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Posted on 10/06/2002 1:39:42 PM PDT by raybbr
Friday, October 04, 2002
ATLANTA — Arguing that defeated Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney was the victim of a "malicious crossover" vote by Republicans, five DeKalb County voters asked a federal court Friday to throw out the results of the primary.
Democrat McKinney lost her bid for re-election to former Judge Denise Majette by a 58 percent to 42 percent margin on August 20. Majette faces Republican Cynthia Van Auken in November, but is expected to win in this heavily black Democratic district.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta and names as defendants, among others, Secretary of State Cathy Cox, the DeKalb and Gwinnett County elections supervisors and Majette.
The state of Georgia does not require voters to register by party and allows them to vote in the primary of their choice. Nevertheless, McKinney, who is black, is blaming Republicans for jumping the political aisle in droves to help her Democratic opponent, who is also black, to oust her.
The suit claims that black Democratic voters in the 4th District had their voting rights violated and interfered with by the crossover votes. It asks that those crossover votes be declared unconstitutional and invalid and that McKinney be declared the winner of the Democratic primary.
"The issue is that black Democratic voters in the 4th District had their voting rights interfered with and violated," said Atlanta lawyer J.M. Raffauf, who represents the five black plaintiffs.
"Malicious crossover voting occurs when one party invades another party's primary to sabotage that party's choice of its own nominee for political office," the lawsuit reads. "The Republican Party voters crossed over and affected the outcome" of the Democratic primary.
State officials pointed to the law Friday and said it was clear that Georgia voters can vote for whomever they want in the primaries; there are no restrictions on preferred political party affiliation.
"I am simply unaware of any provision of law that prohibits voters from making a choice as to which party primary they will participate in," said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for the secretary of state.
Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democrat, said Georgia's law "is crystal clear in its guarantee that a voter can walk into a polling place on primary election day and choose a ballot for which ever political party he or she chooses."
He added, "Georgia's open primary system has withstood previous legal challenges and I will vigorously defend the Aug. 20 election results."
Critics say that McKinney's loss was her own doing. During her five terms in office, she has often garnered national headlines for controversial comments, while generating criticism that she's lost touch with Georgia voters.
This year, she had accused President Bush of ignoring warnings of the Sept. 11 attacks because friends in the defense industry would profit from a war. She scolded former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for returning a Saudi prince's donation for Sept. 11 victims when the prince blamed U.S. Mideast policy for the attack, and then proceeded to ask the prince for the money to give to poor black neighborhoods.
McKinney has blamed outside Jewish organizations for funneling money to her opponent in response to the congresswoman's Palestinian support in the Israeli-Palestinian Middle East crisis.
Her father, a state legislator who was vocal in his opinion that Jews had ruined his daughter's re-election, was also defeated in his own re-election Sept. 10.
Raffauf said he recently talked with McKinney and that she approves of the lawsuit.
Since her defeat, the Green Party has courted McKinney to join them and seek that party's presidential nomination in 2004.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Every voter should count was proclaimed until I puked in 2000
Are these dimocrats saying these people vote should not count?
I used to think only some Democrats were shameless, guess I was wrong
Welllll, Republicans didn't exactly "win" this election. We did get a Democratic candidate that we can accept a whole lot better than Jihad Cindy, but never-the-less... it's not truely a win.. there will still be a DemocRAT representing the distric in congress.
Yes... that's exactly what they are saying. This district was gerimandered so that there would be very few Republicans voting there (Cindy's daddy in the state house saw to that. So they now count it their right to essentially have only the Democrate votes counting. Crossing over was the only way the few Republicans in the district could have ANY voice at all in the election, but this voice angers the RATS.
Oh,Oh...Can I be a victim too? Malicious crossover? I call it exercising your right to vote for whomever you want. We can still do that in this country, can't we?
well hopefully the GA courts have better sense than the NJ courts do, we may have rednecks but we aren't sopranos. Time will tell.
It is ridiculous for any state official regardless of party to make such a statement after what happened in New Jersey. The law means ONLY what a group of activist judges decide it means. In New Jersey, 51 now means 34 or what ever number it needs to mean for the democrats to win. In Georgia, the absence of a provision of law that prohibits crossover voting-- when it affects black voters --can easily be considered a violation of those voters' civil rights.
Conservative voters' apathetic attitudes toward elections has allowed this to happen as much an any other single cause. The votes not cast for conservative candidates in the last 50 years are coming home to roost. The election of conservative candidates from dog catcher, to school board, to state house, to US Senate must become a paramount goal. We must energize ourselves to take back our republic or it will be lost forever. Vote, make sure your family votes, make sure your friends vote. It is our only weapon.
The same thing happened in California. As a matter of fact, some socialist talkshow hosts on the ABC Radio Network encouraged this tactic. Register Republican and vote McCain in the primary. Re-register for the general election and vote Democrat.
The socialist in the Democratic Party are turning Amerika in to a neo-Vimar Republic.
As if...!!!
By all means, let McKinney keep talking...
(chortle...threatening to become a bwahahaHA!)
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