Posted on 10/08/2004 11:33:29 AM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
DELAND -- The NAACP filed a federal voting rights lawsuit Thursday against Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe, plunging the county into an elections controversy just weeks before the Nov. 2 general election.
The suit claims that by having only one early voting site -- in DeLand -- Lowe disenfranchises black voters in eastern Volusia County, where the majority of black residents live.
A state law adopted in May requires county elections officials to offer early voting at the Department of Elections office 15 days before an election. Whether to open additional sites is left to local discretion.
On Thursday, black leaders came before the Volusia County Council at its regular meeting and asked county officials to use that discretion.
"We will not allow them to disenfranchise," said Beverlye Neal, executive director of the Florida National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The suit, filed in federal district court in Orlando by the Volusia County-Daytona Beach Branch of the NAACP, asks the court to order Lowe to open a site in East Volusia by Oct. 18, the beginning of early voting. It also asks the court to declare the decision not to open such a site a violation of federal civil rights law.
But county officials said state law dictates that if local officials provide early voting at satellite locations, the locations must provide access to voters countywide.
Lowe says that means the county also would have to open sites in New Smyrna Beach and Deltona.
"It is humanly impossible to open three additional offices (in a matter of days)," Lowe told the council. She is currently processing registrations and absentee ballot requests.
County Manager Cindy Coto said Lowe e-mailed her in May about opening additional sites. After speaking one-on-one with council members, Coto told Lowe to follow the council's 2002 decision against opening additional sites for "in-house absentee" voting.
In that voting form, voters submit absentee ballots at polling locations to be processed later. In early voting, they insert ballots into voting machines on the spot.
"If there's any responsibility to be held in this," Coto said, "I am the one to take the responsibility."
Lowe said she was saddened by the situation.
The council voted to use the Votran bus system to ferry voters to DeLand for early voting, although the details were not finalized.
The suit is not the first. The NAACP filed a suit in 2001 naming . elections supervisors from Volusia County and four other counties. Volusia County was included because a Bethune-Cookman College student was turned away from her polling place in 2000 after workers told her she was registered in Marion County.
The council approved a settlement in 2002, though it but admitted no wrongdoing.
Also Thursday, the Volusia County Council extended the 6-cent local-option gasoline tax until 2034, clearing the way for almost $70 million in bonds for crucial roadwork.
The tax is being pledged to secure bonds for the projects, which are located throughout the county, although the anticipated $100 million debt is to be repaid with impact fees. While the county repealed a 2013 expiration date last year, no new date had been set.
The council also authorized issuing and selling the bonds, which officials say will ultimately save money as construction costs escalate.
The NAALCP, huh ?????Did the NAACP EVER apologize for this BS smear ad against Bush !?!?!:
October 31, 2000
Liberal Dirty Tricks Ignored
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is now airing an ad that seeks to exploit black fears of white crime. Actually, that’s too kind. Over black and white video of a pickup truck dragging a chain, the daughter of Texas dragging death victim James Byrd declares, "So when Gov. George W. Bush refused to sign hate crimes legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again."
Gov. Bush is being tied directly to a vicious racist lynching. And from Brokaw, Jennings, Rather, Shaw & Co. -- not a peep. Clearly this is the most unfair, divisive, and repugnant ad in many moons, and it’s met with silence? At the very least, if the media were truly disinterested observers of the campaign and truly interested in the appearance of balance, they could draw an easy parallel between the Horton and Byrd spots for their hallowed "Ad Watch" pieces. But that would be false parity. Nothing Gov. Bush did led to Byrd’s death, and under Gov. Bush, two of his assailants will be put to death, while the furlough program under Gov. Dukakis allowed the release of Horton to commit more violent crimes.
But the media did something worse than sheer silence. They are portraying Bush as the villain of last-minute negative advertising, bringing the public’s attention to a different ad, a strange reproduction of Lyndon Johnson’s outrageous 1964 "Daisy" ad that suggested Barry Goldwater would lead America into nuclear war. The copycats behind this silliness tried the two-wrongs-make-a-right strategy, suggesting Chinese espionage under Clinton-Gore could lead to nuclear war.
The ad buy was tiny – just $60,000 – but the media gave it millions of dollars worth of airplay. Why the rush to this mysterious ad? An Associated Press story on October 27 began: "The Gore campaign said a new Republican attack advertisement modeled after the infamous ‘Daisy’ commercial...is a ‘desperate tactic’ by conservatives to help George W. Bush." While the AP promoted the "Daisy" ad story today as "top news," they did not report on the NAACP ad. It didn’t matter that the NAACP boasted of spending $2 million, not $60,000, on their advertising attack.
Bump!
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