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Legal Issues
NAACP v. Katherine Harris et al.
The lawsuit primarily claims that State and local election officials disproportionately disenfranchised minority voters in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, as well as rights guaranteed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In addition, the lawsuit alleges that election officials violated due process of law, federal civil rights acts and Florida election laws.
At issue in this case is whether the use of punch-card balloting machines in certain counties in Florida violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. According to various statistical analyses conducted by newspapers across the country, the punch-card voting machines have substantially higher rate of error in recording, processing, and counting ballots than other voting methods especially any method in which results are tabulated at a central location and which do not provide voters with a warning of voting errors. In addition, they are most often used disproportionately in counties with substantial minority population. Civil rights groups challenging the use of punch-card ballots claim they deprive plaintiffs of equal protection and due process by failing to count each vote equally among all voters in the State of Florida.
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which provides that "[n]o state shall make or enforce any law which shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," was written to address local and state-based racial inequalities. The clause, like all parts of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, was enacted shortly after the Civil War, and its primary goal was to attain free and equal treatment for the former slaves. In essence, it guarantees that people who are similarly situated will be treated similarly.
The rampant voting irregularities, however, arose out of the racially disparate use of different machines in different counties across the state ? machines that ultimately denied certain voters, namely African-American and Haitian-American voters, the equal opportunity to vote and have their votes counted in the presidential election.
Passed by Congress in 1965, the Voting Rights Act outlaws government practices ? intentional or not ? that diminish the opportunity of minority citizens to vote. It was enacted originally to end literacy tests and other schemes to keep Blacks from the polls and was designed to protect minority voters whenever they confront more difficulties than whites in trying to cast their ballots. Nevertheless, it took time for the Voting Rights Act to have an impact ? for minorities to vote and gain equal representation. Despite such gains, it was evident during this recent Presidential election that improvements must be made with regard to voting methods in minority precincts.
Alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act during the 2000 Presidential Election include the State of Florida's failure to:
- provide computer links to central voter registration files in heavily African-American precincts to remedy the problem of voters whose valid registration information was not available at the precinct;
- maintain adequate records of voters who registered under the federal "Motor-Voter" law;
- provide interpreters in minority communities, such as in Miami-Dade County where Spanish and Kreyol is primarily spoken;
