The Houston Chronicle August 06, 2005, Saturday VOTING RIGHTS ACT; Warnings issued on law's anniversary; Today's barriers to voting are more subtle than in the 1960s, civil rights leaders say BY SALATHEIA BRYANT, JULIE MASON Texas Southern University political scientist Sanders Anderson Jr. remembers when the simple, civic act of registering to vote could be difficult and even dangerous for blacks living in the South. It was 1968 and the 21-year-old Southern University political science major sometimes skipped classes to ferry blacks to the courthouse of his small Louisiana parish to help them register with a federal examiner - one of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act, passed 40 years ago this week. Back then, Anderson recalls, county officials changed voting times and closed offices to keep blacks from the ballot box. "People had experienced meanness from these county administrators," he said. "A lot of times it was just fear of people doing something to them. They had seen people lose their jobs. Across the South they had seen people get beat up." Anderson said he wanted to register with county officials, "to show them I wasn't afraid," but on one trip, he also registered with the federal examiner. Often called the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation passed by Congress, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 6 - did much to eliminate blatant roadblocks to voting found across the South. It outlawed literacy tests, called for federal observers to monitor elections and for federal examiners to register qualified citizens. "People had been intimidated. There had been problems all over the South," said Anderson who gives his students at TSU extra points if they have a voter registration card. "The Voting Rights Act changed all that." The act initially applied to several states in the Deep South, but not Texas. Congress applied it to Texas in 1975, to address voting violations involving Hispanics. Even today, Anderson and others warn, more subtle barriers to voting exist. "It has become more of a people of color issue," said Rogene Gee Calvert, president of the Houston 80-20, a political action committee for Asian Americans. "There's a whole gauntlet of things that have to be done to make it an open process." Contemporary barriers to voting include disparity in the selection of early voting locations, inadequate voting machinery, which some people blame for long lines at polling places, and the lack of a uniform law regulating voting privileges for felons. "If people show up at a polling place and it has moved and no one can tell them where, they have been denied the right to vote," said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of Washington-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "Every election is about who really gets to vote." Example from 2003 Voter rights advocates, both locally and nationally, point to recent elections to prove the need for continued vigilance in voting. In 2003, for example, a voting rights controversy ignited on the campus of Prairie View A&M University when the Waller County district attorney questioned the rights of students to vote in county elections. District Attorney Oliver Kitzman, who is white, sent a letter to county officials saying students at the predominantly black university were not eligible to vote in local elections. He was overruled by Attorney General Greg Abbott. Kitzman later resigned. The 2000 presidential election in Florida also is cited frequently as an example of voter disenfranchisement. A number of Florida ballots were rejected in the 2000 recount because of undervotes, overvotes or indecipherable punch cards. But black voters' ballots were discarded at a rate substantially higher than those of white voters. Arnwine's group, along with other civil rights organizations, has formed the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act, which is set to file a detailed report of discrimination in voting since 1982 to support congressional reauthorization of some sections of the Voters Right Act, set to expire in 2007. Since March, members of the organization have taken testimony from blacks, Latinos, Asians and American Indians about their experience with discrimination in voting. Arnwine said several National Association for the Advancement of Colored People branches in Texas have asked the group to come to the state for a hearing. Software faulted Houston has a long and complicated relationship with the Voting Rights Act, which requires that certain jurisdictions, including Harris County, provide bilingual assistance to voters. Calvert testified before the voting rights commission about issues involving Vietnamese voters in Harris County. In July 2002, the Justice Department notified Harris County election officials that voting materials must be translated into Vietnamese. In its "precleared" voting procedures, Harris County included plans to do so by the 2003 election. However, because software couldn't be upgraded in time, Vietnamese was not included on the eSlate electronic voting machine. Instead, Vietnamese-speaking voters were given a paper template in Vietnamese to use with the eSlate. In a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department, the Harris County Clerk's office pledged to create a more effective Vietnamese language program that allows for instructions and ballots on the same basis provided for English and Spanish. The plan called for hiring a full-time coordinator to the Vietnamese election programs and having interpreters at polling places where more than 50 Vietnamese surnames are registered. The clerk's office also hired a full-time Hispanic coordinator. In addition, an early voting location was opened in a Vietnamese social service agency. "It's a matter of what are they willing to do or what they have to do. The VRA gives those municipalities who may be reluctant a push. Without it we would still be quibbling over translations," said Calvert, who said that in visiting polling places in 2003 she found that some had not posted the Vietnamese translation of sample ballots or other voting material. County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, who administers most elections in the county, disagreed, saying the clerk's office has always complied with the intent of the law. She said she has stressed to election judges the importance of parity. "We've never been reluctant and never will be. It was the goal (to have Vietnamese on eSlate) but it wasn't possible. There wasn't time between July and November to make it happen. We did what we were able to do in the meantime," Kaufman said. "We do have a good record." Kaufman said she thinks the VRA will be reauthorized and possibly expanded to include other jurisdictions not covered by the historic document. She said she would not be surprised if other languages in Harris County were eligible for ballot inclusion after the next census. "It's been around for decades now," she said of the act. "I think it does help some people. I don't think it's hurting anybody. It gives a heightened sense of confidence to all voters." Texas is one of the nine states and seven jurisdictions covered by provisions requiring the Justice Department to approve in advance any plans for annexation or redrawing of City Council and other political district boundaries. Changes in the location of polling places or procedures also must be cleared by federal officials. The special scrutiny is part of the bill's broader intent to prevent any repeat of historic discrimination patterns or events that made the 1965 act necessary. Law's usefulness debated But not everyone thinks there is still a need for the law. Edward Blum, a senior fellow at the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity who is writing a book on the Voting Rights Act, said the law was well intentioned but has outlived its usefulness. "It has been so deconstructed, by the courts and then Congress, that it went from being a temporary mechanism to ensure that southern jurisdictions wouldn't play rough and loose with the rules, to now being a mechanism designed to create racially gerrymandered districts for blacks, whites and Hispanics," Blum said. To ensure full participation, voting remains a cornerstone of the local civil rights agenda. The Houston branch of the NAACP places emphasis on registration, mobilization, education and elections monitoring. "It's not just walking down the street singing 'We Shall Overcome' and hoping to get someone registered," said TSU political science professor Franklin Jones. "There is still an issue of trying to make certain everyone of the voting age population is extended the opportunity to vote." Yolanda Smith, executive director of the Houston NAACP branch, said voting remains a top priority. "This is not a 1965 issue. It's an issue of current day," Smith said. "It might not be obvious methods but you certainly have issues that are questionable. If it can happen in Florida it can happen in Texas."   Southern Regional Hearing Montgomery, Alabama March 11, 2005 Southwest Regional Hearing Phoenix, AZ April 7, 2005 Northeast Regional Hearing New York, New York June 14, 2005 Midwest Regional Hearing Minneapolis, Minnesota July 22, 2005 South Georgia Hearing Americus, Georgia August 2, 2005 Florida Hearing Orlando, Florida 80th National Convention of the National Bar Association August 4, 2005 South Dakota Hearing Rapid City, South Dakota September 9, 2005 Western Regional Hearing Los Angeles, California September 27, 2005 Mid-Atlantic Regional Hearing Washington, DC October 14, 2005 Mississippi Hearing Jackson, Mississippi October 29, 2005