August 17, 2004

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  Suppress the Vote?

  
  

  By BOB HERBERT
  
  Published: August 16, 2004
  

  
  

  Florida state police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

  
  

  Officials said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election. The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes.

  
  

  I asked if all the people interrogated were black. "Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes," he said. He also said, "Most of them were elderly." When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview." 

  
  

  Many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  • 8:51 am
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