sisyphusshrugged | a blast from the past

those wacky Democrats are worried about minorities being allowed to vote

The Democratic National Committee and presidential nominee John Kerry Tuesday announced a high-profile team of lawyers to monitor voter rights and followed up with a radio ad accusing Republicans and President Bush of discouraging blacks from voting.

Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree, one of the eight-member legal task force, said he feared an "October surprise" in which bogus notices appear in the black community urging residents to "vote Nov. 4" (two days after election day) or advising voters to report to the police department "to make sure your record is clear" before going to the polls.

Dennis Archer, the former mayor of Detroit, another task force member, said the group would defend the voting rights of the homeless, who often lack the requisite identification papers.

And he said that the message to "Republican operatives" who wish to hold down the black vote will be, "Do not try it in this election. We will be ready."

Voting rights attorney Rolando Rios of San Antonio said he was fighting plans by Texas to send observers to state polls "where they've got complaints" of fraudulent voting. That would intimidate some Latino voters, Rios said, adding that he also objects to public announcements that voters will need to provide an i.d.

Under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, first time voters who mailed in their registrations are required to show proof of identification. Democrats maintain that the provision does not cover the millions of new voters who have been registered by various interest groups in a massive grass-roots operation. (Republicans filed a lawsuit in New Mexico to require more i.d. checks for new voters, but the suit was rejected by the state's high court.)

The task force is part of the Democrats' 2004 Voter Protection Program, which party officials said was an effort to avert a repeat of the 2000 Florida vote count debacle. The plan includes installing a legal coordinator in each of 23 states where the presidential race is expected to be close and identifying thousands of local lawyers to handle voter complaints in every precinct.

As evidence for their allegation that Republicans don't want minorities to vote, Democrats cited Michigan State Rep. John Pappageorge, who was quoted in the Detroit Free Press in July as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time . . ." Detroit's population is more than 80 percent black and heavily Democratic.

Pappageorge was serving as a Michigan veterans team leader for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign at the time.

Two leading black Republicans rejected the charge that their party wants to restrain minority voting or that Pappageorge's remarks speak for their party.

"The campaign and the RNC (Republican National Committee) took immediate measures to have him resign" from the Bush-Cheney team in Michigan, said Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. "We didn't want to be associated with those comments,"