Reply #18: CA: NAACP CALLS FOR PROBE INTO POSSIBLE VOTER DISCRIMINATION [View All]

CBS, San Francisco
Bay City Newswire

12/04/06 8:20 PST
RICHMOND (BCN)

The Richmond branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has asked the Contra Costa County Elections Department and the state and federal departments of justice to investigate allegations that some minorities in west Contra Costa County faced serious obstacles to casting their votes in the Nov. 7 election.

Long lines and pencil shortages were not the only problems reported in Richmond and North Richmond communities during the recent election.

The Richmond NAACP stated in a letter written Friday that some "African-American voters may have been improperly turned away from the polls at Wilson Elementary School" in Richmond.

In addition, the NAACP has reported that several polling places that were once located in African-American communities were moved to majority white areas.

"People want to vote in their own community," President-elect for the Richmond branch of the NAACP Ken Nelson said today.

The elections department consolidated and changed polling places throughout the county for the Nov. 7 election, but some of those consolidations did not make sense to people in affected communities.

http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/12/04/n/HeadlineNews/VOTER-COMPLAINTS/resources_bcn_html