Posted on 10/30/2004 8:02:59 AM PDT by sweetliberty
LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Hoping to head off voting problems before they occur, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins said his office will be available to answer voter complaints throughout the day and into the night Tuesday.
Cummins said the office will handle complaints from voters who are denied access to the polls or witness voting fraud.
"We hope everyone will play by the rules but obviously there is cause for concern because we've had at least our share of problems here (in Pulaski County) and it is not a small thing," he said.
The county worked out a settlement with the federal Justice Department after widespread problems in the November 2002 election. The settlement included extra oversight of the county's election process.
The agreement came two weeks after Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley dropped a lawsuit seeking the removal of Pulaski County Clerk Carolyn Staley. Staley did not seek re-election.
A special grand jury last year issued a report accusing Staley of mismanaging elections and said she should be removed from office for incompetence and failing to perform her duties.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week that Pulaski County will be one of 58 jurisdictions in 21 states monitored by attorneys from its Civil Rights Division on Tuesday.
"Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Justice Department has regularly sent observers and monitors around the country to protect election-related civil rights," a statement from the department said.
Cummins said the FBI also will have federal agents on hand to receive allegations of election fraud or abuse. He said the agency's involvement was necessary because the FBI typically handles violations of federal voting rights laws.
Cummins said his office and the FBI would likely not be involved in actions brought by either party.
"They have rafts of attorneys to make challenges to election commissions," Cummins said, adding that his department's role is to protect the rights of individual voters.
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The U.S. Attorney's Office says voters can reach the office at 501-340-2605 or 501-340-2600 and FBI special agents on Tuesday at 501-221-9100, or can make voter access or discrimination complaints to the Justice Department's Civil Right's Division at 1-800-253-3931 or 202-307-2767.
They really need federal election monitors in Jefferson County, too. That county is fraud central, and any problems with the polls being made inaccessible, is done by the RATs. RATs run the elections completely there, and it seems that they have a habit of making sure that there are an inadequate number of machines in Republican precincts or that those precincts get the defective ones. They also intimidate poll watchers.
Anybody wanting on or off the Arkansas ping list, please let me know.
I managed to early vote, but my husband has tried TWICE this week, and there is a three hour wait in line in both places he went to.
PS, if anyone TRIES to intimadate me, I've got my cell phone ready.
sw
If you see any BLUE HELMETS make them see RED!
did you see anything about handling complaints of ILLEGAL VOTING? How about ILLEGAL ALIENS trying to vote ILLEGALLY??
Supposedly, the Garland Cty Attorney stated that he will prosecute ILLEGAL voting, but it was never reported in the paper, on the air, nowhere!
sw
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Pulaski county is of special interest in being a flash point because of it's preeminence in the early civil rights movement. But I don't think Blacks will be the ones inciting riots as much as the left-minded socialist students brainwashed into action by our institutions of higher learning professors.
On the bright side, there will be no shrieks of minority voters being intimidated in Baxter Co. I don't think there are more than 20 nonwhites in the entire county.
They have gotten away with it for so many years they just expect it to stay that way!
OK. I logged on so I could get motivated to go vote tomorrow. parsy the inert.
Maybe this will help....it's a new feature that's right up your alley. The DUhmmies are preparing for all sorts of entertaining behaviors after they get stomped on Tuesday.
I voted. Went ahead and voted for Bush. Was going to vote for Kerry when about an hour before I went, someone gave me a good reason to vote for GW, to wit, "We shouldn't change president's during the middle of a war." That pushed me to the Bush side. I couldn't stand the thought of some of those ARABS dancing around the street and hollering if Kerry won. I was just talking to "the boss of me" and she was going to vote. I told her and now she is voting for Bush too, for the same reason. She was also going to vote for Kerry. I suspect GW is in trouble if we both were that close to voting Dem for pres. parsy the ambiguous.
YOU are a troublemaker.
No. It was the truth. I'm not one to go around stirring up trouble. parsy the sincere.
PS: Was so HAPPY to see little Tommy D. go down in South Dakota! parsy the jubilant.
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