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| NAACP Lawsuit Is Filed Over Ballot Rule In Penn. |
| 2008-10-27 |
| Concerned that voting machine breakdowns could cause long lines on Election Day, particularly in minority neighborhoods, several groups filed a lawsuit on Thursday to force Pennsylvania election officials to provide paper ballots when half the machines in a precinct have failed. The top election official, Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortés, has directed poll workers to provide paper ballots to a precinct only when all of its touch-screen voting machines are broken. The lawsuit was filed in Philadelphia by the Pennsylvania N.A.A.C.P.; the Election Reform Network, a nonpartisan group; and a coalition of individual voters. It asks a federal judge to declare Mr. Cortés’s directive unconstitutional on the grounds that it puts an undue burden on residents who may have to wait hours to vote. Mr. Cortés said that current safeguards should ensure an efficient election and that forcing a change could confuse poll workers who had already been trained. “It’s going to be busy on Election Day, but I’m confident that we are prepared,” he said. “We hope that the court 12 days before the election doesn’t change the rules.” Fifty-four of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania use touch-screen machines without paper ballots. According to the lawsuit, 10 percent to 20 percent of the machines will break down on Election Day, based on experience, and 99.4 percent of precincts have three touch-screen machines or fewer. “If you disenfranchise voters, it’s the No. 1 civil rights issue,” said J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the Pennsylvania N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Mondesire added that breakdowns and delays were particularly bad during the April primary in Philadelphia neighborhoods with large black populations, like Germantown and Mount Airy. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said one of them, Angel Coleman, was a single mother in Philadelphia who could not wait in a long line the morning of the primary and had to return in the evening after she made baby-sitting arrangements. Two of the three touch-screen machines in her precinct were broken. “The ultimate effect when we see these long lines is to turn people away,” said the lawyer, John Bonifaz, who is legal director for Voter Action, a nonprofit voting rights group. “People often cannot wait.” |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #3 How can you be associated with the National Association for the Advancement of COLORED people but be NON partisan? Bizzaro world. |
| Posted by: Hellfish 2008-10-27 18:13 |
| #2 Quite difficult to STUFF that computer with ACORNS. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-10-27 10:49 |
| #1 I wonder if reaches the level, that SCOTUS will deny the petition because the filer lacked 'standing' like they did with the GOP in Ohio. Nah. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-10-27 10:16 |