Will John Ashcroft really probe Florida's voter purge lists?

A day after the Justice Department announced lawsuits over Florida's 2000 presidential vote, Democrats remain skeptical about whether the suits will touch on the most explosive issues.

By Anthony York

May 23, 2002 | With details still at a premium about pending Justice Department lawsuits surrounding Florida's troubled 2000 election, Wednesday was a day of rampant speculation -- and much skepticism -- about just which issues the DOJ will tackle in its effort to reform Florida's election process.

Senate Judiciary Committee sources say Democratic members of the committee are preparing a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking him to provide more details about the department's areas of focus in the Florida suits.

Former Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile said she "gave the department the benefit of the doubt" when she first heard about the suits Tuesday, but after she learned about their limited scope, she called them a "total whitewash." "No one's asking them to overturn the election," she said. "We're just asking them to safeguard the rights of every American to vote."

Florida Democratic Party spokesman Ryan Banfill warned that the lawsuits may be little more than "window dressing to provide some political cover for the president and his brother," Jeb, who is running for reelection as Florida governor this year.

But nobody knows for sure, and the Justice Department ain't talking. The confusion began immediately after Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd's revelation Tuesday that the department was prepared to file suit against three Florida counties for a series of voting rights violations -- including improper purging of voter rolls, failing to provide bilingual assistance at the polls and problems with access for disabled voters. He said the suits would focus on three Florida counties, as well as one each in Tennessee and Missouri, but refused to provide more details.

Judging from the reactions of many Republican officials, Boyd's disclosure was not exactly what they had planned on. When asked by the Orlando Sentinel Tuesday about the new lawsuits the federal government was filing against counties in his state, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asked, "What lawsuits?"

But Banfill is not optimistic that the probe will get to the heart of the most serious concerns many Democrats still have about Florida's controversial election. "I saw yesterday they mentioned voter purges. Well, that means they should be looking at [Secretary of State] Katherine Harris. But the fact that her office is not part of this suit makes us think this may not go as far as it should. If they're talking about voter purges, they should be talking about a lot more than three counties," Banfill said.

Harris' office released a defiant and defensive statement Wednesday that read, "Since the day the recount saga ended, Secretary Harris has led the cause of election reform. Her efforts, together with the courage and commitment of Governor Bush and the Legislature, have made Florida the nationally acclaimed leader in election reform. We hope that before anyone in Washington pontificates further about lawsuits, they will hop on a plane to Florida so that they can educate themselves about our accomplishments in election reform."

Officials in many of the familiar election-overtime battlegrounds say they have received no indication that they will be among the three counties targeted by the Justice Department suits.

Officials in Broward, Gadsden, Volusia, Seminole, Leon and Duval counties -- all hotbeds of controversy during the 2000 election overtime -- told Salon they had not been contacted by the Justice Department.

Another one of the counties apparently not on the DOJ list is Palm Beach, home of the infamous butterfly ballot. "We have heard nothing from the Justice Department," said Charmaine Kelly, assistant supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County.

Though the Justice Department refused to talk, Miami-Dade County attorney Murray Greenberg confirmed that his county is on the list.

"We really don't need the Department of Justice prompting us," Greenberg told the Miami Herald. "We're trying. We told DOJ they don't need to file a lawsuit."

Sources told Salon Wednesday that Osceola County was also among the three counties being looked at, and officials there referred all calls to their attorney, John Rich, who did not return calls seeking comment. But one source in the Osceola elections office did say they had received a letter from the Justice Department recently raising questions about whether the county had poll workers who spoke Spanish.

Former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said probes like this often focus on recurrent, systemic problems rather than one-time infractions. "That's very important. It really is a prospective remedy," he said. "You take into account what has happened in the past, but it's not a matter of reversing an election, indicting anybody. It's all about putting things in place so that you don't have a repeat of the problems that you've discovered."

So issues like the Palm Beach County butterfly ballots -- problems that are easily avoided next time around -- would not likely be included in these DOJ suits.

Leon County elections supervisor Ion Sancho said speculation among his fellow election supervisors is that the Justice Department suits will steer clear of one of the more potentially explosive charges -- that many voters, disproportionately black voters, were kept from the polls by faulty purge lists.

"I know in Osceola the focus is on the language minority problem," Sancho said. "If a certain percentage of your population is non-English speaking, you're required to provide materials for that population. Clearly that's the case in Osceola County."

Next Page: Once more, into the Florida counties

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