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.

"At this point in time, I don't think Beaufort County would be able to look past race in voting," said Kellie Harris Hopkins, the county elections director. "It's an ugly fact. Prejudice is still an issue."

Stark divisions

At lunchtime one recent day, a steady stream of customers visited the takeout window of King Chicken Drive In, a few blocks from the elections office.

Close by, two black men played checkers with wooden discs, whisking through games as they pondered how far this Down East county has come.

"You need the oversight," said Eric Whitney, 34. "Without it, the blacks won't be heard, you know."

His opponent, a graying Melvin Moore, thinks the younger generation will see through skin color in casting votes.

"Young people, they think with an open mind," said Moore, jumping his pieces across the board. "Now, white kids know they're not superior to blacks. And they go home and tell their parents, 'Why'd you lie to me?' "

Just outside town that afternoon, a white-haired man sat behind a ball field fence along the third base line, watching his grandson practice.

Raymond Carrow, 72, who is white, thinks the Voting Rights Act ought to be wiped out, including its ban on literacy tests.

"When you give one person a right, you take another person's rights away," said Carrow, a retired farmer. He's fine with black elected officials, as long as they earn most of the votes. "I thought majority rules," he said.

And though Carrow said there are lots of black people he would vote for, political experts point to the overwhelming tendency of people to support candidates of their same race.

Robert Hunter, a Greensboro elections lawyer, said without the deterrent of Section 5, white politicians of both parties would submerge minority needs to what whites see as their larger needs.

He said "racially polarized voting" still exists in much of the South.

Still, some people question whether the justice department's oversight is still needed.

Congress is debating the renewal of Section 5 for another 25 years. The House bill is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mel Watt, a Charlotte Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. It was introduced with fanfare this spring by Watt and a host of House and Senate leaders from both parties, all gathered on the Capitol steps.

But the smooth ride they expected hit bumps. A group of Republicans from Georgia and Texas want Section 5 done away with or, at least, applied nationally.

Many say another 25 years of federal government oversight ignores the progress made since 1965 and unfairly paints the South with a broad brush.

Their opposition was strong enough that, last month, House leaders scuttled a vote on the measure at the last minute, worrying proponents of the renewal.

Many backers of the renewal acknowledge the progress. But they also fear backsliding.

Butterfield, a civil rights lawyer who represents the southern half of Beaufort County, comes from a congressional district drawn with African-Americans in mind. He pointed out in a recent interview that in the eastern counties he represents, there are more than 300 black elected officials.

Still, he said, many white voters aren't comfortable casting ballots for black candidates. He calls Section 5 "a safety valve."

"We don't want to turn the clock back," Butterfield said.

Now there's a move afoot in Beaufort County to alter how county commissioners get elected.

Whites always won

For decades in the county, the electoral system worked against minorities.

The seven county commissioners were elected in at-large races. Highest vote-getters won office, and -- because white voters composed a sizable majority -- the winners were always white.

Then in the late 1980s, a young black preacher moved in from California by way of Yale University. The Rev. David Moore filed suit under the Voting Rights Act and won.

Now, under federal judicial order, county commissioners are elected by "limited voting." Each voter gets just one vote, even when there are several open seats. The highest vote-getters win office.

The method allows blacks to pool their votes behind black candidates. Two blacks now serve on the seven-member board.

Stan Deatherage, a commissioner and conservative Republican, has been pushing to change the method since the 1990s. He calls it confusing and says it isn't fair that voters can just pick one name when there are several seats open.

Deatherage, sipping sweet tea in his suburban Washington home, says he is as colorblind as they come. He says he would vote for any black man who shared his principles, supported the war and showed financial restraint.

But Deatherage, who is white, thinks the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional. He said opposition from minorities and the ever-present federal oversight required by the voting act have hurt his efforts to enact change.

Deatherage said he isn't trying to keep black leaders out of office. But it's unlikely, he acknowledged, that the federal government would go along with his ideas.

"Can our system be changed under the Voting Rights Act?" he asked. "It will determine exactly what we can and can't do."

Still, he said, the board, by a slim majority, plans to hire an elections consultant this summer to help it consider other methods.

Deatherage said he thinks back to the line in the famous Martin Luther King Jr. speech about judging people by the content of their character.

"I think we're at that point," Deatherage said.

But David Moore, whose youngest child is in college now, thinks Beaufort County still has a ways to go.

"This is the South," Moore said. "Beaufort County doesn't care about black folk," he said. "It is one of the most racist, backwards counties in the country. You have people who believe blacks have come up too fast."

At his home a few blocks away, Ed Booth, the county commissioner, was joined by his wife, Eltha, as she came home from work. She echoed her husband's assertion that the Voting Rights Act remains essential.

"Minorities need a voice," she said. "They need somebody who's going to be on the inside."

Somebody like her, she implied. A resident of one of two black-majority districts of the Beaufort County school board, Eltha Booth is serving her first term in office.