Plaintiff's lawyer says assurance given on election by April 29

04:23 PM CST on Thursday, December 22, 2005

Melinda Deslatte / Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. -- A state judge dismissed one of three lawsuits objecting to the postponement of New Orleans elections after Secretary of State Al Ater said he'd try to hold the elections on or before April 29.

Ater previously said he hoped to hold the mayoral and city council elections in New Orleans by that date. On Thursday, his office formally agreed -- in a hearing before Judge William Morvant -- that the state would work for the elections to be held by the April deadline "if practicable."

Morvant then dismissed the lawsuit with the blessing of Rob Couhig, the lawyer who sued Ater and Gov. Kathleen Blanco on behalf of a group of New Orleans voters.

"We are going to have an election by April 29. The secretary is going to move heaven and earth under the law," Couhig said.

Several hurdles remain before elections can be held, including approval from the U.S. Justice Department of changes to account for damaged voting locations and staffing shortages.

Blanco indefinitely postponed the Feb. 4 New Orleans elections after Ater said it was impossible to ready the devastated city and track down voters so soon after Hurricane Katrina. The storm damaged polling places and scattered the city's voters and elections workers around the state and nation.

The agreement between Ater and Couhig was worked out in a meeting with Morvant behind closed doors for about three hours. It says elections will be held when either New Orleans city officials or the secretary of state's office make the needed logistical and mechanical changes.

It also says Ater and Blanco acted appropriately when delaying the elections.

Two other lawsuits are pending in federal court.

In the various lawsuits, one side argues that postponing the election would deny New Orleans voters basic voting rights at a time when choosing leadership is crucial to the city's future. Others say it would be unfair to hold elections in New Orleans if large numbers of residents wouldn't be able to vote because they couldn't be found or because the polling places and absentee balloting process weren't set up properly.

Couhig said the plaintiffs who sued Ater and the governor wanted an election date, rather than an indefinite postponement. Ater said he explained to Couhig the problems his office has encountered in attempting to press forward with the elections.

Ater said he thinks the April date is realistic.

"We need to have elections, and we need to have them sooner rather than later," he said.

Both Couhig and Ater said New Orleans officials should have worked harder to ready the city for elections.

Couhig said he wouldn't have filed the lawsuit if the mayor, city council and clerk of court had pushed for elections to proceed on time and made the necessary adjustments to polling places and precinct lines to account for the hurricane damage. He said he still hoped New Orleans officials would work to hold the elections.

"We need to get city officials to do their job," Couhig said.

The mayor's office didn't immediately return a call for comment.

For Ater to take charge of the elections, a series of procedures must occur.

The Legislature, in a recent special session, gave the secretary of state special powers to develop an emergency elections plan during a declared disaster that would let Ater relocate or consolidate polling places and address shortages of elections workers and voting machines. That new law requires approval by the federal government under the Voting Rights Act.

Ater said once he receives that approval, he will present his emergency elections plan for New Orleans. "I'm going to start the process that should have been done by other people," he said.

That plan will need legislative approval and then another layer of approval from the U.S. Justice Department.

The state is working on a tight schedule. To hold the mayoral and city council primary elections April 29, all those approvals must be in line by March 8, when the sign-up period for the elections must begin.

Even then, Ater said he expects the results of any elections in New Orleans to be challenged.

Among the original plaintiffs in Couhig's lawsuit were his wife, Michelle; Bob French; Katherine and Anthony Gelderman; Connor O'Keefe; Belinda and Gary Huber; and Latifia Carter. More than 60 voters were added to the lawsuit after it was filed.

Meanwhile, an Ater spokeswoman said the secretary of state's office expected to receive information from federal officials on Friday outlining where Katrina evacuees have relocated since the storm forced thousands of people out of Louisiana.

Ater said he needed the information to track down voters before the New Orleans elections and notify them of their voting rights. Only about 100,000 of the city's 460,000 residents are currently living in New Orleans, according to estimates.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)