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"Scam" ads the norm Trail Mix: Hillary haters spam cyberspace Gunning for the center Democrats make Hillary legit The blundering pundit Don Giuliani Campaign video: |
South Carolina poll scandal | page 1, 2 Long before the South Carolina GOP was accused of working against McCain, it was accused of setting up hurdles for African-American voters. The South Carolina Republican Party was named in a U.S. District Court lawsuit by two African-American Democratic state legislators, Todd Rutherford and James Pitts, who have taken the state GOP to task for violating the Voting Rights Act by not opening polling places in majority-black districts. For example, in 1996 in Williamsburg County -- which is 80 percent African-American -- the state GOP opened for business in only five of 23 voting districts. Last month, party chairman Henry McMaster told the Charleston Post and Courier, "We are attempting to open up every precinct. There are some [that] because of a lack of manpower, we will not be able to keep them open. We will have to consolidate them."
Pursuant to that legal challenge, U.S. District Court judges issued a consent order Monday instructing the GOP to make its "best efforts" to "utilize and open each of the available polling places." If circumstances prohibited 100 percent utilization, the consent order stated, the party was to take out an ad "in a newspaper of general circulation" by Friday to inform voters of the alternate sites. Mowry and McMaster acknowledged that the ad they took out did not appear in the Greenville News until Saturday, a violation of the consent order. "We had a lot of bad luck" in getting volunteers, Mowry said. "When you are asking people to volunteer to give up a Saturday ... people think about giving up a weekend, and that's just not a very attractive invitation." Mowry said he was doing everything he could to ensure that African-American voters were able to vote in the primary. Speaking from a cell phone, he said, "I am personally sitting in a majority-black precinct today" -- at the Church of the Redeemer. Additionally, Mowry griped that he had slept for only one hour the night before because he was hanging new precinct alerts "in a dozen of those places last night and this morning." McCain supporters wondered if Bush supporters would really close down precincts in violation of the law. Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain's supporters, said he was having his lawyer look into it. "If it's true, then we're a better party than that," McCain said later as he sat in the back of the "Straight Talk Express" with his family on their way from Greenville to North Charleston, where his post-primary celebration will be held. "It's surprising to hear of stuff like this. Maybe I'm naive." "John, look," said his wife, Cindy, pointing to three of their children, sitting and playing nearby. "Whenever things get really bad, look at the kids," she said. "They made hand puppets." Meghan, 15, Jimmy, 11, and Bridget, 8, were playing with puppets they'd created by drawing with magic markers on paper bags. Cindy said she'd "taught it to them years ago on planes," using air-sickness bags. I suggested that making puppets out of air sickness bags wasn't a bad metaphor for what the family might try to do in response to its experience in South Carolina, where the family has been viciously attacked by enemies of the candidate. Cindy smiled sadly. McCain then phoned up the widow of a man who had died of a heart attack he suffered before a McCain event in Hilton Head, S.C. Later, in the spacious auditorium where reporters were filing their stories and the sound technicians were blasting techno music in preparation for McCain's speech Saturday night, few seemed confident that McCain was going to have a good evening. One reporter noted a concession stand's immense "CONCESSION" sign on the wall. Kerry Lauerman contributed to this report.
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