Black groups rail against New Orleans registrar of voters

Numerous residents who have participated in voter registration drives -- some held months ago -- have not received identification cards and are fearful of being disenfranchised, activists told a city council committee Thursday. Leaders of several groups who have run get-out-the-vote drives -- mostly in black neighborhoods, high schools and colleges -- voiced those concerns, angrily at times, to the City Council's Government Affairs Committee. "When they try to disqualify people from voting in national elections ... this is very serious," said Carl Galmon, representing the Selma-to-Montgomery Historic Voting Rights Trail. "There is a conspiracy to disenfranchise African-American voters from the Nov. 2 elections that you are a part of."

• Part of the outrage exhibited in council chambers was a reaction to a recently published list of about 45,000 New Orleans residents who are classified as being inactive voters. That means they soon could be purged from voting rolls if they have not voted in two prior federal elections. Elsie Cangelosi, director of national voter registration for the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office, said people become classified as inactive when the addresses they have on file are in question because verification cards sent to them were returned by the post office. The deadline for registering for the Nov. 2 election is this coming Monday. Mail applications postmarked by then but received later also will be accepted statewide, Cangelosi said. [more ]