The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People blasted Florida's poor handling of the gubernatorial primary and pointed to Congress as the source for the remedy.
Kweisi Mfume, NAACP President & CEO, said: "It is a sheer travesty of justice that many voters in Florida were disenfranchised for the second time in as many years. Congress bears much of the blame for not passing a federal bill that would institute minimum election standards for voting across the nation."
Mfume said: "The NAACP is planning to file another lawsuit against the Florida election officials amid reports that voters complained about polls opening late, election workers struggling with new touch screen voting machines, and voter confusion about polling places because of new precinct boundaries. It is as if Florida officials totally ignored the election debacle of November 2000."
Last week the NAACP and other civil rights groups announced the settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed against the state of Florida and seven counties after many African American and other voters were disenfranchised during the presidential election on Nov. 7, 2000. The settlement is significant because it illustrates that the new state laws passed following the 2000 election do not go far enough to make sure all Florida voters would have equal access to the polls on Election Day. (Details of the settlement can be found on www.naacp.org)
During its Legislative Mobilization conference earlier this week in Washington, D.C., nearly 700 NAACP members and supporters descended on Capitol Hill urging their respective senators and representatives to pass the current election reform bill that is bottled up in the 107th Congress.
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