(Thanks to Camerafraud Facebook for the link!)

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/cerabino-traffic-camera-firm-stops-at-nothing-says-902093.html

Cerabino: Traffic-camera firm stops at nothing, says vote is racist Palm Beach Post
Frank Cerabino

Updated: 8:59 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010

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Bet you never imagined that asking voters whether or not they want red-light surveillance cameras is racist.

That's the contention of American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona-based company that operates photo enforcement cameras in West Palm Beach and elsewhere.

I'm guessing you'd be hard-pressed to imagine a racist component to holding an election that includes a ballot question on red-light cameras.

Then again, you're not a lawyer in search of any excuse to stop people from voting on traffic cameras.

Voters are unkind to red-light cameras. If you give them a chance, they'll vote them down all the time.

It's much easier selling this money-making scheme to cash-strapped city commissions and state legislators.

Two cities in Texas have camera referendum questions on their Nov. 2 general election ballots. And American Traffic Solutions is trying to stop those votes.

New spin on Voting Rights Act

Why? Because voting on cameras during a general election would be racist.

To get to this conclusion, the traffic company lawyers had to lean on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, landmark legislation that outlawed discriminatory voting practices aimed at disenfranchising black voters.

"Because the camouflaged referendum has been improperly placed on the ballot, a potential for racial discrimination exists," wrote company lawyer Andy Taylor. "More specifically, minority voters may lose their ability to elect candidates of their choice in local, statewide and federal offices."

OK, Andy. You're going to have to spin this one a little tighter. I don't see the connection with minority voters. Go on, sir. Show us some magic

"The city has created a scenario whereby voters who oppose the safety cameras program - a group that historically tends to vote in a conservative manner - will vote in greater numbers than would otherwise have turned out for a November 2, 2010 election," he wrote.

That's a beauty.

Try to follow this legal 'logic'

Do you follow? The argument is that the people who are against red-light cameras are those least sympathetic about black issues. And a speed-camera question just brings out the bigots, and therefore, it unduly influences the turnout of the election - against black people.

So in all those other votes on the ballot, black people get unfairly thumped because of all those camera-hating racists who showed up to vote.

There's an inconvenient flaw with this line of thinking.

No evidence exists to call camera-haters racists. It's far easier making the opposite argument, considering that the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union have both opposed red-light cameras.

But what's ultimately hard to swallow is the notion that the for-profit surveillance camera business is on the front lines of racial justice.

Instead, legal ploys like this do little but show the lengths that the traffic-camera business will go to push a product that a growing number of people don't want.

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