Students march to courthouse for right to vote

PRAIRIE VIEW, TX Students, joined by civil rights attorneys and local leaders, carried "Register to Vote" signs and wore shirts that said "It is 2008 and we will vote." The total crowd was estimated at about 2,000 people, police said.

Prairie View Mayor Frank Johnson praised the student protesters as "wonderful kids."

"Until they spoke up, there was only one early voting place in the entire county," Johnson said in a story for the online edition of the Houston Chronicle. "They spoke up but everyone is benefiting from what they are doing."

In January, county officials decided to eliminate all but one early voting site in the county. Last week, under pressure from federal officials, the county decided to open three early voting sites.

The county has a history of voting problems. After the 2006 elections, the state attorney general's office seized county election records after complaints that black voters' rights were violated. About 300 students at Prairie View, a historically black school, said they had to wait three to four hours to vote and ended up casting provisional ballots because their names were missing from election rosters.

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