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electionline Weekly - April 27, 2006
electionline.org

I. In Focus This Week

'So easy' in the Big Easy
Residents have high marks for first post-Katrina vote

By M. Mindy Moretti
electionline.org

With the sun just starting to brighten the eastern sky, and with 20 minutes to go before the polls opened in New Orleans for the first post-Katrina election, about 25 people stood in line waiting to cast their ballots at the voting center at the University of New Orleans.

By the time the doors opened - just a minute or two past 6 a.m. - the line was about 50 people deep. However, the army of volunteers and employees from the Secretary of State's office stationed in the polling place quickly got voters pointed in the right direction and on their way to choosing a mayor, sheriff, clerk and various other local offices.

At polling places throughout the parish, the story was pretty much the same all day - short lines if any at all, an abundance of volunteers to guide voters and few reported problems.

Lucille Fruchtzweig, 80, a displaced city resident temporarily living in Metairie until she can return, had high praise for the election as she stood outside the polling place at the University of New Orleans.

"This was a very nice experience," she said. "They should do it like this all the time. I'd even come in and work for them on Election Day if they did it that way from now on."

Prior to the election, no one had any idea really what to expect. Because of damage from Katrina, polling places had been consolidated from 274 to 76 including several "mega" polling places - including the vote center at the University of New Orleans - that held up to 50 precincts.

Secretary of State Al Ater's office launched a massive educational campaign to let voters know where they were now scheduled to vote. (Detailed in last week's election preview.) In addition to sending registered voters postcards indicating their new polling location, Ater's office created a toll-free number for voting information and spent thousands of dollars on advertising in newspapers and on television and radio across the area.

Like elections officials and voting rights organizations, many voters said they had no idea what to expect on Election Day and, in fact, many seemed prepared for the worst. However, as voters emerged from polling places throughout the parish, they all seemed to echo the same refrain.

At the Voting Machine Warehouse, another mega-polling place, one voter said instead of a worst-case scenario, the primary offered some of the smoothest voting she had ever experienced.

"This was so easy. It's the shortest line I ever voted in. I really like the central location idea," said Sande Grantz whose home is in the 9th Ward, but who is currently living in the West Bank section of the city. "They need to work on the parking, but other than that, this was great. I'm glad I got the chance to vote."

Volunteers at a number of polling places said that a handful of people showed up at the wrong polling place. Occasionally a voter would ask how to get to the new location and volunteers from the Secretary of State's office, who were largely from areas other than Orleans Parish, had to track down a local volunteer to get directions. For the most part, when voters were given the new information they seemed understanding.

Not everyone was happy when they discovered they were in the wrong location to vote. Donald Davis, who's destroyed home is about six blocks from the University of New Orleans vote center, was angry when he learned he needed to be at a polling place about a mile away.

"This is disgusting," said Davis who had traveled in from about 30 miles away where he's been living since the hurricane. "They didn't give me a map or anything to get to the new place, they just wrote it down on a piece of paper. This really just turns you off. I don't know if I'm even going to bother to go and vote now."

As Davis continued to talk and some of his friends who had come with him to vote joined the conversation, his mood seemed to soften. After about 10 minutes or so of talking, largely about the storm and its impact on his city, Davis turned to his friend who had driven him into the city early this morning and asked if he wouldn't mind stopping by the polling place on the way out of town.

Most voters didn't seem to have any trouble finding their new polling places many indicating they actually had to travel shorter distances to the new, consolidated polling places.

"If I were in my home, I would have only been about five minutes away," said Kellie Keifer. "My brother looked up the information for me on the Internet and even though I didn't know this was the warehouse where they keep the voting machines before this, I had no trouble finding it."

Around 5:30 p.m., the power at one of the large consolidated polling places went out. All those in the polling place seemed to take it in stride, part of the new facts of life in a city where many of the street lights at major intersections still are not working. Everyone continued voting and power was restored in about 30 minutes.

Although voting was steady all day long, there never seemed to be any lines and official voter turnout was 36 percent, a figure about 10 percent lower than the last mayoral election in 2002. At times throughout the day there were more volunteers, members of the media and observers in a polling place than there were actual voters.

One election commissioner was overheard remarking that in her more than 20 years of being a poll worker, not once had she ever seen an outside observer at a polling place until Saturday.

Scores of volunteers affiliated with the Louisiana Voting Rights Network fanned out across the parish as official observers and handed out information about voting rights outside of the polling places.

"Things seem to be going really very well," said Joshua McCann, one such volunteer, while handing out information outside of the New Orleans Baptist Theology Center, one of the larger polling places that held more than a dozen precincts. "People seem to be in a generally good mood."

There did in fact seem to be an almost party-like atmosphere to the day. Scores of campaign volunteers crowded intersections of the city's boulevards - many of them lined with vacant stores and destroyed or damaged homes - and shouted and waved at passing cars. Music wafted from large sound systems and one entrepreneur even set up his hot dog cart along the highway near the Voting Machine Warehouse.

