WASHINGTON, N.C. - Ed Booth remembers when African-Americans couldn't easily vote in the South. He remembers having to enter through the back door of a restaurant to see his mother at work, and sipping from water fountains marked "colored."

Now Booth, 54, is seeking a second term on the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners in Eastern North Carolina. If it weren't for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he doesn't think he would be in office.

As Congress debates whether to renew a key part of the law, Booth holds strong views about whether the act is still needed.

"Yes!" he shouts, punching the air. "More so than ever. It's still hard for minorities to get elected or re-elected."

The Voting Rights Act was one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation in history. It guaranteed that blacks would have the right to vote. It outlawed literacy tests and other obstacles to voting in the Jim Crow South.

None of that would change now. But a provision known as Section 5 expires in 2007. Its extension faces opposition from some Southern Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Section 5 requires some Southern jurisdictions -- including 40 counties in North Carolina -- to get special approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before making any election changes. Those include everything from moving polling places to redrawing lines for school board or congressional districts. The requirement results in reams of paperwork that some officials say is burdensome and others see as necessary to ensure minority representation.

The act helps determine how elections are conducted, whether districts are drawn to favor minority candidates, and where voters will cast their ballots.

At issue is whether, in 2006, much of the South still needs federal oversight to ensure that blacks and other minorities can win elected office.

Several North Carolina congressional Republicans are among those against an automatic renewal of Section 5. U.S. Reps. Patrick McHenry and Virginia Foxx, who both represent western districts, signed a letter to House leaders asking for more time to review the legislation.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a Farmville Republican who represents the northern half of Beaufort County, didn't sign the letter. But he questions whether the South still needs Section 5's oversight.

"I hope, and I may not be realistic in this, we've gotten past that," Jones said. "I don't think it's needed. I think we've progressed quite far over the last 40 years."

In North Carolina, Beaufort County exemplifies the effects of the law and the continuing questions about minority voting rights. Of 66 local elected officials in the county, 11 are black (17 percent of the total). Blacks account for about 28 percent of the county population, according to a 2005 Census Bureau estimate.

In Beaufort County, fishing villages dot the banks of the Pamlico River. Farms sprawl across the county's interior. Like many counties near the coast, Beaufort is drawing more newcomers eager to retire along the water.

But Beaufort also has one of the state's highest unemployment rates, and more than a third of its black population lived in poverty in 2000, compared with 11 percent of whites.

The Pamlico River almost evenly splits the county between the congressional districts of a black Democrat, G.K. Butterfield, and Jones.

There is also a move afoot to change a court-ordered election method designed to protect minority districts, with backers of the change arguing that it is too complicated.

Many locals and outside observers still see a racial split in the county, one sharp enough that, except for the Voting Rights Act and the oversight it requires of the U.S. Department of Justice, Beaufort and other Southern jurisdictions could slide back into old ways.

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