"Justice: Observers to watch elections in Florida, 13 other states
By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press Writer
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department is dispatching more than 400 people to monitor polling places in 14 states, including Florida, on Election Day to ensure compliance with federal voting laws. The observers will be watching for any signs of discrimination based on race or problems encountered by the disabled, as well as whether all eligible voters are able to cast a ballot. Widespread voting problems were reported in 2000, particularly in Florida where the results delayed by a month the declaration of a presidential winner.
In all, 432 observers, including 108 Justice Department lawyers and other personnel, will monitor elections in 26 counties. Courts have ordered federal observers in seven counties, with another eight assigned observers because they are in areas covered specifically by the Voting Rights Act. These counties are: Apache and Navajo in Arizona; Randolph, Georgia; Wayne, Michigan; Adams and Amite, Mississippi; Passaic, New Jersey; Bernalillo, Cibola, Sandoval and Socorro, New Mexico; Kings and New York, New York; Titus, Texas; and San Juan, Utah.
These observers, sent by the federal Office of Personnel Management, will be overseen by 38 Justice Department officials who will maintain contacts with local election officials should problems surface.
Seventy other Justice Department officials, most of them civil rights attorneys, will monitor elections in: San Francisco; Waterbury, Conn.; Broward, Duval, Miami-Dade, Orange and Osceola counties, Fla.; St. Louis; San Juan County, N. M.; Queens County, N.Y.; and Reading, Penn.
Complaints about possible discrimination in voting can be made to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931"
".
These "monitors" will be well armed -- with 10,000 cartons of cigarettes and 12 old buses.
I think someone should be observing Mfume and his boys. It wouldn't surprise me to see them try something crooked.
This is getting ridiculous. By the time all the special interests get done, there will be more monitors at each polling station than voters.
Word of warning, if I have to push between monitors to take my ballot to a booth, someone will get the crap knocked out of them and I will probably get to spend a free night in jail.
You got that right! Queasy Fumes and the NAACP are nothing more than the new KLAN with the tan. He ought to give David Duke a call for tips on being a more effective racist.
If the majority of voters who had trouble were other than white---Please tell me how the "leaders" of this same group can identify any complicated problems?
Mfume needs to take a broom to his own back steps and clean up his group and Jesse (never met a person I didn't want to shakedown)Jackson.
This is leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Then maybe they won't object if the Klan sends election monitors to Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Detroit.""
Cripes- Don't leave out Chicago and Los Angeles.
I can hear it now:
Mfume: I SEE DEAD PEOPLE!! LET THEM VOTE!!
I've requested him once before today. He's needed again. Aw Jeez guy please report for duty.
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