Posted on 05/28/2002 6:28:13 PM PDT by knak
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department said Tuesday it found no credible evidence that any Florida residents were intentionally denied their right to vote in the state that handed George W. Bush his margin of victory in the 2000 presidential election.
The Justice Department, in a letter to Congress, detailed findings so far in its investigation of possible voting irregularities in three Florida counties: Orange, Miami-Dade and Osceola. The department has authorized lawsuits in those counties.
In the letter, the department acknowledged polling problems in the three counties may have led to small numbers of voters choosing to leave the polls without casting ballots.
"While the Civil Rights Division discovered evidence of significant confusion and delay in the three counties, there were relatively few voters who actually did not vote because of these problems," wrote Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd.
He said the small number "doesn't reasonably cast any doubt on President Bush's several hundred vote margin of victory in Florida."
"The Civil Rights Division found no credible evidence in our investigations that Floridians were intentionally denied their right to vote during the November 2000 election," Boyd said.
Poll watchers representing the Democratic Party allege that many voters were turned away.
Boyd said that one of the three counties - he did not say which one - may have employed too few bilingual workers, causing delays in providing assistance.
"This may have resulted in at least 26 voters choosing to leave the polls," the chief enforcer of the nation's civil rights laws wrote Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Boyd said that his investigators confirmed that a clerk denied poll watchers permission to help four voters who asked for bilingual assistance. The denial constitutes a violation of the Voting Rights Act.
In another of the other three counties - again, the county was not specified - the investigation found two cases of Haitian-American voters being denied language assistance, Boyd said.
However, the investigation was unable to confirm any of about 15 other alleged instances of voters being denied bilingual assistance.
In the third county, political party poll watchers alleged that approximately 140 voters had difficulty casting ballots, "but it appears that in every instance the voter was referred to the Supervisor of Elections office" for assistance, Boyd wrote. "The Civil Rights Division has no evidence that any of these individuals was unable to cast a ballot."
Also in the third county, the Civil Rights Division's investigation "indicated that a lack of bilingual poll workers resulted in considerable confusion at the polls, and that some poll workers were hostile to Hispanic voters."
Boyd has told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he expected the three counties to negotiate settlements by the time he's ready to file lawsuits.
Boyd said in an earlier letter that Orange County failed to have enough Spanish-speaking poll workers and didn't provide election information in both Spanish and English.
The government alleges that Miami-Dade officials didn't do enough to help Haitian-American voters understand the ballot, according to a copy of a proposed agreement between the county and the Justice Department.
Osceola County, south of Orlando, is accused of not providing Spanish-speaking voters with election information in their own language. A letter from the Justice Department to Osceola officials also said there were not enough bilingual poll workers.
Just wish I had paid more attention in school and maybe my spanish would be a lot better!
This is the best argument in the world for English Only! If you can't speak or read the language of the country you say you live in, then you shouldn't be able to vote in an election in that country certainly not America!
SUPREME COURT GIVES STATES IMMUNITY
WASHINGTON (AP) - 05/29/2002
The Supreme Court says states have wide immunity when federal agencies investigate complaints about them, then challenge their activities.
Tuesday's 5-4 ruling featured the same majority of justices that has decided in favor of states and against the federal government in a series of cases over the past several years.
The court sided with South Carolina in a dispute over the state port's refusal to let a casino ship dock there. The Federal Maritime Commission had no right to intervene on behalf of the ship owners, justices said.
Court conservatives, headed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, united in upholding an appeals court ruling that state boards like the South Carolina Ports Authority have protection from federal action in courts and in federal agency administrative proceedings.
The ruling could jeopardize federal efforts to ensure worker safety, patient protections, commerce and even national security, Justice Stephen Breyer complained.
In a rare move, Breyer issued his criticism from the bench during Tuesday's court session, in addition to a written dissent. The ruling, he said, "denies the legislative and executive branches the flexibility they need to deal effectively with modern social, technological and commercial problems."
Courts have held that the Constitution's 11th Amendment gives states immunity from many kinds of lawsuits. The issue settled in this case involves the ability of an executive body - the maritime commission - to challenge state activities.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said the framers of the constitution "likely did not envision the intrusion on state sovereignty at issue in today's case." He said the court is "nonetheless confident that it is contrary to their constitutional design."
"By guarding against encroachments by the federal government on fundamental aspects of state sovereignty ... we strive to maintain the balance of power embodied in our Constitution and thus to reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front," Thomas wrote.
Joining Rehnquist and Thomas were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.
Breyer said the majority focuses on "highly abstract" phrases like state dignity and system of federalism instead of things like liberty and due process of law. "They suffer from the disadvantage that they do not actually appear in the Constitution," he said.
The docking case dates back to 1999, when the South Carolina Ports Authority refused to let a cruise ship dock in Charleston because of a policy denying space to ships built mainly for gambling.
The 387-foot Tropic Sea spent months moored in the Charleston Harbor, and ship owners asked the federal commission to require officials to allow the ship to dock, on the grounds that they were violating a federal law that bans discrimination by port operators.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the port authority was an extension of the state of South Carolina and had immunity. The commission appealed.
Breyer's dissent was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The case is Federal Maritime Commission v. South Carolina State Ports Authority, 01-46.
On the Net: Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
Yep; and what about those people in the conservative "panhandle" that left the polling lines when the networks called Florida for Gore before the polls closed......
We know the Demos will raise a stink over DOJ's call - so why didn't the administration start a fire break before the Demos gain publicity from a complicit and liberal press and make a big stink about "coverup"? .....
Despite Raicote....the RNC is still a political cripple trying to learn to crawl.
How's she doing with her new committee member on the civil rights commission? (or whatever it's called)
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