VOTER BLACKOUT?

The question looms in Florida, where civil rights groups say many black voters were shut out of the election

Dedrana McCray, 18, was psyched. It was Election Day, and with voter registration card in hand, she was turning out to cast her first vote. But poll workers in Florida's Miami-Dade County told her no dice: She wasn't on the voter list. After an hour of trying to sort out the mix-up, she gave up, went home, and cried.

"I thought it'd be a happy day," she says. "I would never want to vote again."

Civil rights groups say Dedrana, who is African American, was not alone. They charge that similar problems kept thousands of legally registered black Florida voters out of the Voting booth, possibly costing Vice President Al Gore the presidency, while souring the voters on the election process.

Among the other difficulties: African-American voters were more likely to live in counties that used relatively inexpensive punch-card ballots, which were more prone to voter error and miscounts. A New York Times analysis shows that 64 percent of Florida's black voters live in punch-card counties compared with 56 percent of whites. No one knows if the difference would have tilted the election to Gore. Yet in Miami-Dade, ballots in predominantly black precincts were thrown out for irregularities at nearly four times the rate as those in white precincts. With more than 90 percent of black voters choosing Gore, those uncounted ballots could have gained him 7,000 votes. He lost the state by 537

At one black college, voter registration cards did not arrive until 2 p.m. on Election Day. In some precincts with an increase in new black voters, poll workers calling to confirm names not on their lists got busy signals for hours. Critics also say a company hired to cleanse voter rolls of felons, who are not permitted to vote in Florida, removed an unknown number of voters who had no felonies. State officials admit to problems, but say they weren't serious enough to influence the outcome. Mindful of the dispute, President-elect Bush has promised to reach out to the black community.

Still, the issue isn't going away. Activist Jesse Jackson has called for more protests in mid-January. The U.S. Justice Department and the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights are investigating. If violations did occur, the election results wouldn't be overturned, experts say, but fines and prosecutions could result. Mary Frances Berry, commission chairwoman, says, "We want to have a total, systematic look at what happened in Florida."

RELATED ARTICLE: Count Goes On

George W. Bush is the next President, right? Right. So that's the end of hearing about ballot counts and hanging chads, right? Wrong.

Though it will not affect the outcome of the election, several news organizations and political groups are planning to recount the disputed ballots in Florida's incredible shrinking vote margin. Under Florida's Sunshine Law--a state statute that gives the public access to government records-all 6 million ballots cast in Florida are open to inspection.

The vote counters say they'll focus on the approximately 40,000 undervotes--ballots that registered no choice for President, possibly because of machine error. Election workers will hold the ballots up, one by one, for reporters and others to examine.

Why the interest in counting the ballots with the election decided? Editors say the complete count could help focus the country on the need for electoral reform. But if the recounts suggest that Bush lost the Florida vote to Vice President Al Gore, Bush's already shaky mandate-he lost the national popular vote and won the Electoral College by two votes--could erode further.

Other observers say Bush has little to fear. The argument over what constitutes a vote is still undecided, so no clear winner may emerge.

--P.V.