Introduction

The election of November 7, 2000 was a milestone in African American politics
because of the strength of the turnout of black voters, achieving a relative
parity with the white vote for the first time in history. Yet, as this
election was also historic because of the closeness of the election between
candidates Al Gore and George Bush, their struggle to complete the contest,
also revealed independently that in many places, most significantly in
Florida, blacks had experienced the massive denial of their right to vote.

This meant that the aim of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to enable black
voters to cast their ballots fairly and in a way that would equitably
register their impact upon the political system was thwarted. Many of the
barriers experienced by blacks in their attempt to vote in the 2000 elections
date back to the period of rampant Jim Crow practices that were the target of
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For example, in the historic City of Selma,
Alabama, local officials are allowed to regulate polling times and as a
result, the state has five different voting times. Then, the notification of
polling station changes was posted in the local newspaper which has a
circulation of 7,000, in a 38-page section of the paper on May 17, 2000.
However, there are 40,000 people in the heavily black Dallas county.

Kweisi Mfume, President of the NAACP witnessed complaints of voter
irregularities that began to be received at national headquarters from
November 4 to election day, November 7 itself, and while they originated
from around the country, most of them came from the state of Florida. He
immediately contacted the Justice Department, which sent an officer to the
NAACP headquarters on November 7 to monitor the nature of the complaints.

Subsequently, after election day, the Florida state branch of the NAACP
and legal organizations such as the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in
Washington, DC, the NAACP legal Defense Fund and others began to receive
numerous complaints alleging the denial of the right of blacks to vote, the
cumulative nature of which were reflected in the public Hearings held by the
NAACP on Saturday, November 11, 2000. Individuals testified that:

-the head of the state NAACP, Ms. Adora Nweze, was initially not allowed
to vote, because the poll worker said that she had been sent an absentee
ballot, but she never received it;

- many members of Miami’s Haitian community were not given language
assistance when they came to vote;

- three ballot boxes were found at different locations that were secured
and contained a serial number and appeared to contain ballots that were
not included in the initial counting, were turned over to election officials;

- voters who registered online through various services were told that the
information they had provided conflicted with election information
regarding their addresses;

- elderly voters and others who arrived at their regular polling stations
were told that they had arrived at the wrong polling station, or discovered that
their voting location had been changed without notification;

- a disproportionate number of ballots in black neighborhoods were either
invalidated because they contained an over-vote or a "no-vote" for
president;

- black voters were disproportionately purged from voter lists, such that
many who had duly registered through the normal process were told their
names were not on the rolls;

- an election official in Hillsboro county gave a list of 1,500 voters to
a talk show host citing irregularities with the list, since it contained registered
voters who had filed absentee voter applications which were rejected by voting
officials;

- many individuals were being denied the right to vote because they did
not possess two forms of identification;

- students from Bethune-Cookman College who had registered were sent from
one polling station to another, eventually being denied the right to
vote;

- the police stopped people in some districts on their way to the polls in
Daytona Beach; and police were stopping people in the district of
Woodville outside of Tallahassee, as indicated by the Guardian of London
newspaper;

- people who spoiled their initial ballot were not given additional
ballots as the law requires;

- Students at Florida A & M University were able to vote because their
voting machines did not operate on election day and not repaired in time for
them to cast a vote;

Then there was ample evidence that black votes were thrown out
disproportionately. The Al Gore campaign complained, in their rationale for
contesting the vote in heavily Democratic selected counties, that many
"over-votes" were created by the use of the so-called "butterfly ballot" that
resulted in the elimination of many votes that would have gone to him. Many
of these votes that were eliminated originated in areas such as Duvall
County, where 22,000 votes were thrown out, 10,000 of them from voters in
black neighborhoods. This raises issues of lack of assistance, faulty
education, poor balloting machine condition and etc. In any case, it has a
disproportionate impact upon black voters, since a much higher proportion of
them vote irregularly and are, thus, not familiar with the mechanics of
election machines such as the punch-card system.

A study by The Washington Post newspaper found that the punch-card system
caused votes to be eliminated on a greatly disproportionate basis from black
voters in such states as Florida and Georgia, while the highest disparity was
in Illinois’ Cook County, where more than 120,000 votes, or 5 percent of the
total, were thrown out. The Post cited an Ohio State University Political
Scientists who said that: "Poor people are more likely to invalidate ballots
because of their unfamiliarity punch-card systems" and that voters in
affluent areas spoiled their ballots 2 percent of the time, while those in
poor areas do so 20 percent of the time.

The origin of some of the irregularities with the voter lists were said
to be vested in the fact that Secretary of State Katherine Harris’s office
removed 173,000 names from the voter list in June 2000. The firm that was
contracted, Choice Point, which has offices in Atlanta and Austin, indicated
that the list contained 8,000 individuals who had felony convictions and who
were, therefore, ineligible to vote. These people, however, had been
convicted of misdemeanors and should have been allowed to vote, while 455
people who had felony convictions were allowed to vote.   The error caused by
the use of this list is significant to the black community, since in addition
to the 31% of black males in Florida who are ineligible to vote due to Felony
convictions, others were eliminated for the same reason who had no such
record. This is an important problem since 13% of the 3.9 million Americans
who were disqualified from voting for this reason, or 1.4 million are black.

