Commission chairperson Mary Frances Berry said she planned to meet with Attorney General John Ashcroft to ask the Justice Department to organize an investigation of whether the commission's findings constitute a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

The commission focused its report, issued June 8, on a study of ballots that had been rejected as improperly marked during a recount in several counties initiated by supporters of then Vice President Albert Gore, Democratic Party candidate for President, who lost Florida to George Bush by 537 votes. The commission found that 54 percent of the rejected ballots were cast by Black voters.

Gore, seeking to regain a plurality in Florida, rushed to demand a recount in counties where Democrats expected he could pick up enough votes to change the results. The Clinton-Gore administration, however, showed little interest in demands by the NAACP on election day to investigate widespread reports of intimidation of and interference with the ability of Blacks, both U.S.-born and Haitian-American, to cast a vote. The administration waited until December 3 to send two representatives to determine whether an investigation was necessary.

On January 10 the NAACP and other civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court. The organization presented testimony of intimidation of Blacks attempting to vote, of names of many Blacks missing from voter rolls, of the closing of polls while Black people were still in line to vote, and of first-time Haitian voters, many of them newly naturalized U.S. citizens, being prevented from getting help from Creole-language translators.

The U.S. Justice Department is now investigating charges that a short supply of Spanish-speaking poll workers and a lack of bilingual ballots interfered with the ability of some Latinos to vote. The election supervisor in Osceola County, where Latinos make up 29 percent of the population, refused to print ballots in Spanish.

As a result of campaigns to register Blacks to vote, more than 900,000 African Americans voted in Florida November 7, an increase of 65 percent from the 1996 election.

The report by the U.S. civil rights commission cited "overzealous efforts" to purge state voter lists of disenfranchised voters who are Black, of other oppressed nationalities, or disabled; failure of polling workers in many cases to verify voters' registration status; and polling workers who told African American voters that the polls were closed but permitted white voters to cast a ballot.

A large number of workers in the United States are disenfranchised by election officials on the basis that they have served or are serving a prison sentence. The civil rights commission report pointed out that more than 36 percent of disenfranchised former prisoners are African American men. In Florida, 31 percent of the population denied voting rights consists of Black men. The commission recommended that the Florida government restore civil rights, including voting rights, to former convicted felons.

The commission's report was sharply critical of Florida governor John Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris, both Republicans. Two of the eight commission members, both appointed by Republicans, voted against the report, calling it a partisan document with "inflammatory language."  
 
 
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