Bucks County Courier Times editorial page "Thumbs Up," November 14, 2008

 

To attorney Marc Weinstein, who urged county officials and a few of their Republican friends in Bensalem to pay the legal fees of voters who said they were disenfranchised by a county-ordered polling place switch.

Residents of Bensalem’s Creekside apartment complex filed suit alleging that the Republican-led county government moved their polling place in order to make it hard for the complex’s many Democrats to vote.  County and township Republicans denied the charge.  Still, the federal court hearing included damning testimony from the county’s director of elections, who said the county commissioners and their COO interfered with her ability to run fair and impartial elections.

The suit led to a settlement in which the county agreed to move the polling place closer to Creekside.  Weinstein logically called the settlement a victory and reasonably argued that county and township Republicans involved in the case should pay the $32,000 legal bill rung up by the affected voters.

Makes sense to us. Taxpayers already are paying the legal bill to defend the county, including a couple of civil rights lawyers.  Ironically, it was the civil rights of the voters that were at stake.  And county officials admitted as much when they moved the polling place closer to Creekside.

As Weinstein suggested, “Those guys should do the right thing for the people of the county and not stick them with the bill.”