“One of the complications which arose from the addition of thousands of illiterates to the voting rolls was the time required to select a competent jury. Many who were called for jury duty had to be excused because they could not read or write. Others who claimed they could admitted that their ability to understand what they have read was limited. At one trial a juror was asked to read a short item from a newspaper about the election of a state legislator. When asked to interpret what she had read, she answered ‘It means when you serve on a jury you don’t discuss it with nobody.’

“At the time the Voting Rights Act was passed, a person had to be 21 to vote. Later when this was amended to 18, problems arose in local county elections because it was ruled that college students could vote in the locality where they were attending school, regardless of where their home was. Students were brought in from Mississippi Valley, a black college at Itta Bena, by the busload to register and vote. Thus they could control the vote in the district in which the college was located. Students from as far away as Illinois and California were voting in local elections.”