By
The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A minister yesterday told a federal panel investigating voting irregularities in Florida that he was wrongly accused of being a felon and almost lost his vote.
"I was slingshotted into slavery," said Willie Whiting, a 52-year-old pastor at the House of Prayer Church in Tallahassee. Officials at his polling place told him his name had been purged from the rolls because he was a felon - which he wasn't.
"It didn't feel good," said Whiting, who was allowed to vote after his background was double-checked with county elections officials.
Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the president-elect, also testified as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights opened its two-day hearing. He told the panel he had no plans to immediately authorize an investigation into election problems.
He said he would wait until the commission hearings, a Justice Department investigation and any inquiries by Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth were completed.
"It seems to me we should have a consistent standard across the state so we don't see those agonizing pictures of volunteers and officials with what appeared to be painful, excruciating expressions on their face trying to determine the will of the voter," he said.
Bush said Secretary of State Katherine Harris and the independently elected 67 county elections supervisors were responsible for running the election. He noted that he had recused himself as chairman of the state canvassing board in view of his brother's candidacy.
Bush also said he first became aware of problems the day after the election and that he is anxious to update the state's voting equipment.
The Florida governor formed a panel last month to recommend improvements, and both houses of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature also are examining the disputed balloting.
As the hearing began, Roberta Tucker, a 49-year-old state employee, said she was intimidated when she was stopped by five white Highway Patrol officers near her polling place in Woodville, near Tallahassee.
"It was suspicious to me," she said.
Patrol officials said later that it was a spur-of-the-moment safety checkpoint, unauthorized by higher officers but not intended to scare anyone away from the polls.
The panel's chairwoman, Mary Frances Berry, said the testimony concerned her.
"The committee has received troubling reports of an inordinate number of irregularities," she said. "We know that in elections across the country there will be from time to time instances of irregularities. But these should be the exceptions, not the rule."
Civil rights groups are suing Florida election officials on behalf of thousands of blacks, saying they were denied the right to vote in the presidential election because of institutionalized racism.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Miami asks a federal judge to overhaul how Florida's elections are run by getting rid of punch-card ballots used in 25 counties, fixing the system for purging voter lists and monitoring state elections for 10 years.
The civil rights lawsuit does not attempt to overturn the results of the Nov. 7 presidential race in Florida, which provided the decisive margin for President-elect Bush.
Harris, State Elections Chief Clay Roberts and county election supervisors are named in the suit. Roberts said he could not comment because he had not seen it.
Groups supporting the lawsuit said lawful voters were purged from registration lists and some voters were not given required language assistance.
The groups also claim thousands were turned away from polls, some because applications from state motor vehicle offices were not processed. About 17,000 letters were sent out informing people they could not vote because they were convicted felons, even though many were not.
"This thing is so massive," said Adora Obi Nweze, Florida president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It's scary to think about what the numbers could be."
Earlier this week, a lawsuit was filed in state court in an attempt to block use of the punch-card "Votomatic" system. Plaintiffs claim the error-prone system caused thousands of votes to go uncounted.
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union sued Georgia officials to throw out the punch-card system used in 17 counties. The ACLU claims the system disenfranchises thousands in areas with large numbers of black voters.
