Mar 24, 2006 7:06 pm US/Eastern
Prominent Blacks Want N.O. Satellite Voting
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
Displaced New Orleans residents deserve the same voting privileges as the people of war-torn Iraq, several black leaders argued Friday in pushing for satellite voting from locations outside Louisiana.
"We are seeing people from Iraq being treated better than people from New Orleans," said Al Sharpton, who joined Jesse Jackson, NAACP President Bruce Gordon, Urban League President Marc Morial and several other influential black leaders in calling for steps to improve participation in New Orleans' April 22 elections.
Hurricane Katrina displaced more than 200,000 New Orleans residents of voting age, many of them black voters, and the black leaders contend that city elections could violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
"This is a Florida in the making," said Morial, a former New Orleans mayor, referring to Florida's extensive voting problems in the 2000 elections. "If you see an election train wreck coming, why not do something to prevent it before the wreck occurs?"
A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Al Ater, the state's top election official, said out-of-state voting operations are not legal under Louisiana law.
The Justice Department approved the city's election plan last week.
Complaints about the plan included inadequate voting options for thousands of displaced New Orleans residents, cumbersome absentee ballot procedures, frequent movement of precinct locations and a refusal to share information about how candidates can reach displaced voters.
The groups upset about the election are calling for an April 1 march on New Orleans to protest elections they claim could sharply erode one of the most important federal civil rights laws.
The New Orleans' election was postponed from its original Feb. 4 date, when state officials said they could not organize it in time, given the destruction of polling places and dispersal of voters caused by Katrina.
Justice Department spokesman Eric Holland said Louisiana's legislative black caucus has endorsed the plan. However, several members of the caucus voted against it, and state Sen. Cleo Fields, a prominent member of the caucus, is a leader in the effort to delay the election.
The decision not to share the contact information for displaced New Orleans voters was not the choice of the secretary of state, said his spokeswoman, Jennifer Marusak. She said federal officials ordered the state not to share the
Federal Emergency Management Agency's list of displaced New Orleans residents to protect their privacy.
Jackson has called for Gov. Kathleen Blanco to postpone the election to allow a fairer election plan.
State officials have worked out a plan for the election and are doing their best to contact displaced voters, said Blanco's spokeswoman Denise Bottcher, adding, "We are going forward."
Republican Sen. Rick Santorum said Friday that Democrats are out to defeat him to avenge the 2004 defeat of then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle by Republican John Thune.
"They see this as sort of payback time for Tom Daschle's loss, and I'm running for the No. 2 spot on the Republican leadership ladder and this would be a plum for them, if they are able to pick me off," the Pennsylvania lawmaker said in an interview broadcast Friday evening on Fox News' Special Report.
The GOP holds a 55-44 majority in the Senate, with one Democratic-leaning independent. Democrats see the Senate race in Pennsylvania, a state that went for
John Kerry in 2004, as a prime target.
Santorum, the No. 3 Senate Republican, has trailed his leading Democratic opponent, State Treasurer Bob Casey, in polls. Casey is the son of the late Pennsylvania governor with the same name.
"I think I'm safe to say that if his name wasn't Bob Casey, he wouldn't be running for the U.S. Senate today, and my name's Rick Santorum and I didn't get to be a U.S. senator cause my name's Rick Santorum," Santorum said.
Casey told the news channel that voters want change, and Santorum is too cozy with lobbyists.
"I think when you are the leading recipient of lobbyist money and you are meeting with lobbyists and they've having, I think, a disproportionate and sometimes adverse impact on legislation that affects real people, then I think you've got some explaining to do."
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
