(actually, it's Carter arriving at 3-mile Island in 1979.)
Posted on 10/30/2006 9:11:04 PM PST by Tamzee
Two weeks before Election Day, the city is fighting an attempt by the U.S. Justice Department to appoint federal observers for Philadelphia elections beginning Nov. 7 and lasting past next year's presidential race, until the end of 2009.
The effort to appoint the observers stems from a lawsuit filed by the federal government 14 days ago alleging that the city has violated the rights of its Hispanic voters.
Specifically, it charges that the city hasn't adequately recruited and trained bilingual poll workers, failed to provide sufficient election-related materials in Spanish, and prohibited Hispanic voters with limited English from choosing someone to help them inside the voting booth, which law permits.
"The record in this case clearly demonstrates that the city does not exercise sufficient control over its voting places to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act," the lawsuit states. It alludes to 50 Hispanic city residents who encountered problems in elections here, most since 2003. One, Myrna Cruz, testified that a poll worker forced her to vote for John Street for mayor in 2003, when she wanted to vote for Sam Katz. Others said they were ridiculed by poll workers who asked why they hadn't learned English.
The suit also says the city has no program to identify "the need for or the placement of Spanish-speaking poll workers and interpreters on election day" and that the city has paid people to be interpreters who don't speak Spanish.
City officials have called the allegations unfounded. A hearing has been scheduled for next Friday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District.
With the election fast approaching, the city has been struggling to implement new federal rules on handicapped access, as well as a new state law requiring dozens of city polling places to be moved (they can no longer be inside bars or elected officials' homes, for instance).
Combined with troubles encountered in May's primary, when hundreds of voting machines malfunctioned, and now the federal lawsuit, the resulting challenges for the Nov. 7 election are perhaps unprecedented, election officials say.
"Everything is culminating at the same time," City Commissioner Edgar Howard said. "Just be glad this year isn't a presidential year," he said, when voter turnout is typically at its highest.
In the case of the federal lawsuit, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, the Democratic Party chairman, and other local Democrats see partisan politics at work.
He said the suit was filed so close to Nov. 7 "probably to suppress the [Democratic] vote" and help GOP candidates such as U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.
Michael P. Meehan, general counsel for the city Republican Party, dismissed Brady's explanation. "That's part of the spin machine to generate turnout," he said. "We didn't generate this. We didn't make any complaints."
But both party leaders agree that the proposed federal intervention goes too far.
"That's a disgrace. The Hispanics have no problem with the interpreters," Brady said.
"We do think they are going beyond," Meehan said.
According to the lawsuit, about 6.6 percent of the city's voting-age population is Hispanic, and more than a third of those people - 25,660 - speak only limited English.
Since 1974, the city has provided translators at polling places where census data indicates Hispanics live. The Justice Department wants Spanish language assistance citywide.
"This is one of those issues where the remedy far exceeds any potential need," city Solicitor Romulo Diaz said, adding that in the Nov. 7 election, the city also will provide translations via telephone in 200 languages, including Spanish.
Stressing that federal observers could use their authority to enter polling booths while people are voting, Diaz said: "We think that is not only something that could be misunderstood - it could even have a chilling effect and intimidate the very voters the Justice Department says it is trying to support."
Yesterday, department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said: "No federal observers would ever enter a voting booth unless specifically requested by and with the expressed permission of a voter, and to suggest otherwise is just untrue."
She said there are currently federal observers in 169 municipalities throughout the country, including, most recently, Boston and Springfield, Mass.
In the last two elections, Diaz, at the Justice Department's request, said he had given its officials credentials to access city voting places to observe what bilingual assistance and signage were provided.
Those officials were not granted permission to enter individual polling booths.
"There are still some issues that we need to improve upon," said City Councilman Juan Ramos, Council's only Hispanic member. "But the Latino people don't need federal agents on Election Day to see how they vote or get behind the curtain with them."
A nonpartisan voters' right advocacy group, the Delaware Valley Voter Registration Education Project, held a news conference yesterday opposing the government effort.
