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Presidential election
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Palm cards misled Haitian voters into voting for Bush, activist charges
By DAVID CÁZARES and ELLIS BERGER Sun-Sentinel
Web-posted: 11:33 p.m. Nov. 13, 2000
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing allegations some voters were misled by information handed out at the polls and may have been tricked into casting ballots for the opposing party's candidates, a Miami-Dade County elections official said Monday.
Ivy Korman, who is the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections' liaison with law enforcement, said she spoke with the FBI on Monday.
Korman said the investigation will likely center on the so-called "palm cards" that are routinely handed out by campaign workers. The cards list the names of endorsed candidates and the number voters should punch to select them, she said.
The FBI is looking into whether unscrupulous campaign operatives may have given voters the wrong punch number for a particular slate, Korman said.
Haitian activist Margaret Armand of Plantation, who has worked on the Gore campaign and was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, said Haitians without "a command of the English language vote only by number."
She said she saw palm cards being handed out at Precinct 153 in Miami-Dade County that gave Bush's number on the Miami-Dade ballot, not Gore's, but were being touted as a vote for Gore. People handing out the cards also said they were campaigning for Gore.
"I feel like people were taken advantage of," Armand said. "They wanted to confuse the Haitian people. They knew they were going to vote for Gore. The only way to (prevent) that was to change the number and confuse us. Ninety-nine percent of Haitians vote for Democrats."
Daniella Henry, Haitian American Community Council executive director, said Haitian voters in Palm Beach County were confused by the ballot, but she has not heard anyone complain that they were handed a palm card misdirecting them to vote for Bush.
Joe Geller, chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, said he had not heard about misleading palm cards. "We're going to look into this," Geller said. "We'll start our own investigation."
Palm cards can be an important factor in an election because some voters rely on them much as others might on newspaper endorsements, former Florida Secretary of State Jim Smith said. Smith said it's common for people to take them into the voting booth.
Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said GOP election workers had nothing to do with misleading palm cards.
"In a race in which there has been nothing but confusion and chaos in the recount, the last thing the Democrats should do is compound it with baseless allegations," Fleisher said.
The FBI spokesman in Miami did not return calls seeking comment Monday. Officials at the Justice Department would not comment specifically on the allegation. The department said most election irregularities likely are matters for state and local authorities, but federal authorities are interested in possible civil rights violations.
Staff Writers Lisa Huriash and Neil Santaniello contributed to this report. David Cázares can be reached at dcazares@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5012.
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