12287: Haitian Americans will receive help at polls (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

County avoids federal lawsuit
Haitian Americans will receive help at polls
BY ANDREA ROBINSON
arobinson@herald.com

Miami-Dade County officials on Friday agreed to improve language-assistance
programs for Haitian-American voters in future elections, heading off
threatened legal action by the U.S. Department of Justice.

As a result, the county must train all poll workers on how to handle
requests for language assistance and must implement voter education programs
for Creole speakers. Also, at least one English/Creole-speaking poll worker
must be assigned to precincts with a significant number of Haitian-American
voters.

The settlement was announced by top Justice Department officials in
Washington, D.C., following the signing of a consent decree that will be in
effect through 2005.

Justice officials told a Senate committee last month that they planned to
sue Miami-Dade and two other Florida counties for alleged voting rights
violations in the 2000 presidential election.

Ralph Boyd, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, said Friday
that Justice investigators found no evidence of deliberate discrimination
concerning the alleged violations.

Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas said the settlement was a sign that the county
has demonstrated progress in helping Haitian-Americans use their right to
vote.

''The department recognized that [we have] enacted measures both prior to
and following the 2000 elections with the purpose of making the voting
process easier for Haitian Americans,'' he said.

INVESTIGATION ENDS

Added Penelas: ``The Department of Justice has assured the mayor's office
that they have no other pending investigations against Miami-Dade County for
alleged violations that may have occurred during the 2000 elections.''

However, the announcement did not please Haitian-American leader Jacques
Despinosse. He said the consent decree doesn't go far enough.

''They aren't telling me anything new. Our vote was denied from the
beginning,'' said Despinosse, vice mayor of North Miami. ``The county has
not spent enough money on voter education in the Haitian community.''

The Miami-Dade settlement follows an 18-month investigation by federal
officials into complaints of voter disenfranchisement across the state
during the November 2000 presidential election. Civil rights leaders around
the country had hoped the investigation would lead to lawsuits on a wide
range of alleged abuses.

FOCUS NARROW

However, the Florida investigations were narrowly focused only on the issue
of language, and whether poll workers had violated the rights of voters who
were not proficient in English.

Two other Florida counties, Osceola and Orange, were investigated for
failing to train poll workers on how to assist Spanish-speaking voters -- as
required under the federal Voting Rights Act. So far, no agreement has been
reached with those counties.

In the consent decree with Miami-Dade, federal officials said that in
instances in which poll workers provided help to local Haitians, it was
limited to ''reviewing sample ballots'' and ``standing next to them during
poll workers demonstrations.''

''This limited assistance was of little value to voters once they entered
the voting booth,'' the decree stated.

Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor David Leahy refused to discuss the case or
acknowledge that a settlement had been reached.

He said the county has worked to do more for Creole-speaking voters. The
county's new touch-screen voting machines, which will be used in the Sept.
10 elections, will be programmed with English, Spanish and Creole languages,
he said.

He said his department would also increase the number of Creole-speaking
poll workers at about 60 precincts around the county.

MINIMUM OF TWO

''Our goal is to have a minimum of at least two in each precinct we've
identified as having a significant Haitian voter population,'' Leahy said.

The settlement comes as Justice officials also announced that complaints by
the NAACP and other civil rights groups stemming from the bitterly contested
2000 election could not be prosecuted.

In a letter to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, Justice officials said some, like the
infamous Palm Beach County butterfly ballots, are not covered under the
Voting Rights Act. For others, such as the wrongful purging of voter rolls,
``there was no evidence that the provisions were enacted with the purpose of
. . . harming the voting strength of minority voters.''

The Justice announcement most likely ends federal intervention into the
controversial presidential election.

SENATOR WEIGHS IN

U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said in a released statement he was ``grateful
to have finally received a comprehensive response to our many requests for
information from the Department of Justice. We are analyzing the points made
by Mr. Boyd, so that we can determine whether additional action is
required.''

Nelson, also a Democrat, was even more critical of the Justice Department
for not pursuing further a wide range of complaints, including the high rate
of uncountable ballots in minority precincts.

''It's hard for me to believe that in over 11,000 complaints, there's not
one valid complaint, according to the Department of Justice,'' said Nelson.
``I'm renewing my demand to see the evidence of the complaints, and I want
to see the care that was taken in investigating them.''

Added Nelson: ``I don't like their attitude on this. They have been
uncooperative for a year and a half.''

Herald staff writer Frank Davies in Washington contributed to this report.


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