Kerry Calls on Justice Department to Protect Voting Rights for Victims of Katrina
Current election plan will deny voting rights for tens of thousands of Louisiana residents
WASHINGTON – Today, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and John Tanner,
Chief of the Voting Section at the Department of Justice, urging them to immediately reconsider approval of a voting
plan that will disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters in the upcoming Louisiana elections.
Kerry opposes the Department of Justice’s decision to allow the April 22 election in Louisiana to take place without
first addressing the fact that tens of thousands of residents – disproportionately African Americans – will be unable to
cast their votes.
Kerry is urging the Justice Department to set up satellite voting stations in cities outside Louisiana where large
numbers of Katrina evacuees are living, similar to the satellite voting opportunities made available to Iraqi voters
living in the United States during the recent Iraq elections. Kerry is also calling for the voting system to be
strengthened in communities affected by Katrina before the elections take place.
Below is a copy of the letter:
April 3, 2006
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
John K. Tanner, Esq.
Chief, Voting Section
Civil Rights Division
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney General Gonzales and Mr. Tanner:
I am writing to express my disappointment in your decision to pre-clear the state of Louisiana’s election plan for the
April 22 election in New Orleans and to urge your reconsideration. In light of the tremendous number of displaced
citizens who would be disenfranchised in next month’s election, as well as problems that face voters who remain in the
city, the Department of Justice should not have given its approval.
The people affected by Hurricane Katrina are disproportionately African American. Orleans Parish lost up to 48% of its
voting population and 75% of those displaced voters are African Americans. The Voting Rights Act was passed to protect
all voters and ensure that minority voting strength is not diluted at the polls. Intentional or not, allowing next
month’s election to take place will exclude an inexcusably large number of New Orleans’s African American voters.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced New Orleans citizens are spread out across the country, with significant numbers in
dozens of cities from Los Angeles to Chicago. According to the Louisiana Secretary of State, two-thirds of those people
who were displaced currently reside outside the state of Louisiana. Although the state government has chosen to create
satellite voting locations within the state for displaced voters, it has refused to create similar satellite voting
locations outside the state in cities where thousands of New Orleans voters find themselves stranded.
Without satellite voting locations outside the state of Louisiana, tens of thousands of residents will be denied the
right to vote. As a practical matter, the city’s current infrastructure could not handle the return of these voters—even
if they were able to make the long and costly journey back in order to cast their vote. The only way that these citizens
will be guaranteed the right to vote is to provide for satellite voting outside of Louisiana. Cities hosting Katrina
evacuees have the facilities; they have the election workers; and they have the voting machines. The magnitude of this
national disaster has not diminished as time as passed; protecting evacuees’ right to vote now is just as critical as
providing food and shelter was in the immediate aftermath. During the recent elections in Iraq, the American government
provided satellite voting for Iraqi citizens who had not lived in their country for years. It was the right thing to do
then, and we ought to extend the same service to our own citizens now.
Even voters who remain in Orleans Parish are likely to face great difficulty in casting a ballot. Many of the voting
sites used for years were destroyed by flooding, and a number of the new polling places submitted by the state for
pre-clearance are unsuitable. Furthermore, little information has been provided to city residents about changes that
have been, or will be, made in election procedures.
The strength of our democracy rests on the integrity of our elections. If we are to have faith in the representative
nature of our government, we need to take every reasonable precaution to ensure that every one of our eligible citizens
has the opportunity to cast a ballot.
I do not understand how the Department of Justice could approve a plan that threatens the civil rights of hundreds of
thousands of citizens rather than postponing the upcoming elections until a suitable plan could be developed. I urge you
to reconsider your decision.
Sincerely,
John F. Kerry
United States Senator
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