Monday, October 21, 2002

Blacks Hit By Voting Problems

I'm shocked, I tell you.


Black voters were disenfranchised more than others by snafus when Florida's Miami-Dade County introduced electronic voting equipment for the Sept. 10 primary, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Monday.

...
The ACLU released a report on Monday about polling problems in Miami-Dade, which was also one of several counties hit by controversy in 2000. It said that as in 2000, September's voting problems hit blacks worse than other voters.

The organization said an examination of 31 problem precincts revealed at least 1,544 "lost" votes, about half of which were from blacks.

"Not only are there a significant number of missing votes, but there's also an alarming racial disparity in the errors that occurred during the last election," said JoNel Newman, an ACLU attorney leading the ACLU's voting probe.