The city's nonprofit election watchdog, the Committee of Seventy, also has had concerns about a lack of Hispanic voter participation. During the May primary, the committee recruited local volunteers to survey what assistance Spanish-speaking voters received at polling places in Latino neighborhoods, mainly in the 7th, 18th, 19th and 33d Wards. The committee later shared those results with the Justice Department, which was already conducting its own review.
"I wouldn't call the information we provided them definitive," committee president Zach Stalberg said. But the findings - too few translators, and some with questionable language skills, and not enough bilingual polling-place officials - "suggested there might be problems."
Said Stalberg: "We think there are enough indications of problems here to merit federal observers... . In our view, it won't do any harm."
---------------------------------- Contact staff writer Marcia Gelbart at 215-854-2338 or mgelbart@phillynews.com.
Lots more detail in this article than the one posted a few days ago.... there is a hearing this Friday to determine the federal monitor issue.
Would observers be allowed to watch the whole process, or would they be limited to ensuring resources for Spanish speakers to vote?
I'm referring to those precincts where they get 100+% turnout.
(actually, it's Carter arriving at 3-mile Island in 1979.)
The report, "Vote Fraud, Intimidation & Suppression In The 2004 Presidential Election," is the most comprehensive and authoritative review of the facts surrounding allegations of vote fraud, intimidation and suppression made during the 2004 presidential election. The report lists the top five election fraud "hot spots" in the country based on its findings and the cities' documented history of fraud and intimidation. ACVR Legislative Fund calls for immediate attention to these areas.
Exactly, perfect stranger... thanks for the link to an excellent report on this problem.
IMHO, federal election monitors on site will go a long way to preventing a lot of this fraud and intimidation. I have friends who went to Philly to volunteer as GOP poll watchers and said they were completely ineffective, couldn't pay attention to the voters as the harassment was out of control...
I knew a guy who was an EMT in NYC and he said that when he arrived on the scene of an accident, the Hispanics would be telling him everything that happened in English. The minute a cop car showed up, it was No hablo Engles and they would require an interpreter.
He never believed that Hispanics were not fluent enough in English because he saw so much faking it.
My grandparents came over heere from *the old country* without knowing English and they learned it. What a novel concept.
That being said, the only issue here is that they don't want someone to find out about all the voter fraud going on. Otherwise, the dems would lose.
I think it's deliciously ironic that two things the Democrats profess to love: "multi-culturalism" and "bi-lingualism" may bring some Federal heat to bear on the electoral shennanigans in Philthy Philly. The GOP official cited in the article should learn to keep his yap shut.
US observers should stay in their own country and leave Philadelphia alone.
If they're gonna piss and moan about observers, triple the amount you're sending. They'll be needed. While they're at it, Detroit, Milwaukee, and St Louis shouldn't be left off the list either.
If they don't speak and read english, isn't that a RED FLAG that they shouldn't vote???
Agreed. Philly was where our precious right to vote was born.... and is now being slaughtered.
Contrast that statistic with that only 36% of the electorate have voted over the last three non-presidential cycles - the national average.
The old scam is that they are given paper facsimile ballots that are marked with the candidates and propositions they are to vote for. They bring these into the booth with them as a guide. Either that or someone else votes in their place using their voter registration card or just their name.
They do the same thing here in California, and I suspect, everywhere. I say that if you can't speak, read, write, and comprehend English, then you CAN'T VOTE! No other place on the planet panders the way we do! Just say NO!
LOL!!!!
Only 103% voter turnout?
Must be the d@mned racists!
Also include Kansas City to your list, due to the fact that St. Louis and Kansas City could become war zones because of Missouri's "embryotic vs. adult" stem cell amendment. (Amendment #2)
I've never seen any hard data on that... but I do know that Philly is one of the only counties in the state that still has not adopted the SURE system (Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors) which is supposed to help purge voters off rolls that shouldn't be there...
I've also asked the director of our local election board how deceased voters are removed and they said that each local election board does it themselves from Dept of Health lists... and if the local board is run by a partisan or corrupt jerk and doesn't do it, you are pretty much out of luck as far as forcing them to do it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.