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Disability Voters and
other Civic and Civil Rights Groups Challenge State HAVA Plan in
Court
Plan Completely Fails to Uphold Bold New Statutory Voter Rights
to Remedy the Loss of Votes and Other Problems in Past Elections
On Thursday
May 18th 2006, a group of voter eligible citizens-which includes various
disabilities and limited- English proficient Asian American voters-joined a
broad coalition of disability, civic and civil service rights organizations to
seek injunction requiring the state to comply with the Help America Vote
Act(HAVA) and interrelated New York Law, to submit to an effective compliance
plan with the court, and to ensure a legal implementation process that will
vindicate the rights of all eligible voters, including those with disabilities
and limited English proficiency.
In filing
suit against New York, the Justice Department chastised the State for it’s
“abject failure” to comply with these and other HAVA provisions. It
went on to say that New York “until recently failed to take the most
rudimentary steps toward HAVA compliance”.
The groups
also assert that the Justice Department has now taken a very limited view of
what the state must do to improve it’s elections, ignoring major elements
of the HAVA that create new individual voter rights. They contend that the
intervention of voters who have experienced real problems at the polls,
including voter-eligible citizens with disabilities and groups that represent
them is essential for vindicating the individual voter rights enacted on their
behalf and the behalf of all voters.
The legal
organizations providing representation to various plaintiffs in the case are
AALDEF, NYLPI and NVRI, together with private pro-bono counsel Proskauer Rose,
LLP.
By Susan Cohen |
