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FDLE Accused Of Intimidating Black Voters
Associated Press
July 17, 2004
ORLANDO -- A voter rights group is accusing state investigators of intimidating elderly black voters while looking into possible ballot fraud in the disputed Orlando mayor's race.
Buddy Dyer's re-election on March 9 has been dogged by accusations of fraud.
The Voter Protection Coalition said Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents, while contacting people whose absentee ballots are under question, revealed their sidearms, spokeswoman Alma Gonzalez said Friday.
"You can't do that to old black people who fought hard for the right to vote and, in fact, have seen law enforcement utilized in this kind of intimidating and harassing way through the Civil Rights movement," Gonzalez said.
Also, the coalition believes the investigation of Dyer campaign workers for their get-out-the-vote efforts via absentee ballots disenfranchises minorities.
The coalition is asking the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to conduct a formal investigation, Gonzalez said.
FDLE spokesman Geo Morales said the door-to-door interviews came last month, when temperatures reached into the high 90s.
"It's normal for the agents to sometimes take off their jackets to show their badges or just to take a break from the heat," Morales said. "And they carry sidearms -- it's part of the business.
"We weren't intimidating anybody."
Dyer received 12,417 votes, or just under 51 percent of the vote. Had he polled under 50 percent, he would have gone into a runoff against runner-up Ken Mulvaney, a businessman and former pub owner.
Mulvaney and another defeated candidate allege Dyer aide Ezzie Thomas and others filled out multiple absentee ballots on the black community's behalf and tampered with other ballots.
A civil suit filed by Mulvaney and Lawanna Gelzer is on hold while the FDLE presents evidence to a grand jury.
A city audit also revealed that firefighters who campaigned for Dyer were improperly paid with taxpayers' money that should have come from an account earmarked for union activities.
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