Warriors for voting rights keep up fight

Amid the settings of the civil rights movement that fought for voting rights 40 years ago, members of a congressional delegation said Friday the struggle continues and could escalate during the next two years in Washington. The 1965 Voting Rights Act — enacted after a violent confrontation between nonviolent marchers and white policemen at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. — is coming up for reauthorization in Congress at a time when African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities say they once again face intimidation and suppression at polling places. Lawmakers and advocates say today's battleground for equal rights is not limited to the South. Instead of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, they are talking about taking the fight to Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, where, in recent elections, voters complained their ballots were not counted or that officials tried to keep them from voting. Several post-election analyses of the November 2004 elections showed that generally a white voter's ballot was more likely to be counted than a black voter's. [more]

• Teresa Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes. "Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines." "We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry. She argued that Democrats should insist on "accountability and transparency" in how votes are tabulated. "I fear for '06," she said. "I don't trust it the way it is right now."[more]
• The DNC has "announced the members of its Ohio Election Task Force." "This group" of 23 "seasoned professionals in the electoral and technology fields" will investigate the voting problems in OH during the '04 election, including "the issues of voter registration problems, long lines at the polls, the issuance and counting of provisional ballots and voting equipment irregularities." DNC chair Howard Dean: "I am confident that Voting RIghts Institute chair Donna Brazile and her team of experts will properly investigate what went wrong in the Ohio election process. This investigation will ensure that every vote will be counted" (release, 3/4). Where were these folks during the election? Where were these folks after the election was stolen?  What exactly goes on at this Voting Institute anyway?