The first voter, John Nelson, testified that he became "suspicious" when he saw an unmanned police cruiser parked outside two separate polling places in predominantly black neighborhoods. That was the extent of Nelson's complaint, and it turns out at least one of the cars was parked while its driver went inside to vote.
The second voter, Roberta Tucker, testified that she felt intimidated when police stopped her, along with many other motorists, at a roadblock on her way to the polls in Leon County. Police asked to see her license, then sent her on her way, after which she went ahead and voted. It turns out the roadblock was a routine checkpoint and was located more than two miles away from any polling place. It lasted 90 minutes and resulted in 18 citations issued, of which 12 went to white motorists.
The third voter, a minister named Willie D. Whiting, testified that he felt "slingshotted back to slavery" when he learned that he had been removed from the voter rolls. It turns out that Apostle Whiting had been mistaken for Willie J. Whiting, a convicted felon who was born in the same month and year as he. Ultimately, Whiting was able to convince poll workers that there had been a clerical error, and he was allowed to vote.
Several state officials testified that their offices had received no
complaints of discrimination. Chairman Berry characterized this as
evidence at least of neglect: "Whenever an agency... receives no
complaints when there's a bunch of stuff happening out there and it's
all reported in the media, that means the people who are complaining
either don't know you're somebody to complain to or they don't believe
you'll do anything about it."
The commission also heard from local election supervisors about mechanical problems in their counties. Asked by Berry whether such problems affected African American voters disproportionately, one election supervisor responded that predominantly black precincts in her county had been no more likely to experience problems than predominantly white precincts. Agitated, Berry cut off the witness and lectured her on the importance of testifying truthfully under oath.
The commission reconvened for one day in February to hear more testimony from additional voters who said they had encountered problems. Some complained about unusually long lines at their polling places, others that their names had not been on the voter lists and that jammed phone lines had delayed poll workers from confirming their identities. Berry expressed concern that some voters may have been "disenfranchised" by the failure of election officials to anticipate patterns of voter turnout and provide appropriate resources.
Many of these inconveniences occurred because of a new law against voter fraud, which requires counties to purge its voter lists of duplicate names, deceased voters, voters who have moved, and felons. The law was passed after Miami's 1997 mayoral election, in which many ballots were cast on behalf of dead people. But despite the precautions, the Miami Herald reports that at least 2,000 illegal ballots were cast in Florida's 2000 election because poll workers failed to check voter identification properly.
[Ed.: The two Republican-appointed members of the Commission, Abigail Thernstrom and Russell Redenbaugh, released a 60-page dissenting report that found no basis for allegations of voting irregularities due to a presumably racist conspiracy. They found that the incidence of ballot spoilage increased in counties whose election supervisors were Democrats, and rose even further in counties where the supervisor was African American.
Under Ms. Berry's chairmanship, the Civil Rights Commission also became involved in other dubious causes, such as allegations of widespread arson of black churches and the suspensions of rampaging black high schoolers in Decatur, Illinois.]
