by Eric Ture Muhammad
Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com)�The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) May 21 announced plans to file lawsuits against counties in Florida, Missouri and Tennessee, accusing officials who monitored the 2000 presidential election of voting-rights violations.

The passionately contested election took weeks of recounting votes, underscored with hundreds of protests, arrests, then finally, a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that declared Texas Gov. George W. Bush victorious over Vice President Al Gore.

U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ralph F. Boyd Jr., who heads the DOJ�s civil rights division, identified none of the counties or cities to be sued. But, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee during an oversight hearing, the lawsuits will name election officials on a myriad of charges.

Charges will include disparate treatment of minority voters, improper purging of voter rolls, "motor voter" registration violations, failure to provide access to disabled voters, and failure to offer non-English-speaking voters bilingual assistance at the polls, he said.

"My hope, my aspiration and my expectation is that in each of those (suits), we�ll reach an enforceable agreement prior to the filing of the lawsuit," Mr. Boyd told the committee. In addition, he said election officials cooperated fully with the DOJ investigation. "They acknowledged certain deficiencies we have identified," he said.

Civil rights leaders and activists charged Blacks were disenfranchised when denied access to polling places. The NAACP filed class-action lawsuits and held town hall meetings in South Florida to address voters� concerns. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held hearings in Tallahassee, Fla., several days in 2001, and noted a pattern of voter suppression�particularly in Missouri and Florida�among officials and law enforcement authorities who allegedly stopped voters from entering polling precincts throughout the state.

More than 900,000 Blacks voted in the Nov. 7 election, a 65 percent increase from the 1996 election. After the 2000 election, 12,000 voting rights complaints were received by the Justice Department, resulting in 14 active investigations.

In St. Louis, DOJ�s Civil Rights division said election officials removed supposedly "inactive voters" from the rolls without adequate notification to voters and precinct-level officials.

Tennessee officials said DOJ charged them with creating "excessively burdensome procedural requirements" for driver�s license applicants who also wanted to register to vote.

"The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented," read the executive summary of the Commission report on the election fiasco. "The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters," it read.

"On the surface, it sounds like a noble effort on behalf of the Justice Department," activist and WJZD-FM radio host Stanley "Rip" Daniels told The Final Call from his Gulfport, Miss. office. "Obviously, they are reacting to the already filed lawsuits of the NAACP and others over the 2000 debacle," he said.

Mr. Daniels, who is very active in his state�s voter registration campaigns and the state flag controversy, said the outcome of the lawsuits might not mean much to voters who believe the election was stolen.

"With a Bush presidency, a DOJ headed by John Ashcroft and a Supreme Court that ignored the voting violations and voter protests in the first place, what differently could we expect? Filing lawsuits is one thing but getting the DOJ to punish the wrongdoers is another story. Who do you punish? Is it the Supreme Court Justices, Katherine Harris, the Bush family, the police in those counties, pollsters? Who?" he asked.

"I see very little coming out of this," Mr. Daniels said.

Several Florida officials, community leaders and law enforcement authorities blamed errors on logistical problems caused by an unexpectedly large Black voter turnout, flawed registration lists, faulty ballots and malfunctioning voting equipment.

After a lengthy state investigation, Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida never returned any criminal complaints against any of its officials. Mr. Boyd told the Senate committee he expects the suits will be filed in federal court within two months�well in advance of primaries for November 2002 elections.