Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / June 2, 2016, edition 1 / Page 4
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[voting! ' If IP I ? 11 ppp 1 South Ward candidate Carolyn Highsmith was among the candidates appealing to voters in front of the Forsyth County Government Center. Pbotot by Todd Lack Early voting is currently going on at the Forsyth County Government Center. ? South Ward Candidate John Larson, (right), and supporter Joshua Canzpna were among those appealing to voters dur ing early voting. WSSU, IFB among possible early voting sites BY TODD LUCK THE CHRONICLE Early voting sites at Winston<-Salem Stale University and Industries for the Blind are among those being debated by the Forsyth County Board of Elections (BOE) for the ? general election. While early voting is currently going on for U.S. House of Representatives, N.C. Supreme Court and South Ward City Council, the BOE was already con sidering sites for early vot ing for the general election during its Tuesday, May 31 meeting. The^BOE needs to submit an early voting plan to the state by July 29, but BOE Director Tim Tsujii said that the sooner the sites are finalized, the more time it gives staff to make arrangements to use them. Fleming El-Amin, the sole Democrat on the three member board, submitted a plan with 15 sites. Among the sites were first-time sites at Winston Lake YMCA and Industries for the Blind, along with a return to using Anderson Center at WSSU as a site. "I'm determined to include them as much as I can this year," El-Amin said about WSSU. El-Amin was outvoted on including the Anderson Center and Sunday voting in an early voting plan for the March primary by Chair Ken Raymond and Stuart Russell. He appealed to the Republican-majority N.C. BOE who also voted against his plan, 3-2, along party lines. The Anderson Center was an early voting site from 2000-2012, but that changed when Raymond became chair. Raymond objected to the site, claim ing that when he was a poll worker there in 2010, there was a professor who gave students extra credit for voting, though he was never able to identify the professor. The Forsyth BOE at the time said there was no violation since no one was given anything of value for voting for a spe cific party or candidate. When asked after the meeting if he planned to oppose the site again, Raymond said that he's "taking everything under consideration." El-Amin said that he'd be willing to appeal to the state BOE again if Anderson was rejected. During the March primary early voting meet ings, the BOE received a 500-signature petition from WSSU students and anoth er 500-signature petition from Democracy NC, ask ing for a site at the histori cally black university. Another site the BOE has gotten numerous requests for is at IFB, which is located just off North Point Boulevard, and has a large population of blind and visually impaired workers. Raymond said he has concerns about that site too, since staff found issues with it involving sufficient parking for voters and find ing a place for campaign workers to electioneer. Fleming said he supported it because IFB has said they'd be willing to have their staff park elsewhere to make room for voter parking. Russell indicated that the board was getting no shortage of public sugges tions for early voting sites. During the meeting, Annette Scippio said St. Peter's Church and World Outreach Center, an East Winston mega church on Old Lexington Road, would like to be an early voting site. BOE staff pre pared a 21-site list for the board to choose from that includes sites like Sims Recreation Center in Happy Hill and Hanes Hosiery Recreation Center. Raymond and Russell planned to have their own 15-site plans at the board's next meeting on Monday, June 6. Russell said he expected them to agree on most sites, but to have dis agreements on a few, like Anderson Center, and on Sunday voting, which El Amin is once again includ ing in his proposal. During the meeting, Tsujii said 501 votes cast during the current early voting had been approved. For absentee ballots, 651 had been approved and 44 had been rejected. Early voting for the June 7 primary continues at the Forsyth County Government Center,201 N. Chestnut St. today, June 2, and tomorrow, Friday, June 3, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. The final day of early voting before the primary is Saturday, June 4, from 10 ajn.-l p.m. U.S. Supreme Court 'all-white juries' decision affects N.C. BY CASH MICHAELS FOR THE CHRONICLE A decisive U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week regarding the unconstitutional elimination of black jurors by Georgia prosecutors from a capital case over 30 ? years ago has *~e>? *"T~ ~ ? By a 7-1 decision (the dissenting vote coming from the High Court's only black jurist. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas), the Supreme Court determined in the case of Timothy Tyrone Foster, a black defendant convicted by an all-white jury of killing a white woman, that prose cutors' notes confirmed four prospective black jurors were deliberately kept off to ensure a conviction. Subsequent Georgia courts would not rule that this was racially motivated despite the written evidence. Several recent North Carolina cases have shown similar prosecutors' notes in capital cases involving black defendants to produce all-white juries, and observers believe the High Court ruling now strengthens arguments for those defen dants seeking new trials, if not having their sentences commuted because of proven prosecutorial racial bias. "In North Carolina, there has been a long and sordid history of racial discrimi nation in the selection of jurors," says attorney Irving Joyier, law professor at North Carolina Central University School clear implica tions for numer ous cases cur rently being considered in the North Carolina court system, say l#?an1 PYnprtc of Law in Durham and chairman of the N.C. NAACP Legal Redress Committee. "This discrimination has negatively impacted a large number of African American defendants. The use of this dis criminatory practice has been deeply engrained within the prosecutorial culture and has ruled the jury selection process. In the Foster decision, the U.S. Supreme Court loudly proclaimed that this practice violates the constitution and must cease. The sad thing is that Timothy Tyrone Foster spent 30 years in a Georgia prison before he could establish that this discrim ination likely impacted the outcome of his trial." According to Ken Rose, senior attor ney at The Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, "Lawyers who spe cialize in the death penalty say the ruling will give many death-sentenced men and women new rights to bring forward evi dence of racial discrimination. in jury selection at their own trials. Such evidence is usually barred if it is not introduced dur ing the initial trial." Attorney Rose continued, "The ruling will also compel North Carolina courts to more vigorously enforce laws that prohibit race discrimination in jury selection. The N.C. Supreme Court has heard more than 100 cases where prosecutors were accused of intentionally striking minority jurors, but it has never found a prosecutor's explanation for striking a black juror to be a cover for race discrimination, despite compelling evidence that the practice of excluding black jurors is prevalent." In Georgia's Foster case, prosecutors' notes showed the letter "B" written next to the four black prospective jurors' names to See DecMoa on A5 I DEATH r-=rTrrr*-*6 I ?-?-?T*- \1T gS^a^_ u*>'u RECENTLY DELIVER YOUR BABY AND NEED A BIRTH CERTIFICATE OR HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR LOVED ONES DEATH CERTIFICATE? Vital Records with Forsyth County Department of Public Health can helpI 'TV Forsyth County Amtoskm I MMM frrort^Ungff?H*. tmpcovWtg >. .A GET MOVING WITH A LOW-RATE ??LJlfaJH TRULIANT AUTO LOANj linn i> iiiiiiDi m HBRb174%I ? ?f Hr APR1 I THROUGH JUNE 30,2016 I ^ -? m ?sft 7 1 YOUR COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION CLEMMONS I DOWNTOWN WINSTON ?jj?lNERSVILLE I NOPTH POINT I TRUUANT WAV I PEACE HAVEN ROAD SEE. ALL PIEDMONT TRIAD LOCATIONS AT TRUUANY.ORO/LOCATIOM*
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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June 2, 2016, edition 1
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