NAACP leaders are upset that, despite verbal assurances by Clinton administration officials such as Attorney General Janet Reno that they would "review" the organization's request, the government has not responded seriously to its call for an investigation.

On December 12 NAACP president Kweisi Mfume led a march of 1,000 people from Miami Arena to Miami-Dade County Hall that called on authorities to "count every vote." He said the NAACP was launching an 18-month voter turnout campaign, aimed at the midterm elections. The civil rights group actively campaigned for Democratic Party candidates in the recent elections.

On November 16 the NAACP presented the Clinton administration's Justice Department with a transcript of a public hearing held five days earlier, in which U.S.-born Blacks, Haitian-Americans, and Latinos had exposed a range of obstacles, abuse, and other voting rights violations they faced in attempting to cast a ballot. Mfume said the national organization "was appalled to hear testimony of conduct that would clearly adversely impact the voting strength of Florida's minority voters and that could be reasonably considered an intentional effort to deny the franchise to voters of color."  
 
'Justice Dept. does not seem interested'
The NAACP said the transcript helps to "establish a public record in its appeal to the Justice Department, which does not seem interested in establishing a record" of the voting rights violations.

Included in the reports and testimony were stories of intimidation, of the names of registered voters missing from voter rolls, of the closing of polls while people were still in line, and of first-time Haitian voters--many of them newly naturalized U.S. citizens--being prevented from getting help from Creole translators.

Mfume said that the NAACP has a "moral obligation [to] insist that all voters be allowed to cast an unfettered ballot and be free from intimidation and harassment as promised by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We abhor the countless horror stories from minority voters across the country and are incensed that no one seems to care."

The NAACP announced on election day that it had deployed 200 supporters to investigate reports that individuals in "Michigan, Virginia, and Florida have received calls from persons claiming to be NAACP officials soliciting support for Republican candidate George W. Bush. In Florida, investigators are also checking into complaints of racial profiling of black males by police near polling sites." The NAACP informed the Justice Department of its concerns.

On November 6 the Justice Department issued a press release stating that it "will dispatch 317 federal observers to 18 counties in nine different states." These are Alabama, Arizona, California, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Utah. The press release encouraged reporting of "complaints about discriminatory voting practices in this election," and included hot-line numbers to call.  
 
Gov't considers whether to investigate
But it was not until December 3 that the Justice Department dispatched two representatives to Florida "to determine whether the agency should open an initial investigation," in the words of the Miami Herald. A spokesperson stressed that the department remained in the "information-gathering" stage and had not yet determined whether to conduct an investigation.

Florida NAACP president Adora Obi Nweze told the press, "Democracy is not at work. They aren't taking it seriously because they don't want to get involved politically." The Justice Department announcement came days after the civil rights organization reiterated its demands and began to prepare a federal lawsuit in the case.

In contrast to the marked lack of interest by the Clinton-Gore administration in pursuing the NAACP's complaints of voting rights violations against Blacks and other oppressed nationalities, the Gore campaign went all out in the final days of the election campaign to court the support of right-wing Cuban-American businessmen in south Florida. Democratic vice-presidential contender Joseph Lieberman visited leaders of the Cuban American National Foundation in late October, making a point of visiting the grave of the group's deceased founder, Jorge Mas Canosa, in Little Havana to pay his respects for the counterrevolutionary opponent of the Cuban revolution.

In the months leading up to the election, the NAACP conducted a voter registration and get-out-the-vote effort. More than 900,000 Blacks voted in Florida November 7, a 65 percent increase from the 1996 election, according to the Washington Times. This included a large number of Haitians, many of whom were recently naturalized citizens voting in their first presidential elections. About 8,000 Haitians are registered as voters in Palm Beach County alone.

Julian Bond, NAACP national chairman, responded to a New York Times question on "how President-elect Bush can bridge the gap between African-Americans and his party" by urging the new administration to "immediately acknowledge the well-documented charges of minority voter suppression in Florida and elsewhere, investigate them, and pursue civil or criminal action where appropriate."

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is slated to begin hearings in Tallahassee January 11 to review complaints of voting irregularities and other reports of intimidation, limited access to polling places, and other unconstitutional obstacles placed in the way of Blacks, Haitians, and others in the state.

Another aspect of the disenfranchisement of working people that has drawn attention is the legislation denying voting rights to people convicted of felonies, including those who have already served out their sentences. In Florida, more than 30 percent of all Black men are permanently barred from voting because of felony convictions on their records. As a result of similar laws in a growing number of states, some 4.2 million U.S. citizens cannot vote.

In June, the Philadelphia NAACP filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court challenging a state law that prevents people with felony convictions from voting for five years after they serve their sentences.
 
 
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