MIAMI (October 2, 2012)--Urging congregations to register to vote, leaders at hundreds of mostly African-American and Latino churches are distributing registration cards in the middle of services and many are pledging caravans of "souls to the polls" to deliver the vote.

The stepped-up effort in many states is a response to worries that new election rules ranging from tougher photo identification requirements to fewer days of early voting target minority voters unfairly.

Some leaders compare their registration and get-out-the-vote efforts to the racial struggle that led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Proponents of the new election rules deny they are aimed at suppressing the minority vote.