12284: Miami-Dade settles election suit (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami-Dade settles election suit

By William E. Gibson
Washington Bureau Chief
Posted June 8 2002

WASHINGTON · The U.S. Justice Department and Miami-Dade County settled a
lawsuit Friday over alleged violations during the 2000 presidential
elections, with county officials agreeing to provide translation and other
assistance for Creole-speaking voters.

If approved by a judge, as expected, the "consent decree" clears Miami-Dade
from further legal action that grew out of a federal investigation and a
host of voter complaints.


While dispatching the Miami-Dade case, Ralph Boyd, the head of the Justice
Department's civil rights division, told members of the Senate he had
decided not to pursue legal action on widespread complaints of
discrimination in the state's presidential election.

Boyd said his investigation failed to turn up evidence that countless
ballots were lost when election boxes disappeared from Miami-Dade. He also
said Justice did not take action on the confusion caused by Palm Beach
County's butterfly ballot because subsequent state reforms appear to have
solved the problems and the civil rights division did not have jurisdiction.

Boyd's action failed to quell anger about these complaints.

"I want to see how they were disposed of. I want to see the care that they
took," said a skeptical Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. "I want to see it in detail
-- we owe it to poor people. This is not just the right to vote, it's the
right to have your vote counted."

Miami-Dade was one of three counties, along with Orange and Osceola, where
Justice did decide to take legal action. In settling the case against
Miami-Dade, Boyd said he was convinced the county was committed to reforms
that would ensure the rights of all voters.

Miami-Dade officials readily agreed to dispose of the complaint even while
calling the legal action pointless.

"My feeling all along has been that court action was not necessary, that
Miami-Dade County has gone well beyond what is required by law to enable
Haitian-Americans to vote," Murray Greenberg, Miami-Dade assistant attorney,
said Friday. "But since they are only asking us to do things we're already
doing, this was an expeditious way of resolving this issue."

The county agreed to train poll workers on the language requirements, to
"make best efforts" to assign at least one Creole-speaking worker to polling
places with significant numbers of Haitian-Americans, to help show those
voters how the process works, to post signs in Creole and to permit Justice
to monitor future elections.

"The first thing all voters will notice is that they will be voting on touch
screens," Greenberg said. "Ballots will be available in all three languages
to every voter in every precinct. Laptops will be at every precinct, so that
if they are registered but show up at the wrong precinct they can cast a
provisional ballot."

William E. Gibson can be reached at wgibson@sun-sentinel.com or 202-824-8256
in Washington.



Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


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