Allegations Of Voter Intimidation By Democrats Swirl In Miami Friday, November 10, 2000 William LaJeunesse
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African-American voters make up 15 percent of the electorate in Florida. Al Gore won their overwhelming support on Tuesday, receiving an unprecedented 93 percent of the black vote, seven percent more than Bill Clinton got in 1996.
But questions are now circulating about some of those voters being unfairly and illegally influenced B even intimidated B by Democratic campaign workers in certain precincts of Miami's Little Haiti.
A near-perfect turnout in a heavily Democratic district helped sweep the state's first Haitian-American state legislator, a well-known activist and attorney, into office with more than 80 percent of the vote.
The Republican candidate, a political novice, is crying foul, saying his opponent's supporters prodded some voters into voting a straight Democratic ticket.
More than 100,000 Haitians live in Miami-Dade County, many of them in Little Haiti. Most are new to America, new to democracy and are unfamiliar with the U.S. election process.
That leaves them vulnerable to intimidation, say campaign workers and a prominent Haitian minister.
"I believe there should be an investigation into the Haitian vote," said Rev. Phipps St. Hilaire of Christian Churches United. "There were a lot of calls here from people who said there were people who intimidated them."
Phipps said he received at least three dozen complaints from constituents that Democratic campaign workers for Al Gore and state assemblyman Philip Brutus unfairly and illegally violated the 50-foot rule around some precincts in Little Haiti.
The rule prohibits workers from interfering with voters' access to the polls or trying to pressure them.
Some campaign volunteers actually entered the precincts, Phipps said, telling voters what holes to punch and forcing sheets of paper into their hands with the numbers to punch listed on them.
Pauline Charles, a campaign worker for Brutus's opponent, Republican Reggie Thompson, said she saw volunteers helping voters fill out their ballots.
"I heard him tell him, 'Say no to all of this, punch this number and make sure you vote for Gore. Punch number 85, I mean 86 for Brutus.' And you know, giving them exact numbers to the point where he had it written down on a piece of paper just in case they got confused and they'd take the piece of paper and punch in the numbers," Charles said.
"It was wrong," said co-worker Kathy Brinson. "It was wrong for my candidate. We were outside, 50 feet away from the building like the rules said and [the election official] was letting him inside and nothing was said. It wasn't fair."
Charles and Brinson complained to election officials repeatedly. Finally, they called the police, and election officials removed the political partisans from the voting area.
But critics say countless Haitian voters at several precincts were unfairly influenced to vote for a straight Democratic ticket.
"It's not a matter of whether you had a chance to win the race. But you'd like to think that in a democracy, you'd like to hear everyone has an equal chance," Thompson, the aggrieved candidate, said.
B FOXNEWS.com's Sharon Kehnemui contributed to this report
Yet More Democratic Fraud in Florida
-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), November 11, 2000