Politicians and actors urge black Floridians to vote early. Gov. Jeb Bush says: "The election will go off without a hitch."
By JONI JAMES
Published October 16, 2004
TALLAHASSEE - Fearful of a repeat of the 2000 presidential election, a group of politicians and celebrities launched a statewide tour Friday urging black voters to know their rights at the polls.
The tour began as local election officials in Tallahassee reported new allegations of attempts to dissuade young and black voters from casting accurate ballots Nov. 2.
Three members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Reps. Kendrick Meek and Corrine Brown of Florida and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio, joined with Emmy-winning actor Alfre Woodard and actor James McDaniel of NYPD Blue fame to call on blacks to take full advantage of the state's early voting, which starts Monday.
They also urged voters to call Election Protection, a hotline sponsored by Democratic-leaning groups, if they have any trouble casting a vote.
"If you've got a problem, we want to know about it," said Meek, D-Miami. "We'd rather have 10 days to correct a problem than 15 minutes at 6:45 p.m. on Election Day.
He and the others will carry the message throughout the state over the next four days as they ride two buses wrapped in "Vote Democratic" signs. Details for a potential stop in Tampa on Sunday were still being finalized Friday.
"We want to make sure our voters are educated this time around about their rights," said Brown, whose home district of Duval County saw 27,000 ballots from mostly black districts spoiled in 2000.
Republicans, meanwhile, continued to criticize the Democratic National Committee for distributing a manual in Florida and other battleground states that urged activists to raise concerns that minority voters might be discouraged from casting a ballot.
The manual told supporters that absent local evidence of such efforts, Democrats should launch a "pre-emptive strike" and raise the issue anyway.
Gov. Jeb Bush, speaking in Tampa Friday, called the manual "disgusting" and a "concerted effort to try to undermine democracy."
The governor has repeatedly said he has confidence in the state's touch screen and optical scan systems. "I'm confident the election will go off without a hitch," he said.
But black leaders accused Bush of launching the first "pre-emptive strike," pointing to Secretary of State Glenda Hood's initial insistance at using a flawed felon voter roll to disqualify voters. The felon list, eventually discarded by Hood this summer under pressure, included blacks and whites but few Hispanics.
In Tallahassee, Leon County's Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho said Friday that his office has uncovered more than a half-dozen cases where college-age voters found they had been registered, without their consent, in another county, apparently after signing a petition for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Among the victims: Sancho's stepdaughter who is a graduate student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. He's also heard from students at Florida A&M, Florida State and Tallahassee Community College.
Sancho said black voters also have reported receiving calls instructing them to vote simply by marking the sample ballot they received in the mail. The callers identified themselves as being from the Democratic Party, Sancho said.
"If I'm getting this many calls and hearing from this many people, I imagine the majority of people are not contacting me," he said. "The effect of all this activity will potentially cause confusion on Election Day, and that is something we'll have to deal with."
The Florida chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference called for the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate the Leon County allegations.
Sevell Brown III, president of the SCLC in Florida, called the efforts "no less and no more than a well-organized and orchestrated attempt to systematically suppress the African-American vote."
Times staff writer Brady Dennis contributed to this report.
