U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division

[This article by the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division was published in the Alabama Press-Register on August 20, 2006.]

Sunday, August 20, 2006

By WAN J. KIM

Special to the Press-Register

Regarding Alabama's failure to comply with the law requiring it to create a voter database, some recent news reports have suggested partisanship by both a U.S. district judge and the Department of Justice. These claims -- raised by those with little knowledge of the judicial proceedings in this case -- are baseless.

Evidence presented by the Justice Department in court amply established that Alabama has violated the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Four years after HAVA was passed, and after receiving $41 million in federal funds, Alabama has not even selected a vendor to begin the process of obtaining compliance.

Both before and after we brought a lawsuit to vindicate the requirements of federal law, the Justice Department worked hard to negotiate an amicable agreement with Alabama.

We asked Alabama to submit a plan that would ensure timely compliance. A federal court then ordered Alabama to do so.

Only after Secretary of State Nancy Worley stated that she could not assure compliance by the presidential primary elections in 2008 -- six years after HAVA was enacted -- did the court reluctantly order the appointment of a special master.

Decades of precedent support the court's decision to appoint a special master in cases where -- as in this case -- a state official is unwilling or unable to comply with the requirements of federal law.

The court went further still, expressly noting that the secretary of state herself preferred the appointment of a special master over an expedited timeline for compliance.

Appointing a state official to be special master is a more moderate remedy than transferring state authority to an unelected person.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley is the obvious choice, the federal judge made clear, because he commands substantial state resources, wields significant authority and can propose a legislative remedy should one become necessary.

This appointment was supported by the Alabama officials who oversee elections at the county level -- probate judges, 76 percent of whom are Democrats.

Also known to all the participants is the key fact that Gov. Riley intends to delegate his authority as special master to Jim Bennett, a former two-term Alabama secretary of state who enjoys wide bipartisan respect.

Indeed, the Justice Department made clear that we expect Mr. Bennett to exercise the functions of special master, and further, that we would welcome his direct appointment to that role.

No one has seriously suggested, moreover, that the mere creation of the voter database required by federal law could be partisan -- especially in a state like Alabama, where voters do not register by party.

Indeed, no one has even alleged that the secretary of state would have created a voter database that favored one party or another. She is faulted for demonstrably having failed to create one at all.

Alabama follows New York and Maine as the third state that the Justice Department has sued for non-compliance with HAVA. Two of these states have Republican governors.

This administration also has filed voting lawsuits against state officials of both parties in Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.

Facts, not party affiliations, drive our litigation decisions.

It is unsound and unworthy to question the Justice Department's -- much less a federal judge's -- commitment to neutral and even-handed law enforcement.