NAACP sues elections chief over early voting

By JAMES MILLER Daytona Beach News-Journal   08 October 2004

DELAND The NAACP filed a federal voting rights lawsuit Thursday against Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe, plunging the county into an elections controversy just weeks before the Nov. 2 general election.

The suit claims that by having only one early voting site in DeLand Lowe disenfranchises black voters in eastern Volusia County, where the majority of black residents live.

A state law adopted in May requires county elections officials to offer early voting at the Department of Elections office 15 days before an election. Whether to open additional sites is left to local discretion.

On Thursday, black leaders came before the Volusia County Council at its regular meeting and asked county officials to use that discretion.

"We will not allow them to disenfranchise," said Beverlye Neal, executive director of the Florida National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The suit, filed in federal district court in Orlando by the Volusia County-Daytona Beach Branch of the NAACP, asks the court to order Lowe to open a site in East Volusia by Oct. 18, the beginning of early voting. It also asks the court to declare the decision not to open such a site a violation of federal civil rights law.

But county officials said state law dictates that if local officials provide early voting at satellite locations, the locations must provide access to voters countywide.

Lowe says that means the county also would have to open sites in New Smyrna Beach and Deltona.

"It is humanly impossible to open three additional offices (in a matter of days)," Lowe told the council. She is currently processing registrations and absentee ballot requests.

County Manager Cindy Coto said Lowe e-mailed her in May about opening additional sites. After speaking one-on-one with council members, Coto told Lowe to follow the council's 2002 decision against opening additional sites for "in-house absentee" voting.

In that voting form, voters submit absentee ballots at polling locations to be processed later. In early voting, they ballots into voting machines on the spot.

"If there's any responsibility to be held in this," Coto said, "I am the one to take the responsibility."

Lowe said she was saddened by the situation.

The council voted to use the Votran bus system to ferry voters to DeLand for early voting, although the details were not finalized.

The suit is not the first. The NAACP filed a suit in 2001 naming . elections supervisors from Volusia County and four other counties. Volusia County was included because a Bethune-Cookman College student was turned away from her polling place in 2000 after workers told her she was registered in Marion County.

The council approved a settlement in 2002, though it but admitted no wrongdoing.