In the parking lots of the mega-voting sites it was like a family reunion without the potato salad. Displaced residents ran into old friends, neighbors and colleagues, many of whom they hadn't seen since Katrina swept through. It was simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking to listen to people share their stories about where they are, where they've been and where they hope to go.

For many, this will be their last election in New Orleans, but whether the election was their first or last, the importance of it was lost on no one.

"This is the first time I've been back since the hurricane and I didn't know what to expect," said Sylvia Henry whose 9th Ward home was destroyed and who had ridden overnight on a bus from Atlanta to cast her ballot. "I've not seen my home, I just can't go look. I don't know if I'll ever come back to New Orleans permanently, but I had to come back for this. I had to come back to vote."

New Orleans Primary by the Numbers.
With an estimated two-thirds of New Orleans 455,000 residents still living outside the parish, voter turnout for the April 22 election was 36 percent. In 2002, nearly 134,000 of more than 290,000 (or approximately 46%) of the parish's registered voters went to the polls.

Incumbent Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D) received 38 percent of the vote while his closest challenger, Louisiana Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu (D), received 29 percent of the vote. Because no candidate received the majority required by law, the two will face each other in a run-off election on May 20th.

Race played a prominent role in the election. Nagin, who is black, received 66 percent of the black vote while Landrieu, who is white, received 24 percent. In predominantly white precincts, the incumbent trailed behind several other candidates with less than 10 percent of the white vote. That's in stark contrast to 2002 when Nagin was strongly supported by white voters and business leaders. According to The Associated Press, those voters largely supported third place finisher Ron Forman.

In three of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, the Lower 9th Ward, Gentilly and eastern New Orleans, which are predominantly black, voter turnout in the two districts that cover those neighborhoods was 29 percent and 31 percent respectively. However, in hard-hit Lakeview, which is predominantly white, the 42 percent turnout was greater than the 36 percent turnout in 2002.

In the days and weeks leading up to the election more than 10,000 registered voters voted early and more than 21,000 absentee ballots were cast, which is nearly 10 times the number cast in 2002.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and other voting rights organizations have vowed to continue their push to allow for out-of-state polling places for displaced voters and that the state drop its requirement that first-time voters cast ballots in person.

"We must determine who the complaints should be filed with that [the election] was fundamentally unfair because the number of citizens who were disenfranchised by lack of equal access and therefore lack of equal opportunity," Jackson told The Times-Picayune.

Writer's Note - I've told many of my friends that New Orleans is the saddest place right now. Words can't really begin to describe what I've seen and taking photos of the devastation seemed oddly inappropriate. But it doesn't have to be sad - it can and will rise again with your help. Merchants and residents alike echoed the same refrain, "Please come back, we're open for business and we need you." So, as the saying goes, laissez les bontemps roulez.again -please consider visiting New Orleans perhaps to volunteer your time but definitely to show your support (and spend your money!). - M. Mindy Moretti

II. Election Reform News This Week

• A handful of Indiana counties are faced with using uncertified software in voting machines in next week's primary, a violation of state law, but one that local officials might have to skirt to have accessible voting systems, The Associated Press reported in a story published on FortWayne.com.

• The U.S. Department of Justice approved Georgia's stringent new voter ID rules - which will require that every voter at a polling place show a government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot - potentially clearing the way for the new rules to take effect in time for the July primary, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The voter ID law was revised after a federal judge said it appeared unconstitutional. The new voter ID rule is being challenged by a number of groups in a lawsuit, including the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and the ACLU. (Registration required)

• The Express Times reported that three Republican members of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation intervened on the state's behalf with the U.S. Department of Justice as DOJ continues to "review the state's struggles to comply" with the Help America Vote Act. Several counties have ordered the equipment, but it may not be available by the state's May 16 primary. The lawmakers - Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum and Rep. Charlie Dent - asked that DOJ not force the state to forfeit some or all of its HAVA funding.

• As Ohio's May 2 primary approaches, voting technology questions are finding center stage. In Summit County, for example, the last round of testing showed many failures in the small, credit-card sized memory cards, which is the most vital piece of the optical-scan device. The Akron Beacon Journal reported that the failure rate of the memory cards is 3 percent-a number a local board member calls "catastrophic." County Board Chairman Wayne Jones hopes that spare memory cards can avert the catastrophe, and that on Election Day, there is a "fair and accurate election."

• In California, paper voting is making a comeback. The Associated Press reports in the Monterey Herald that seven California counties sued for using disputed Diebold touch-screen machines have removed themselves from the lawsuit by promising to use paper ballots in their next election. Alameda County, on the other hand, has chosen on its own to return to paper, as noted in The Contra Costa Times. In 2004, Alameda's previous vendor, Diebold, paid over two million dollars to settle a lawsuit involving false claims made when the machines were sold. The county hopes these problems "are behind them" as Election Day approaches.