WASHINGTON - The Justice Department should investigate the possibility of intentional discrimination in last year’s elections in Florida, the chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says.

Mary Frances Berry said Tuesday she plans to request a meeting with Attorney General John Ashcroft and will recommend to the commission Friday that the Justice Department be asked to look into problems outlined in a commission report.

The report said thousands of Floridians were deprived of their votes by outdated equipment, improper purging of voter rolls and inadequate access to voting booths.

Black voters were disenfranchised by a disproportionate margin, said the report, which has yet to be approved by the full commission. That vote is scheduled for Friday.

“We are asking the Justice Department and Mr. Ashcroft to look at the facts in our report and look at the remedy he should pursue,” Berry said in an interview. “He should determine whether there was intentional discrimination.

“What happened in Florida is that there was bipartisan disenfranchisement - Democrats who were county supervisors did not do what they were supposed to do, and neither did the governor nor the secretary of state.”

Nikki O’Brien, the coordinator for African American Student Affairs at MSU, said she’s not surprised by the commission’s findings, saying “blacks have a history of being disenfranchised in every election.”

“Throughout history, they have been denied voting by force, harassment or strategic campaigns to confuse or deny access,” said O’Brien, adding she doesn’t believe the Justice Department will take a serious look at the report and anything it does do “regarding real justice will be superficial.”

The report said the state’s highest officials, singling out Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris, were “grossly derelict in fulfilling their responsibilities and unwilling to accept accountability.”

Charles Canady, general counsel for the governor, responded in a letter Tuesday that the report was biased and rife with errors.

“The report grossly mischaracterizes the role of the governor and other state-level officials in overseeing the administration of elections in Florida,” he said. “Although Governor Bush has taken a leadership role in reforming our state’s election system, he clearly was not responsible for carrying out or overseeing the preparations for the November 2000 election.”

Fifty-four percent of votes rejected during the Florida election were cast by black voters, according to the report. Blacks accounted for 11 percent of voters statewide.

“The disenfranchisement was not isolated or episodic,” said the report, the product of a six-month investigation. The commission held three days of hearings, interviewed 100 witnesses and reviewed 118,000 documents.

The commission is charged with investigating possible violations of the federal Voting Rights Act and other civil rights protections.

Florida officials and two members of the commission criticized the way the report was released. It was made available to three newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

“The report is nothing more than a partisan hatchet job,” said Florida Republican chairman Al Cardenas.

Berry said she would ask the commissioners to monitor election law changes passed by the Florida Legislature to make sure they are carried out.

The new Florida law requires that all counties have modern optical scan voting machines and stop using the punchcard machines that were the source of much controversy in the Florida vote recount.

It also allows for provisional ballots for people who are not on voter lists but say they are eligible to vote. Election officials would later determine if the ballots were valid.

Berry praised Florida lawmakers for the changes, but said more must be done to ensure access, bilingual help for voters and an end to purging legitimate voters.

Commissioner Russell Redenbaugh, appointed by Republicans, was sharply critical of the report.

“Without any doubt, there’s political motivation in this process,” Redenbaugh said Tuesday. “The way this has been handled and released reflects poorly on the commission and diminishes the impact it will have.

“President Bush needs to act to produce new leadership on the Civil Rights Commission.”

State News staff writer Shannon Murphy contributed to this report.