Civil Rights Groups: New Orleans Election Plan Violates Voting Rights Act

^{Category: Race and Equal Opportunity | Voting}

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In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of predominantly black, low-income New Orleans evacuees were forced to relocate to other major southern cities such as Houston, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, and Jackson, Mississippi. Meanwhile, wealthier New Orleans evacuees--who were disproportionately white--have been more easily able to resettle within driving distance of New Orleans.

On April 22nd, New Orleans will hold its first municipal elections since the hurricane, and Mayor Ray Nagin and the New Orleans City Council will be up for reelection--but black turnout will be much lower than it has been in the past, and Hurricane Katrina is only part of the reason why. Thanks to a voting scheme pre-approved by the Bush administration, there are only two ways to vote in the New Orleans municipal elections:

• By voting in New Orleans, which favors disproportionately white high-income residents who either bought land near New Orleans or can easily travel there, or
• By absentee ballot, which discriminates against low-income evacuees who are less likely to have a fixed address.

Civil rights organizations favored a plan that would have allowed displaced evacuees to vote off-site in Houston, Atlanta, and Jackson, but Louisiana Senate Republicans nixed the plan immediately. This is seen by many as an attempt by the Bush administration and its political allies to create a dynamic by which Nagin, an African-American Democrat, will be voted out of office due to the disenfranchisement of low-income black New Orleans voters--creating the impression that New Orleans voters blame Nagin, and not the White House, for the government's failure to respond to the disaster.

The Bush administration's endorsed plan has generated a huge amount of controversy, with the NAACP and other civil rights groups arguing that it violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Prominent black leaders including Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Bill Cosby held a rally yesterday protesting the elections. In the event of Nagin's defeat, civil rights attorneys are already preparing to challenge the outcome. If Nagin is defeated under these circumstances, it could turn out to be the most divisive voting rights controversy since the contested November 2000 presidential election.