Judge To Hear New Orleans Vote Challenge

Judge To Hear New Orleans Vote Challenge

POSTED: 8:25 am EST March 27, 2006
UPDATED: 8:25 am EST March 27, 2006

NEW ORLEANS -- With less than a month before New Orleans' first elections since Hurricane Katrina, the vote's plan _ and even the date _ are still in dispute.

Civil rights groups were expected to return to federal court Monday to try to block the April 22 mayoral election, arguing that too many black residents scattered by Katrina will be unable to take part.

U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle, who earlier turned aside pleas for a postponement, has agreed to hold a hearing to reconsider the dismissal.

The election has turned into a test of the city's, and the nation's, ability to hold an election in the midst of rebuilding a major city with more than half of the population displaced. The vote also could help determine the city's rebuilding plan.

http://www.wral.com/news/8287248/detail.html

There are thousands of people working everyday in New Orleans, cleaning up the city, rebuilding their homes or property, paying taxes and if it were not for them the city would halt. There are also 24 candidates seeking the office of Mayor. They are well intentioned people with plans for what they think will make the city run. Then there are those who have been evacuated who are being manipulated by groups who aren't doing much to aide and abet the city today and are doing what they can to hose up the elections. Soldiers in Iraq will have no problem voting in their hometown elections. And there has been an incredible amount of effort put forth ensure those displaced from New Orleans can vote. If the election does not come out to suit "civil rights" the election will be challenged. Too bad that effort isn't being used to make the city better instead of trying to tear it down.

here in chicago, we routinely set up polling places to help people vote in mexican elections, polish elections, etc.
maybe what they really don't want is to have any kind of accounting of the survivors?? first, they would have to admit they forgot where they sent them, and don't know where polling places ought to be set up.
but then, you need to give your name, etc, to vote. survivors could be counted. then the lie of the official death toll might be seen.
nothing surprises me any more.

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On edit: Already recommended

The Disenfranchisement Of Katrina's Survivors

Adding Insult to Injury for Katrina Survivors
- Barriers to Voting Due to Inadequate State & Local Efforts
- Two Law Suits Fail to Remedy the Situation.

Special for "Scoop" Independent Media
Michael Collins
Wednesday, 1 March 2006, 3:02 pm


Does this Katrina evacuee have the right to vote in the
upcoming New Orleans municipal elections? Without a doubt
but her prospects have been limited by an unresponsive state
legislature and Federal authorities.

Acting in good faith?

The Louisiana legislature passed Act 40 in a special November 2005 session. The act was to address voting assistance to Katrina survivors around the nation. In essence, it gave Louisiana Secretary of State Al Ater some flexibility in voting procedures within Louisiana which could result in satellite voting locations for New Orleans residents displaced within the state. It did not authorize Ater from setting up satellite locations in cities outside the state with heavy Katrina populations.

Act 40 gives Secretary Ater the responsibility to plan for and resolve "the technical, mechanical, or logistical problems impairing the holding of elections with respect to the relocation or consolidation of polling places within the parish, potential shortages of commissioners and absentee commissioners, or shortages of voting machines." "Within the parish" means Orleans parish, the voting area for New Orleans. Such broad power is lacking when it comes to New Orleans evacuees around the nation. They are concentrated in these states: Arkansas, Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.

In addition, FEMA denied Ater the funding necessary to run public service announcements in these areas, e.g., Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, etc. In a statement issued on November 9, 2005, Ater remarked, "I'm disappointed to learn FEMA has again denied our request for funding for public service announcements in areas with high concentrations of evacuees." Ater had lined up celebrities for public service announcements informing Katrina survivors of voting procedures.

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Iraqi and Mexican citizens voting in the United States have more rights than Katrina evacuees.

In the 2004 Iraq national elections, Iraqis in the United States had the option of voting at satellite voting facilities in several major cities. This process allowed expatriates, some of whom had not been in Iraq for years, to go to a location, establish their current or former nationality as an Iraqi, and then vote for the candidate of their choice. Several thousand Iraqis living in America, citizens and visitors, took advantage of the opportunity and the voting went off without incident.


Iraqi expatriates residing in the United States had satellite
voting locations throughout the country to vote in their 2004
national elections.

In the 2005 Mexican national elections, the Mexican government arranged for similar satellite voting for the several million eligible Mexican voters living in the United States. While less than 16 thousand of the four million eligible voted, Mexican nationals living in the United States received information and had satellite voting facilities available to exercise their right to vote.

Yet the New Orleans evacuees, many of whom lost all of their belongings, are denied even modest special measures to enable their vote.