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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (46526)	4/27/2002 9:20:48 PM
From: bonnuss_in_austin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Quietly Florida Admits 2000 Election Fraud By The Associated Press April 26, 2002 \| Filed at 10:17 p.m. ET nytimes.com MIAMI (AP) -- A federal judge has approved a settlement between Leon County and civil rights groups that sued over widespread voting problems in the 2000 presidential election in Florida. The state and six other counties remain in the case brought by the NAACP and four other groups who sued in a dispute that grew out of the long-uncertain results of Florida's vote for president. "There was nothing they were seeking that was impossible to achieve," Ion Sancho, Leon County supervisor of elections, said Friday. "I've been a proponent of settlement from the moment the lawsuit was filed." Thomasina Williams, one of the attorneys for voters, said settlement talks are under way with other counties, and she was optimistic that some will follow Leon's move. Trial is set for Aug. 26. State lawmakers changed election laws in response to complaints after the 2000 election, but critics said the changes didn't go far enough. In the biggest departure from current procedures, Leon agreed to give a written explanation to voters whose ballots are rejected. The idea to make that a state standard was discarded by the Legislature. The groups that sued agreed that the settlement "achieves some if not all of the relief" they could have obtained at trial, according to the court order dropping Leon from the lawsuit last week. The county agreed to address disputes over voting, voter registration and voting lists and will meet with community groups to boost registration, with special efforts targeting minorities and college students. Sancho said he was doing all of that before. Many voters said their votes didn't count or they were turned away from polls due to mistakes on voter lists, busy telephone lines at election headquarters, punch-card voting machine foul-ups and other problems. Statewide, the largest numbers of voting problems were found in precincts with high proportions of black and elderly voters. Under the settlement, both sides will work to restore voters who were wrongly removed from voters lists in the 2000 election. Many law-abiding voters across the state said their names were dropped because they were mistakenly pegged as ex-cons, who generally aren't allowed to vote in Florida. The county also agreed to improve communication and training for staffers who work on election day. Leon County includes the state capital of Tallahassee. bia