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Campaigns launched to protest minitory voters { August 26 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Campaigns launched to protect minority votes
By Bob Dart
Cox News Service
Thursday, August 26, 2004
WASHINGTON — A civil rights group and a labor union launched campaigns Wednesday aimed at preventing intimidation and suppression of minority voters in the November elections.
The "Jim Crow" tactics invented by southern Democrats to deny votes to African Americans in the last century have become more subtle and are now practiced mostly by Republicans hoping to thwart minority voters inside and outside of Dixie, charged NAACP Chairman Julian Bond.
Instead of the poll taxes and slanted literacy tests once used to keep black voters from casting ballots, "ballot security" and "vote challengers" are among "many, many devious devices" now used to disenfranchise minority voters, Bond said at a press conference.
Releasing a report called "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today," the NAACP and People for the American Way, a liberal interest group, announced an "Election Protection" effort to stop such abuses. The program will range from educating voters to putting thousands of poll watchers and civil rights lawyers on duty Election Day.
"The real reason we are gathered here today is to make sure the people who have done this in the past won't do it in the future," said Bond.
"This is not something to be addressed on Nov. 3" — the day after the election, echoed Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way. He said the program will enlist 35,000 activists — including 5,000 lawyers — in 17 or 18 states. He did not name the states.
Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO announced its "My Vote, My Right" campaign will target 12 "battleground states" —
Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin –- for special scrutiny and voter education efforts. The presidential election is predicted to be close in all these states.
"We're determined to make sure every eligible voter who goes to the polls has an opportunity to cast his or her ballot and to ensure that every vote is counted," AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said in a telephone conference call.
Although both programs purported to be non-partisan, both aimed at protecting voter participation in largely minority precincts where Democrats predominate.
"We're particularly concerned about treatment of African-American, Latino, Asian-American and Native American voters, who were disproportionately disenfranchised in the 2000 federal elections," said Cecelie Counts, AFL-CIO Director of Civil, Human and Women's Rights.
Before passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, "voter intimidation was the handiwork of the Democratic Party" in the what was then the "Solid South," Bond recalled. But that has changed in recent decades as white Republicans gained power in the region's state legislatures and county commissions.
"Although voter intimidation has not historically been confined to a single political party, we are increasingly concerned about recent incidents indicating that Republican officials may be planning to challenge voters this year based on race," said Neas.
But the report made clear that the concerns are not confined to the South. For instance, it cites John Pappageorge, a Republican state representative from Troy, Mich., as telling the Detroit Free Press, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election." African Americans comprise 83 percent of Detroit's population. He later explained that he meant "you get it [the Detroit vote] down with a good message" and was not implying by racial suppression.
Meanwhile, in its campaign, the AFL-CIO will put full-time state and local coordinators on the ground in targeted areas to work with member unions, community allies and local lawyers.
"We are working with voting rights advocates to address problems at every stage of the election process, from voter registration procedures, to polling place hours, to the use of provisional ballots as mandated under [new federal laws]," said Jonathan Hiatt, the AFL-CIO's General Counsel, who also heads up the labor organization's Lawyers Coordinating Committee.
Partly to practice for the November elections, Sweeney said the AFL-CIO will monitor the upcoming primary elections in six states and will hold press conferences afterward to discuss their findings. Florida holds its primary on Aug. 31st, Nevada and Arizona follow on Sept. 7th, and Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin have primaries Sept. 14.
"We're trying to get elections officials to move quickly to eliminate problems," said Counts. "We want to encourage voter participation by helping correct problems ahead of time and by letting people know someone will be at the polls to help them if they encounter difficulties."
Bob Dart's e-mail address is bobdart(at)coxnews.com.
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