Carter: aggrieved voters should be ready to go to court

Associated Press  21 October 2004

LYNDHURST, Ohio - Americans should be prepared to go to court to enforce their voting rights, former President Jimmy Carter said Thursday.

"My hope is that the public will pay very close attention to the details of the voting and, whenever necessary, citizens who are concerned about inaccuracies or bias on the part of election officials will take the case to court and require the partisan Republicans or partisan Democrats, whatever it might be, to be objective and fair," he said after a book-signing session.

Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center has monitored elections in 52 nations, said he wouldn't be involved in monitoring the U.S. election because he hadn't been invited by the government or political parties.

The standards for election accuracy, integrity and objectivity in many ways "are better in many Third World countries than they are in this country," he said at a suburban Cleveland bookstore.

Based on news reports, Carter said that Florida and Ohio had generated the most concern about the "basic integrity" of voting. He cited no specifics, but issues in Florida have included demands for a paper record of touch-screen voting machines and in Ohio whether voters who show up at the wrong polling place can cast a ballot.