For Obama, Hurdles in Expanding Black Vote

For many of these disengaged people, racial solidarity with Obama does not automatically trump apathy or despair. Even if volunteers manage to get them registered, it will require intensive follow-up to make sure they know where to vote, have the necessary identification and then turn out.

So as Bass, a black Amherst College sophomore from the Chicago suburbs, worked in 93-degree heat to canvass the bus stop in Macon -- which sits in front of a defunct railroad station that still has the words "Colored Waiting Room" etched above an archway -- she had to deploy a full range of tools. She linked the election to local issues such as rising bus fares. She chatted up people even after they said no, hoping to establish a connection for later. She deftly turned the flirtations of young men back to the task at hand.

Latasha Edwards, 20, a college student in lime flip-flops, flatly said that her vote would not make a difference. "There are a million other people on Earth," she said.

But Bass won her over by stressing an inequity in Macon that she said Obama will address: the gap in quality between public schools and the private schools where many white families send their children.

Lorrie Miller, 25, a mother of four who works in the mailroom of the local newspaper, was mostly uninformed about voting, saying she had last voted in the seventh grade, confusing a mock election held in school with the real thing.

Several others averted Bass's gaze, gave her a cold stare when she approached or signaled with a curt "I can't vote" that they are felons, who under Georgia law are not allowed to cast ballots. Bass reminded them that they can register after they finish probation.

She asked Dontrell Rozier, 20, who signed up the week before, how his efforts to register his friends were going. Not well. "Most of my people believe their votes don't count," he said, citing the 2000 election recount in Florida.

Bass's last sign-up of the afternoon was Anthony Harris, 40, a beer deliveryman who said he has never voted because "I'm a religious type. My god can make a positive change for mankind, but I've never seen a politician make a positive change. There's still starvation; there's still war." It took five minutes before he relented.

In three hours, Bass collected 20 registrations -- a good haul. After a month, she and two other volunteers have collected more than 700.

In the area around Macon, an estimated 40,000 African Americans are eligible to vote but are not on the rolls, out of about 600,000 black people in the state who are eligible but unregistered. The campaign's goal is to sign up at least 4,000 in Macon.

With months to go before the Oct. 6 registration deadline, there was an increase of 367 black registered voters in Macon's congressional district in June, compared with 24 white voters. Statewide, the rate of registered African American voters is 28.1 percent, up from 27.2 percent in January.

Bass is aware of the hurdles ahead in turning the registrations into votes, though the campaign has signed up 300 Macon volunteers to assist with that. "It's a monumental challenge," she said. "You see how mentally shackled and jaded people are, because they've seen politicians let them down in the past."