[StBernard] Displaced residents' votes questioned

[Westley Annis]

Displaced residents' votes questioned
Candidates raise issue in St. Bernard 
Friday, November 16, 2007
By Paul Rioux
St. Bernard bureau 
Several candidates in Saturday's runoff election in St. Bernard Parish say
they are concerned the results could be skewed by St. Bernard expatriates
who vote in the election despite claiming homestead exemptions elsewhere. 

 
By law, people can vote only in the parish in which they claim a homestead
exemption. 

By one candidate's count, more than 7 percent of early voters in last
month's primary have homestead exemptions in St. Tammany Parish and should
not have cast ballots in St. Bernard. 

"The people who live in this parish should determine our future, not the
people who left and have no intention of returning," said Parish President
Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, who is seeking re-election to a second term.
"That's not just my opinion; it's the law." 

Rodriguez emphasized that he doesn't think voters intentionally broke the
law. 

"I don't think the average person was aware of it before, but they should be
now," he said. 

Rodriguez's opponent, Parish Councilman Craig Taffaro Jr., agreed. 

"Most people are unaware of the restriction and still believe they have
maintained their voter rights if they did not register somewhere else and
are planning to return," he said. 

There are no criminal penalties for violating the election law concerning
homestead exemptions and no procedures for removing people from voting rolls
if they claim an exemption in another parish, said Jacques Berry, a
spokesman for Secretary of State Jay Dardenne 

"It's basically up to the candidates and other voters to police this by
challenging the vote of someone who has a homestead exemption outside the
parish," he said, noting that state election laws tend to err on the side of
letting people vote. 

Larry Landry, who is challenging Sheriff Jack Stephens in the runoff, said
the law should have more teeth. 

"People have to sign a registration card certifying where they live," he
said. "Isn't it kind of like committing perjury if the card isn't accurate?"


Stephens said Thursday he was unaware of the homestead exemption issue, but
added, "I know there has been a lot of general confusion after the hurricane
about who is eligible to vote. I'm as confused as everyone else and have to
rely on election officials for some direction on this." 

In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Legislature passed a law
enabling "involuntarily displaced" residents to remain on voting rolls in
their home parish unless they registered to vote elsewhere or established a
new "domicile" in a different parish. 

However, the exception does not supersede a separate provision in state
voting laws requiring anyone who claims a homestead exemption to register to
vote at that address, Berry said. 


Voters seek clarification 

Velma Bourg, St. Bernard's registrar of voters, said she has been receiving
calls from voters seeking clarification about how their homestead exemptions
affect their voting status. 

"I just read them the statute and let them decide for themselves," she said.
"This is a touchy situation given the predicament that people are in right
now after losing their homes." 

Berry said there is no mechanism for registrars to purge voters who have
claimed homestead exemptions in other parishes. 

"The registrars are not notified when that happens and it's not something
they are asked to try to keep track of on their own," he said. 

Rodriguez sought to publicize the issue by placing a sign stating the
homestead exemption voting law on the registrar of voter's trailer during
last week's early voting. 

Bourg said she removed the sign because she is not allowed to have anything
on the trailer that was not given to her by the state Department of
Elections. 


Combing the rolls 

The homestead exemption issue was first raised by Randy Nunez, who lost his
bid for parish clerk of court in the Oct. 20 primary. 

After the election, Nunez's campaign obtained a list from the registrar's
office of the names and addresses of 1,755 people who voted early. By
cross-referencing the list with the St. Tammany Parish assessor's Web site,
Nunez said he determined that 125 of the voters, or 7 percent, had homestead
exemptions in St. Tammany. 

"That's just in St. Tammany," Nunez said. "The number would have been even
higher if we had time to check other parishes." 

The Times-Picayune requested voting lists from Bourg's office to conduct its
own analysis, but the lists had not been released by the close of business
Thursday, pending resolution of a disagreement about how public records laws
apply to voting records. 

Bourg declined to release the records unless the newspaper obtained
signatures from 25 registered St. Bernard voters as specified in an election
statute. The newspaper contends that statute is superseded by the state's
general public records law, which does not require signatures. 

A spot check of about two dozen of the St. Bernard voters Nunez identified
as having homestead exemptions in St. Tammany Parish suggests his analysis
was accurate. 

Nunez said he did not challenge the election results because he didn't think
he had enough data to convince a judge that the improper votes could have
swayed the election. 


Who benefits? 

There is no hard evidence to indicate which candidates might benefit from
voters casting ballots despite having homestead exemptions outside St.
Bernard. 

But the conventional wisdom expressed by several political observers is that
displaced St. Bernard residents who have laid down roots elsewhere are more
likely to come back to vote against a candidate out of spite. "Some of them
are probably coming back to vote because they are mad at the world or they
want to get even with people they blame for the slow recovery," said Lance
Licciardi, co-manager of Nunez's campaign. 

Perry Nicosia, another Nunez campaign manager, said he recently ran into an
acquaintance in Slidell who said she was planning to cast a ballot during
early voting for the runoff. 

"She said, 'I'm never moving back to St. Bernard, but I'm going back on
Wednesday to vote,' " he said. 

Licciardi said the post-Katrina residency exceptions for displaced voters
was critical in St. Bernard, where all but a handful of homes flooded during
the hurricane. But he noted the legislation includes no time limits and
questioned whether the exceptions are still warranted more than two years
after the hurricane. 

"At what point does it stop?" he said. "When do people who have no intention
of ever returning lose the privilege of voting in St. Bernard?" 

. . . . . . . 

Paul Rioux can be reached at prioux at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3321.