ABSTRACT
Like so many aspects of African American citizenship rights, the right to vote experienced a tortuous course that led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act which was signed into law on August 6, 1965. Yet, proof that such rights are still insecure forty years later resides in the substantial degree to which blacks experienced disfranchisement in the elections of 2000 and 2004. This view was echoed by Julian Bond, Chair of the Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at its 2005 annual conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
These problems have existed in perhaps other national presidential elections as well, however, the strength of the competition in more recent elections has been sufficient to allow the flaws in the election process to be exposed to the public.
