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Black voters intimidated by florida law enforement

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   http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/9457502.htm

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/9457502.htm

Posted on Sat, Aug. 21, 2004
Congress members say black voters were intimidated

LESLEY CLARK
Knight Ridder Newspapers

ORLANDO - Florida's three African-American members of Congress are calling for a federal investigation into complaints that elderly black voters in Orlando were intimidated by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents.

The call for the inquiry follows accusations from Democrats that agents looking into suspected absentee ballot fraud during the Orlando mayor's race targeted black voters in a bid to suppress voter turnout.

Bradenton Councilman James Golden, one of the few Democrats or blacks holding elected office in Manatee County, said he has not heard of such instances from any of his constituents.

"If there would have been any complaints lodged I would have given them to the proper authorities, the NAACP or the Manatee County Elections Office," Golden said.

A spokesman for the state agency hotly denied the accusations and said investigators went out of their way to put the voters they questioned at ease.

"Those interviewed were witnesses, perhaps even victims, and that's how we treated them," FDLE legal advisor Steve Brady said.

Concern over allegations of the intimidation of black voters has been heightened since the 2000 election dispute when thousands of blacks in Florida complained that their votes were discarded.

In this case, the voters were questioned as part of one investigation stemming from the March election of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, a Democrat and former state senator, whose narrow victory touched off accusations of ballot tampering.

His challengers have charged that a black activist may have improperly filled out absentee ballots on Dyer's behalf.

It is the door-to-door questioning of some of those black absentee voters - coming as state officials were forced to scrap a controversial "felon purge" list containing a large number of black Democrats - that has touched off a litany of complaints.

A voting rights group has said the FDLE investigators revealed their sidearms.

"This is just another example in the long list of efforts to stop black folk from voting," said U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Miramar Democrat, who was joined Thursday by Miami Rep. Kendrick Meek and Jacksonville Rep. Corrine Brown in asking U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to launch an investigation.

"They can't stop us, so now they're trying to scare us. Well, it's not going to work," Hastings added.

Jacob DiPietre, a spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush, said the governor is confident the agency "acted appropriately."

According to the FDLE's Brady, investigators compiled a list of absentee voters in the mayor's race and decided to interview them at home to avoid confusion.

"If we had done it the way we usually do, with a sheriff's deputy delivering a subpoena with a demand they come to FDLE, that would have scared people to death," Brady said.

He said two agents were sent to each home and every interview was taped. He said the tapes will be released once the investigation is completed.

"You will hear no intimidation whatsoever," he said.

The investigation issue gained national currency when it was featured in a New York Times opinion column, with writer Bob Herbert quoting a lawyer for the activist who gathered the absentee ballots saying that voters were "scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."

Brady said the lawyer, Joseph Egan, also represents Orlando's firefighters, who are being investigated for political campaigning on city time.



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