Here’s a question raised by a friend and attorney:
The concerted sickout by the county election workers are probably a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Is the US Attorney or FBI even going to look into this?
Now that’s a very good question, and I don’t know enough about the Voting Rights Act to be able to guess whether what occurred could be considered a violation.
An article in West Hawaii Today earlier this week by Nancy Cook Lauer reported that the primary election sickout by Hawaii County election workers had been planned in advance and was known to state officials, who scrambled to respond. And it certainly did snarl Big Island voting on primary election day, forcing polls to stay open beyond their scheduled closing.
So, could it be considered some sort of coordinated activity intended to disrupt voting? Would that be potentially illegal under any provision of the Voting Rights Act?
If you run across any substantive answers, please share them by leaving a comment.
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That is highly doubtful unless election workers in the conspiracy intended to deprive people of their right to vote on account of race and/or intended to deprive people of their right to vote in general. Simply because it was coordinated activity intended to disrupt voting by itself does not violate the Voting Rights act. The Fifteenth Amendment was adopted to cure the ill of race based voter discrimination. Unless there is information not released to the public, it doesn’t appear the planned sickout was raced based voter discrimination. The Fourteenth Amendment has been read to protect due process and equal protection. The threshold question is whether an act was done by “state action” under the “color of law”. Employees coordinating a work action to protest work conditions by calling in sick does not constitute “state action” under “color of law.” Maybe I missed a part of the story.
I think you hit the nail on the head, altho’ I also think the discussion probably ends at lack of state action. Even if knowledge of the “blue flu outbreak” by the county/State and failure to prevent its effects amounts to some sort of implied state (in)action, I don’t see any discriminatory intent or impact, as it relates to race, ethnicity, or otherwise. It was a race-neutral middle finger to the clerk, the Council that appointed her, and the public that elected them!
I think Josh Green said the State Elections Commission will look into the whole primary election mess after the general election.
I’ll leave the Voting Rights Act discussion to the legal minds.
To me, the infuriating part of this is that the people who pay the workers salaries were inconvenienced unnecessarily because of some internal grievance that should be handled through some other process. Try this in the private sector and see what happens when the “customers” are inconvenienced. This is similar to the visitation days at the prisons being cancelled because the guards are playing their sick/overtime games.
Enough already.
What is that other process available to these disgruntled workers? Just asking.
Probably in the private sector, the supervisor who alienated such a large number of workers would be reassigned or let go too. Just saying.
I am sure that the election workers knew full well that their actions would result in depriving people the right to vote. Those who could only vote in the morning obviously were not able to cast their ballots. Extending the hours to the evening did not guaranty that those who were not able to vote in the morning were able to do so that evening.
Whether or not there was an intent to deprive a specific race or group from voting may not be necessary, if the result effectively disinfranchised anyone’s right to vote. For instance, if it was known that a candidate of Hawaiian extraction was running in a district with a substantial or well know community or neigborhood say like Milolii that would support him and the sick out resulted in 100 voters not able to vote, I would think that might be seen as discrimination against the Hawaiian candidate or the Milolii community.
Also, a conspiracy of this type creates additional criminal counts and sometimes the conspiracy itself creates a higher level of charge than the underlying violation. For instance, if you would consider the violation of the Voting Rights Act a Class C or D felony, the conspiracy could be seen as a Class A or B felony, which has much harsher penalties.
Well, there may be some other law applicable here, but the question related to the Voting Rights Act and, even, under the circumstances you describe, I still don’t see any government action (action by non-policy-making government employees, alone, doesn’t make it government action) and the the “blue flu” did not target any one group, it targeted all of them.
Also, conspiracy charges are not necessarily graded more seriously than the underlying crime. In Hawaii, conspiracy to commit murder is a class A felony, conspiracy to commit a class A felony is a class B felony, and conspiracy to commit any other class or grade of offense is a graxed the same as the offense that is the object of the conspiracy. Solicitation is one class or grade lower than the offense solicited.
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/examine/activ_exam.php#request
How to Request Monitoring of an Election by the Civil Rights Division
•Contact the Voting Section at:
Phone: 202-307-2767
Toll-free: 800-253-3931
Facsimile: 202-307-3961
•Provide specific and detailed information regarding the need for a federal presence, including:
•Any incidents of discrimination or ***interference with the right to vote*** in connection with upcoming or recent elections;
It was political hardball, Big Island style. The only losers are the voters and the democratic process, so what’s the big deal?
Election workers showing contempt for the election process. Well, if this is true, I guess the term banana republic should would be appropriate. I’ll suppose I can support the economy on my next visit by buying some bananas from the banana Island.
Lotsa misinformation being registered here front to bottom, If you were a BigI Island voter as I have been for 46 years who viewed all this stuff since 2011, you would hold a far different view..
If the feds became involved, it would/should because of county council behavior ,especially its lame-duck chairman, and his strange choice for county clerk.
Victims are, of course, we voters and our children serving in military or attending college who were stiffed in August and nervous about the General Election but also staffers who have been abused and confused for more than a year.
Efforts by their union to seek resolution have been stalemated by Chairman Yagong and Clerk Yamauchi. This has been litigated, heard and ruled upon but ignored by a stubborn culprits who may spend the rest of their lives explaining their bizarre behavior, if they do not evaporate in SHAME.
If adequately and fairly reported accurately as it unfolded, a far different view would be forthcoming from Oahu. With the one-sided reports from AP to WHT to the crazed web Hawaii Free Press, I can understand the fuzziness on Oahu.
This no “banana Republic”. Dysfunctional Council ( worst ever) and flawed county charter that needs to fix the process of choosing a county clerk that should be addressed early next year when these dysfunctional are excused from office by term limits or defeat,
So, Hugh, those election workers who feigned illness on election day are heroes, I guess?
It was Big Island politics, and they got away with it again. Lets hope there is a federal investigation that looks at all of it, including the illegal business run out of the election warehouse and drinking there.
A lot of people knew about this and they did it for revenge because Dominic rocked the old boyz boat.
Hugh I been a Big Island voter for 31 years and there was an intentional effort with the blu flu and more to get revenge. The phones being programmed, missing materials, ect. That is not OK, it seems criminal to me.
If you want to talk about misinformation how about the one sided coverage and comments at BIC, trying and influence opinion. How many stories did BIC run on this? Maybe 60?
That is ridiculous, it turned a story into a political smear campaign, and plenty people saw it for what it was. All those stories and comments giving the illegal business the workers ran or knew about, and the alcohol in the warehouse and the parties a compete pass. It really was quite obvious and political IMO.