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| Date Posted |
March 17, 2006 |
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Gulf Coast Evacuees Have the Right to Return and the Right to an Open, Free and Fair Election
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, Bishop Paul Morton, City Council President Oliver Thomas, former Louisiana AFL-CIO President Sibal Holt, State Senator Cleo Fields, and scores of political, religious, and labor leaders, entertainers, and thousands of citizens will march and rally in New Orleans on Saturday April 1st to demand postponement of the illegal April 22 election and the right to return and rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region.
With registered voters displaced in 44 states, the upcoming Louisiana election cannot proceed – especially as the state refuses to establish satellite polling places around the nation, and provide access to voter rolls to candidates, state elected officials or voter-registration groups, says Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
Challenging the legitimacy of the election, Rev. Jackson will lead a coalition of organizations and leaders in a march into the “Katrina Zone” on April 1, 2006, demanding the right to return, the right to rebuild, and above all, the right to vote, “the right that protects all others.”
In early March, the U.S. District Court of Louisiana denied a lawsuit which sought to delay the April 22nd New Orleans municipal elections and allow special measures which would enable the displaced and dispersed residents of New Orleans to vote.
These measures would include the erection of satellite polling sites, stationed in cities around this country. After all, “satellites” were set up to facilitate the voting of Iraqi and Mexican citizens in this country when their own countries were holding elections.
But, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle of the U.S. District Court of Louisiana denied the displaced American citizens of the city of New Orleans what has been given to citizens of Iraq and Mexico: A place to vote.
Before Hurricane Katrina the population of New Orleans was 462,000; today it is between 130,000 and 150,000. The question at hand is: Will this election represent the true will of the people?
With more than 300,000 of New Orleans’ residents living elsewhere, and with no reasonable provisions being made for them to vote, is the April 22nd election being conducted "in secret"?
If the projected April 22 election is allowed to go forward, it will be the first time in history that a public election will be held with secret voting rolls. Candidates running for office will not be able to contact voters; elected officials will not be able to communicate with their constituents.
As State Senator Cleo Fields indicated, “Louisiana must be “pre-cleared” to have this election because it is designated by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a “Sub-section 5” State- a state with a documented history of discrimination. There are 10 states with this designation---all are Southern.
“Survivors of Hurricane Katrina actually have less access to voting than the 100,000 Iraqis in the United States who were better protected and enjoyed hundreds of voting opportunities nationwide,” Rev. Jackson said. “Somehow we were able to guarantee the Iraqis’ right to vote, but we cannot do the same for our own citizens.”
41 years after we fought and won the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Louisiana state officials are turning the Act on its head. New Orleans residents, left unprotected when the levees broke, left unprotected and relocated with one way tickets around the nation, left unprotected in their attempts to return, now face the ultimate insult of having their basic right to vote – their political enfranchisement -- left unprotected and violated.
“Today we are seeing separate but unequal elections throughout the Union,” Jackson said. “How do candidates campaign when they are denied voter rolls -- by law and practice a public record? How can we claim any respect for the vote when, in South Dakota, no registration is required, while in Georgia, new registration and ID rules effectively disenfranchise poor and elderly citizens who for decades have voted without incident?”
Just as troubling, he said, is the new practice of stripping for life the right to vote from people convicted of a felony. “In this way, 1.4 million African American men have been disenfranchised,” he said. “Numbers of this magnitude can decide an election. The injustice is clear, as is the naked grab for power by a ruling elite that fears no one.”
Reverend Jackson commented, “We fought for and won the Voting Rights Act in 1965, spurred by the march from Selma to Montgomery 41 years ago. Now, as we seek to reauthorize the key enforcement provisions set to expire in 2007, we must fight to enforce the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana. The New Orleans election slated for April 22 must not go forward. It is unequal, unfair and violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
Come to New Orleans on April 1 and make your voice heard!
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