Civil Rights Commission Has New State To Harass

As expected, some die-hard California Democrats are charging voting irregularities in the recall election that supposedly disenfranchised minorities – more specifically African-Americans and Latinos. Minority Orientals seem not to have been affected.

Complaints recall the attempted Florida recount of presidential ballots in selected Democratic precincts. The main problems then, as now, are said to be pesky punch-card ballots and irregularities by biased election boards.

Not much will come of California charges. They are mirror complaints that the U.S. Civil Rights Commission reluctantly abandoned after the Florida election.

Not that the Commission and the National Democratic Party tried mightily to find skullduggery by Florida Republicans.

The U.S. Supreme Court rapped partisan knuckles and hewed to the constitutionality of electoral voting. Nonetheless, California partisans

today rasp away on the world’s smallest violins.

Now comes Peter Kirsanow, newest Republican member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, to remind us that the Florida investigation fizzled.

He points out in National Review: “There’s absolutely no evidence that a single person was intimidated, harassed, or prevented from voting by Florida law-enforcement officials.”

He urges everyone interested in truth to log onto the Commission website --- www.usccr.gov -- and click “Voting Rights In Florida 2002.” This is 200 pages of detail.

However, there is not a single instance of willful misconduct. Incompetence by election workers – mostly Democrats – yes. Credibility of accusers – nil.

Accusations that the Florida Highway Patrol blocked access by blacks to the polls proved to be hooey by two witnesses. One testified that it was “unusual” to see an empty patrol car parked outside a polling place. It was not determined whether there was a doughnut shop near by.

The second witness had filed a highly publicized complaint with the NAACP. It was alleged that police had mounted a vehicle checkpoint near a polling place to harass black voters.

The subsequent investigation found that police had maintained a checkpoint for 90 minutes on a road two miles from the polling place – and that not on the same road as the poll. Citations for faulty equipment were issued to twelve whites, four blacks.

The most serious charge was that the “purge list” of convicted felons, barred by law from voting, and was fraudulently weighted against blacks.

Commission investigators did find errors in the purge list because of sloppy paperwork by courts and election boards. The net result was that whites were twice as likely as blacks to be wrongfully placed on the list. Nevertheless, 6,500 ineligible felons voted.

Strangely the Civil Rights Commission, NAACP and ACLU are quick to claim discrimination any time mental acuteness and legal behavior are required.

Prejudicial minority leaders seem to believe they have to assert deficiencies of minorities that can be compensated only by white majority deference. Self-denigration is the worst kind of racism.

The investigation found that punch card ballots are prone to mechanical errors. Mistakes in voting lists and counting procedures are more numerous than local election boards everywhere like to admit. Yet, mistakes are rife and color blind.

Mary Frances Berry is chairperson of the Civil Rights Commission. By law, half the members are Democrats and half Republicans chosen for six-year terms – half by the President of the United States and half by Congress. The president chooses the chairperson.

President Bill Clinton appointed Berry in 1993 and again in 1999. A college professor, she runs the Commission with a radical-liberal hand. She refused last year to seat Kirsanow when he was appointed to the Commission by President 43 Bush – finally doing so only by court order.

In a letter to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush when the recount investigation first started, Berry wrote: “The evidence points to an array of problems that cry out for solutions to insure that poor and/or people of color areas are not disproportionately affected.”

J. Bush and the Legislature dredged up money to help all Florida counties upgrade with touch-screen electronic voting machines. Local election boards established training programs for personnel.

Now, Chairperson Berry has found in California a new victim to harass. Look out, Arnie!

PARTING SHOTS

President Bush wants to make it easier for Cubans to come to the United States. Easy. Ask any Mexican for directions.

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As Leo Durocher once said, “Nice guys finish last.” The Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox take no comfort as gentlemen of baseball. (See “Lindsey At Large” in today’s Our Town section.)

Williams –Fla. vote study

Sunday – oct. 19, 2003

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