Alabama: decision expected by Friday on Montgomery city election
The Montgomery Advertiser reports: Montgomery officials will know by Friday whether the city elections will be held Aug. 28 or at a later date, according to attorney Edward Still, who argued on behalf of a City Council member and two mayoral candidates in a telephone conference with the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday.
District 3 council member Janet May and mayoral candidates William Boyd and Jon Dow filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court last week claiming a city ordinance that moved the election from October to August was a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The lawsuit contends the date change will confuse potential voters, including as many as 3,000 in May's district. On June 5, the City Council voted 9-0 to change the election date. ...
The city argues its date change was pre-cleared in a June 14 letter from the U.S. Department of Justice. However, the Justice department followed that letter with another saying that new information led it to believe that the city had not carried out its burden of proof, Still said.
"The city wants to ignore that and say the Justice department does not have the authority or that they did not say it in the right way or that the time for them to say anything has passed," he said. -- Printer-friendly article page