Misrepresented

NEW ORLEANS — It’s not who Orleans Parish residents will vote for that has some blacks from the city concerned in Saturday’s primary election, it is if the absentee and displaced votes will accurately represent the pre-Hurricane Katrina population. Eighteen items are on the Orleans Parish election ballots, including criminal and civil sheriff, clerk of court and councilman appointments.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, 16,691 mail ballots were requested, but only 9,209 have been returned as of Thursday. Absentee voting was held from April 10-15, but one of the city’s mayoral candidates said the five-day time frame may not have been long enough.
“You know it’s going to have some discrepancies because we still have a crippled postal system,” said Shedrick C. White, a New Orleans-East resident who is among the 24 commander-in-chief aspirants. “The absentee ballots require three mailing procedures. You have to first send a request by mail to the Secretary of State for a ballot. Then he has to send it back and you have to mail it back in. That makes the process tough right there.”
When current New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin was elected in 2002, he ran against 14 other hopefuls. Of the 133,601 total votes counted, Nagin received 31,259 and 722 were absentee votes.
In his runoff against Richard J. Pennington a month later, Nagin received 1,951 absentee votes and defeated Pennington 76,536 votes to 53,836. The absentee vote did not make nor break Nagin during that election, but it could be crucial for him and his other 23 opponents such as Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and Ron Foreman.
White said having displaced voters gives a new meaning to the word “absentee.”
“It’s really not the number of candidates that make it tough, it’s the number of places where our people are dispersed,” White said. “It’s almost like a presidential campaign.”
White and his opponents have traveled nationwide to cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Dallas and even Baton Rouge to sell their political ideals to displaced voters.
Residents were able to participate in an early voting period from April 10-13 and April 15; and today is the extended deadline for displaced voters to request an absentee ballot, but only if they have filed an affidavit with their request. So far, 20,409 people have voted. Blacks represent 13,291 (or 65 percent), while whites represent 6,494 (or 32 percent) of the early voters.
Baton Rouge native Dawn Collins, 35, became a New Orleans transplant eight years ago, but was forced to come back to the Capital City after the hurricane. She said she hopes displaced black voters take advantage of participating in the historical election, but does not feel black New Orleanians will be represented accurately.
“I don’t think the absentee vote is a true reflection of the black voting population in New Orleans. The absentee voting will not characterize the demographics of the dislocated folks, because I don’t think they will take advantage of it,” Collins said. “But perhaps blacks didn’t absentee vote as I didn’t or early vote as I didn’t, because I plan to vote in New Orleans on Election Day.
On April 1, thousands in New Orleans marched from the Earnest N. Morial Convention Center to Gretna to protest human rights violations and the election. Collins said the march was a sign that people will come back to vote.
“I am hopeful our people will show up at the polls,” she said. “If our marching was any indication of the black residents’ desire to return to their communities and rebuild, then we should have a strong black turnout.”