"jak163" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:45:49 GMT, "Michael McKelvy"
wrote:

Just admit you're biased and that the truth will burst the balloon you
have
surrounded yourself with.
There is more than enough evidence to conclude that the majority report
was
a hatchet job and that they had no real interest in finding the truth.

The list of improper procedures, faulty data, wrong conclusions, ignoring
of
pertinent data and just general sloppiness is revolting to anyone who
cares
about truth, but wait, I forgot, you're a Democrat and such things don't
matter. All you need is for someone to say what you believe is true, you
don't have to bother with pesky things like facts, they just get in the
way.

You seem to have some good arguments here, but the issues seem to be
very complicated, and I don't have the expertise to second-guess the
findings of the commission. I can't see any reason to trust the views
of two dissenters over a six-person majority.

Bull****! You don't have the balls to read the report, which would give
more than enough information to know what a sham the majority report was.

It's not that complicated to understand, you just choose to remain ignorant.

But you're certainly
welcome to do so if you wish.

If their arguments didn't make sense, I would reject them. The problem is
they make sense and they are true.

The question of a Section 2 violation can only be settled in a federal
court. Plaintiffs who charge discrimination must prevail in a trial in which
the state has a full opportunity to challenge the evidence. To prevail,
plaintiffs must show that "racial politics dominate the electoral process,"
as the 1982 Senate Judiciary Committee Report stated in explaining the newly
amended Section 2.

The majority's report implies that Section 2 aimed to correct all possible
inequalities in the electoral process. Had that been the goal, racially
disparate registration and turnout rates-found nearly everywhere in the
country-would constitute a Voting Rights Act violation. Less affluent, less
educated citizens tend to register and vote at lower rates, and, for the
same reasons, are likely to make more errors in casting ballots, especially
if they are first time voters. Neither the failure to register nor the
failure to cast a ballot properly-as regrettable as they are-are Section 2
violations.

Thus, despite the thousands of voting rights cases on the books, the
majority report cannot cite any case law that suggests punch card ballots,
for instance, are potentially discriminatory. Or that higher error rates
among black voters suggest disenfranchisement.

There is good reason why claims brought under section 2 must be settled in a
federal court. The provision requires the adjudication of competing claims
about equal electoral opportunity-an inquiry into the complex issue of
racial fairness. The Commission is not a court and cannot arrive at verdicts
that belong exclusively to the judiciary. Yet, while the majority report
does admit that the Commission cannot determine if violations of the Voting
Rights Act have actually occurred, in fact it unequivocally claims to have
found "disenfranchisement," under the terms of the statute.

It is absolutely correct, as the Commission report asserts, that violations
of the 1965 Voting Rights Act do not need to involve intentional
disenfranchisement. Section 2 of the act was amended in 1982 in an effort to
circumvent the Supreme Court's decision in Bolden v. City of Mobile, 1980.
Bolden, in insisting that plaintiffs in an equal protection suit demonstrate
discriminatory intent, had brought the statute in conformity with Fourteenth
Amendment standards in general. The amended provision allowed minority
voters nationwide to challenge methods of election on grounds of
discriminatory "result."

The concern at the time was that plaintiffs, in the wake of Bolden, would
have to find a smoking gun-unmistakable evidence that public officials
deliberately, knowingly set out to deprive minority voters of the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendment rights.

No witness, however, from the civil rights community argued that all voting
mechanisms or procedures with a disparate impact on black or Hispanic voters
would violate the law. Thus, the 1982 Senate Judiciary Committee Report, in
explaining the newly amended Section 2, defined a jurisdiction in violation
of the law as one in which "racial politics dominate[d] the electoral
process." At the 1982 Senate Hearings, a distinguished civil rights attorney
testified that claims of voter dilution would rest on "evidence that voters
of a racial minority are isolated within a political system...'shut out,'
i.e. denied access... [without] the opportunity to participate in the
electoral process."

Voter error is analogous to low registration rates; it is more likely to
occur among the less educated and the less affluent. And thus, despite the
thousands of voting rights cases on the books, the majority report cannot
cite any case law that suggests punch card ballots, for instance, are
potentially discriminatory. Or that higher error rates among black voters
suggest disenfranchisement.

The less-reliable machinery argument-which gained mythic proportions in the
press-has been widely disproven. It is simply not the case that poorer
counties with larger minority populations have substantially inferior voting
equipment that is significantly more prone to error. At most, this was a
minor factor in voter error rates.

In fact, as the Commission heard in Florida, the punch-card jurisdictions
did not have the highest "spoilage" rates. The "optical central" system had
the most problems-that is, the system using optical scanners with votes
counted at some central location rather than in the local precinct. (Thus,
the county with the highest spoilage rate, Gadsden County, used the optical
central tabulation system, not the infamous punch-card machines.) And the
"touchscreen" system has been found to have a spoilage rate as high as
punch-card systems.


The report also claims that "affected agencies were afforded an opportunity
to review applicable portions." The Commission's project management system
normally requires at least 30 days for affected agency review, yet the
governor and other officials were given only 10 days to review the report,
and the report was given to the press before affected parties could respond.
In an interview with the New York Times, the general counsel claimed that
anyone wishing to respond to the Florida report would have 20 days to do so.
Few of the affected agency comments have actually been factored into the
final report.

To compound the seriousness of these procedural improprieties, the
Commission handed out copies of the draft report at the June 8 meeting and
posted the draft on its web site, thereby widely disseminating a version of
the report that included none of the affected agency comments or any of the
corrections and amendments discussed at the June 8 meeting.

Affected agency review is an essential procedure to ensure fairness and
accuracy of Commission reports. Contrary to the Chair's statement on June 8,
it is not a mere "courtesy" that is granted or denied at the whim of the
Chair or the staff. In this case, the procedure was mooted by the leak to
the press and the public dissemination of a preliminary, uncorrected draft.


None of the above seems all that complicated, I'm sorry to have misjudged
you.

Perhaps you can find a bright high school student to explain it to you.