                                           Electoral Reform

As a result of the difficulties uncovered in the 2000 elections, a general
consensus has arisen that there should be a reform of the electoral system to
enable American citizens to vote fairly and efficiently. Much of the
response to voting irregularities has come from the state level where the
National Association of Secretaries of State, meeting in January of 2001,
have begun to play a leading role, advising members of state legislatures
about both the problems and potential solutions. In a meeting of the
National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, the Executive Director of
the Association was present and subsequently included a member of the Florida
State Legislature on the Winter meeting agenda. Altogether, at this writing
(February 13, 2001) more than 300 pieces of legislation have been filed, as
determined by a survey of The Wall Street Journal.   One example of this is a
serious piece of legislation, offered by a state Senator who chairs the
committee with jurisdiction over electoral matters, who referred to his bill
as: "the 2000 Presidential Election Debacle Reform Bill of 2001."

At the level of the Federal House of Representatives and Senate, there
approximately 20 pieces of legislation, five of which were proposed before
the new Congress began in January and 15 bill have been offered since that
time. Doubtless, there will be additional measures. Broadly speaking, there
are bills that have an omnibus flavor, seeking to establish a commission to
address a wide variety of perceived problems and then there are separate
bills which address specific problems. In such situations, the omnibus
approaches tends to be more attractive as the eventual form of the bill that
passes and thus, may consume much of the eventual work of whatever commission
may be established.



Summary of Electoral Reform Legislation in the U. S. Congress

The Summary
This work summarizes six legislative proposals from the House of
Representatives on electoral reform, selected because they present an initial
picture of the key features of nearly all of the proposals (Appendix). As
such, I will not only summarize a sample of the existing legislation, but
then suggest, in the section on Electoral Reform and the Black Community,
what elements are missing that may begin to contribute to the development of
a more effective legislative package that is specifically designed to correct
various aspects of the individual and collective disenfranchisement of
African American voters. Although the general provisions of these
legislative proposals will help correct many of the deficiencies in state law
and practice in the administration of election systems, still they lack some
of the special sensitivities to the experiences black voters have had for
well over 100 years.

The legislative proposals summarized in this brief report are regular
bills, the features of which are compared in two ways: first, the primary
sections of each bill were summarized according to the key Features that they
contain. Second, the critical "Duties" or "issues to be addressed" Section
in each bill relating to the role of the Commission, where present in each
piece of legislation, was checked off according to a listing of the key
features that the accumulated bills contain, since it is both the most
extensive and important section of the legislation.

Features:
Commission purpose/mandate: The summary finds that nearly all of the
proposals advocate the development of a special Commission in order to study
the electoral systems at the federal, state and local levels with a view to
recommending corrective action to the Congress for legislation.   The one
exception is the Nadler bill which suggests that the Federal Election
Commission might exercise such functions.
Membership: Most of the bills suggest that the membership of the
Commission should range from 12 to 20 members with the members chosen by the
leadership of the House and Senate.
Matching Fund: Only the Nadler Bill suggests that there should be a
Matching fund that provides federal funds to be matched by states which may
obtain grants for the purpose of improving their electoral systems. The
Nadler Bill proposes $250,000,000. All other bills suggest that one of the
outcomes of the study would be to determine wether such a Fund is necessary.
Appropriations: The appropriation recommended for this purpose of the
work of the Commissions ranges from $2 million to $10 million in the Nadler
bill, for the same length of time as all other bills.
Time-frame: In most cases, the time-frame of the Commission’s work is
proposed to be one year, with the exception of the Markey bill, which
recommends that the work be completed in "not less than 24 months." In any
case, the language, "not less than" would appear to make possible a timetable
which comports with a more urgent schedule.
Powers: Finally, the powers of each bill appear to be restricted to
holding hearings and gathering such information from Federal sources or
others that are pertinent to the production of the final report. In the
conduct of the work, it would also appear that normal access to
administrative resources and personnel status would obtain.

            Electoral Reform and the Black Community

The question of whether or not these proposals are adequate to address the
many violations of the right to vote experienced by blacks in Florida and
around the nation, must take into consideration the careful matching of what,
indeed occurred to the remedies proposed in this set of legislative proposals.

Problem Experienced Affected aspect of the Voter System
sent an absentee ballot but it was electoral system absentee voter list
never received; absentee voter management by election officials;
applications rejected;

rejection of language assistance; behavior of polling station officials;

ballot boxes not picked up, behavior of polling station officials;
included in the count;

online voter registration list not electoral system voter list management
transferred regular voter rolls; by election officials;

lack of proper notice of polling electoral system polling station
selection by stations; election officials;

ballots from black neighborhoods voter error/election officials tabulation
error/cast wrongly; election equipment malfunction;

purging of black voters from lists; electoral system management of voter list;

requirement of more than one form election system management of voter ID/
of voter identification; behavior of polling station officials;

police road-blocks established in intervent.