Jacksonville Council Members Call For Voter Investigation

7 Members Cite Voters Turned Away From Duval County Polls

JACKSONVILLE, Updated 12:30 p.m. EST November 10, 2000 -- Six Democratic and one Republican members of the Jacksonville City Council called Thursday for an investigation into complaints of people turned away from Duval County polls on Election Day.

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They are not calling for Tuesday's vote to be thrown out due to these problems, but they want the process of voter registration to be investigated.

Council members say that they've heard from hundreds of people about problems with voting. Most complaints were from people who registered in the so-called "motor voter" program at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

"When every vote counts, I want to be counted," said Dion Paul, who was told at his precinct that there was no record of him being registered.

The process in question occurs when people register to vote while renewing or getting a new driver's license, but that information never made it to Duval County's supervisor of elections. At this point no one knows how many people people were turned away at the polls because of similar problems.

"We are basically saying there needs to be an investigation into the process to see what happened," councilman Reggie Fullwood said, "and what can be done to fix the process."

City council members said that they've asked three questions to be answered in the investigation: who is responsible, where did it break down, and how to fix it.

In addition to Fullwood, council members calling for the investigation are King Holzendorf, Suzanne Jenkins, Patricia Lockett-Felder, Mary Ann Southwell, Gwen Yates, and Republican Alberta Hipps.

They urged any voters who had problems voting to contact the supervisor of elections. They also said if a citizen thinks they were turned away illegally, they could to initiate legal remedies.

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