Louisiana: judge refuses to stop New Orleans election
The New York Times reports: The battle among candidates for city office has begun, but running alongside it is a fight over the election itself.
Seven months after Hurricane Katrina, thousands of voters, particularly black ones, have yet to return to the city.
In their absence, community groups and activists have repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the election, on April 22, for mayor, City Council and a host of lesser offices.
On Monday, a federal judge turned away their arguments, suggesting that the need to vote trumped all.
But even as he did so, the judge, Ivan L. R. Lemelle of Federal District Court in New Orleans, told his own history of displacement and loss, acknowledging that the election, with its shifting and destroyed polling places, its thousands of absentee ballots not yet mailed and its participants scattered throughout the country, would be far from perfect. -- Judge Orders New Orleans to Proceed With Election - New York Times