A) Charges Of Long Lines Orchestrated By Republicans To Suppress The Minority Vote
On June 2, 2005, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean charged that Republicans caused long lines at polling places on Election Day to suppress the minority vote. Dean stated:
?The Republicans are all about suppressing votes: two voting machines if you live in a black district, 10 voting machines if you live in a white district. ? You know, the idea that you have to wait on line for eight hours to cast your ballot in Florida there?s something the matter with that. ? Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them never made an honest living in their lives.? (7)
Dean was just the latest Democrat leader to make this charge. In January 2005, the Rev. Jesse Jackson charged that ?blatant discrimination in the distribution of voting machines ensured long lines in inner-city and working-class precincts that favored John Kerry, while the exurban districts that favored President Bush had no similar problems.? (8) The Democrat staff of the House Judiciary Committee, led by Ranking Member Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), alleged in a January 2005 report that ?the misallocation of voting machines [in Ohio] led to unprecedented lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters.? The Conyers report specifically cited Franklin County, Ohio, as an area in which Republicans intentionally misallocated voting machines in order to cause long lines and disenfranchise minority voters. (9)
However, Democrat election officials in Franklin County and the U.S. Department of Justice have refuted this allegation. During the recent U.S. House Administration Committee hearing held in Columbus, William Anthony, Chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Party and County Board of Elections, flatly rejected the allegation that long lines were part of some effort to disenfranchise minorities and/or Democrat voters. Anthony further testified that long lines were not limited to minority and Democrat communities. Anthony stated under oath:
?Some have alleged that precincts in predominantly African American or Democratic precincts were deliberately targeted for a reduction in voting machines, thus creating the only lines in the county. I can assure you Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, both as a leader in the black community and Chairman of the local Democratic Party and a labor leader and Chairman of the Board of Elections, that these accusations are simply not true.? (10)
Anthony stated that ?on Election Day I spent several hours driving around the county in the rain and observed long lines in every part of our county, in urban and suburban neighborhoods, black and white communities, Democrat and Republican precincts.? He referred to those who made claims about long lines and disenfranchisement as ?conspiracy theorists? and ?Internet bloggers.? (11)
Anthony noted that the entire process for allocating voting machines in the county was controlled by a Democratic supervisor. (12) He cited three reasons for the long lines in Franklin County on Election Day 2004: increased voter turnout, static resources and an exceptionally long ballot. (13) Finally, Anthony was ?personally offended? by these allegations. As he told The Columbus Dispatch, ?I am a black man. Why would I sit there and disenfranchise voters in my own community? ? I feel like they?re accusing me of suppressing the black vote. I?ve fought my whole life for people?s right to vote.? (14)
In July 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that its investigation of Franklin County found that the county ?assigned voting machines in a non-discriminatory manner.? As to charges of racial disparities in voting machine allocation, the Justice Department found that ?the allocation of voting machines actually favored black voters because more white voters were voting on each voting machine than black voters.? The Department reported that white precincts averaged 172 voters per machine, while black precincts averaged 159 voters per machine. Noting that elections in Franklin County ? and everywhere in Ohio ? are run by a six-member Board of Elections equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, the Department concluded that ?long lines were attributable not to the allocation of machines, but to the lack of sufficient machines to serve a dramatically enlarged electorate under any allocation.? (15) (Exhibit B)