Civil Rights Commission opens hearings on Florida vote   WEB EXCLUSIVE Gary Tuchman: Civil rights commission hears claims of irregularities on voting day

From staff and wire reports

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- The U.S. Civil Rights Commission heard complaints Thursday from black voters in Florida who said they were wrongly turned away from the polls in November's presidential election as members prepared to question Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

The commission convened hearings into reports of voting irregularities in Florida, where the outcome of the presidential race was mired in legal battles over the state's recount. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appeared before the panel Thursday, and Harris, the state's top election official, was scheduled to follow him Friday.

Since the November vote, many black voters in Florida have complained that they were turned away from the polls, intimidated by police roadblocks or found their names wrongly stricken from voting rolls.

"We know that something happened here," Mary Frances Berry, the commission's chairwoman, told CNN after Thursday's session. "Something very wrong happened to some people. We still don't know its dimensions, or who is responsible or what should be done about it."

William Whiting, a church pastor, said poll workers told him he wasn't registered. Whiting, who said he always votes, said poll workers told him "You are listed as a convicted felon. You are purged from our system. You have lost your civil rights."

"I was slingshotted into slavery," he said.

Thousands of voters listed as convicted felons were taken off Florida's voting rolls before the November balloting, and many, like Whiting, have complained that they were wrongly included on that list. Others have said they were turned away from the polls because voting registration applications from state motor vehicle offices weren't processed.

Those allegations were included as well in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by a coalition of civil rights groups and black voters.

Meanwhile, Roberta Tucker told the Civil Rights Commission she felt intimidated by a heavy police presence near her polling place. Five police cars were lined up along a road nearby, she said, describing the formation as a "roadblock."

"I didn't think it was warranted," she said. "I was intimidated by it and suspicious of it."

MESSAGE BOARD The Florida vote

Highway Patrol officials said later the checkpoint was a short-term, spur-of-the-moment road-safety measure, unauthorized by higher officers but not intended to scare anyone away from the polls.

Both Tucker and Whiting eventually were able to cast ballots.

Bush -- whose brother, George W. Bush, won the presidency with Florida's 25 electoral votes -- told the panel he welcomed the inquiry into his state's November presidential vote, and said he knew nothing about any deliberate attempt to violate anyone's rights.

He said he hoped the the commission would be able "to sort out any of the discrepancies that might exist, so that we can work together to build a world-class election system for Floridians that might be a model to the rest of the country."

Bush, who had recused himself from the State Board of Canvassers because of his brother's candidacy, has appointed a task force to study Florida's electoral system and said probes by the state attorney general's office and U.S. Justice Department should look into reports like Tucker's and Whiting's.

Berry told CNN after Thursday's hearing that she was "surprised" by Bush's testimony that he had little involvement in the election process. Bush said responsibility for conducting elections rested with Harris and with the election supervisors in Florida's 67 counties.

"We had come here believing that the governor of the state had some responsibility in these matters," Berry said.

The commission also has been presented with evidence charging African-American communities had a higher proportion of the more problematic punch-card voting machines, which a federal report said should be replaced as early as 1988. In addition, some disabled voters say they couldn't vote because they weren't given assistance.

Florida presidential results were so close it took more than five weeks of recount battles and court challenges before a U.S. Supreme Court ruling halted any further ballot counting, leaving Vice President Al Gore with little choice but to concede.

Harris, like the governor a Republican, served as co-chairwoman of the Bush presidential campaign in Florida as well as a member of the State Board of Canvassers. She became a controversial figure when she blocked the results of hand recounts in some Florida counties -- results that could have aided Gore.

Members of the commission, an independent fact-finding agency established under the Civil Rights Act of 1983, include four Democrats, one Republican and three independents. It has scheduled at least one more hearing next week in Miami, and plans to issue a final report in the summer.

CNN National Correspondent Gary Tuchman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.