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171
Will
'rep bel
I
lost?
ByRo
Michigan may lose two
u.s. congre men, Ken M c­
Gregor, Director of the Public
Aff irs Office for the
Democratic majority, in the
Michigan House of Representa­
tives indicated.
The I will be a resuft of
population I and the great
drop in populati ' occured
in the diwictI represented
by Blacks. ' ,
The number of con­
gressmen each e reee 'is
based 0 its populatio det�r-
1 mined by a U.S. CCDSUS taken
every ten years. The ee
was taken in J9tI) and will be
held again in 1990.
Census bureau findings,
based on provisional county es­
timates for 1986 indicate that
Michigan population has laDeD
L2 per cent since the last census
taken in 1980.
Michigan's population in
1986 was ostimated at 9,155,000
compared with '9,262,078
. which it was estimated to be in
1980.
The biggest losses took
place in Detroit's predominant-­
Iy Black first and thirteenth dis­
trict, leading to community
peculation that Detroit might
lost one of its two Black con-
gressmen. r
The. census statu that the
first district -- represented by
Rep. John Conyers -- suffered a
6.3% population loss falling
from m 198Ol0 482,000 in
The diStrict. with tile greatest
I in th tate, the thirteenth
district is estimated as having a
13.6 population loss, � from
S14� in 1980 to 444,600 in 1986.
The thirt.eeDt}1 is represented
by Coug. G40rge Crockett.
However, McGregor em­
phasize that these are only
� Co tlDued '
25C1:
By M1 eI T. ett
Capital New$ Service
LANSING - The complex
prob m of school dropout may
warrant a joint House-Senate
committee, said Rep. Floyd
Cl ck.
Increased state sup ort for
children at � early age been
targeted � e of many factors
deere sing dropout , said
Clack, D- . t.
Clack is chair of a new House
subcommittee studying the
problem. ,
"You've got to int rvene
early, he d." Acade . cally,
they (children) need to
Co tiD eel
BALTIMORE - NAACP
lawyers scored a major vOting
rights victory in S1. Louis recent-
1y when a federal judge ruled
that the city's Board of Elections I
had violated the Voting Rights I I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!e!!!!!!!!!�!!
Act by failinhg to manually
review uncountea baUots cast in
predominantly African
Ameri� wards.
U.S. District Judge William
L. Hungate found that under the
city's punch-card voting system,
most of the nearly 3,000 UD­
counted ballots cast in the
March 1987 primary came from
wards where most of the voters,
are African American.
The failure of the election
board to manually count those
ballots -di criminated against
Blacks, he said
Judge Hungate ordered the
Election Board to eliminated
these discriminatory practice
by manually counting ballots
rejected by its computerized
tem. The cities should no
begi� exa n�ng their ballot
counting procedures to ensure
tbatpractices which occurred in
St. Louis are no taking place in
their aties.
-We thin this ruling may
have enfranchised thousands of
minority voter throughout the
I country," Hankins no ed.
. Knowing the proper use of
the punch-car system is impor­
tant nationwid , Hankins tated.
The system used throughout
. uri, ccounting for 70 per­
ceq! of the voteS in that state and
for so percent of VOl national­
ly in the Jut pr . dential elec­
tion, Hankins said.
Also repre nting Ro rts
re Donald L Wolff, who p-
peared on behalf of the
rican Civil Libertiee Union
f Ea tern i souri, and
ichael Middleton, a law
rofessor at t University of
'Thl
for cltl
equipment and to educate.
voters (from the wards from
which more than 60 percent of
the ballots were .. uncounted),
about the proper use of the
punch-card system.
The Judge's ruling came as a
result of a suit filed by Michael
V. Roberts against the Election
Board. Roberts, a African
American candidate who lost his
bid for president of St. Louis
Board of Alderman to a white '
candidate, said he lost because
Black did not know ho to use
the punch-card system.
In his suit, Roberts called for .
. a new election, but Judge Hun­
gate refused to hoaor his re­
quest, citing instea� ��nce of
I'
a manual r count he had or­
dered as p of the case hieb
showed Ro rts had lost by at
least 60 vot