GOP seems blind to appearances on voting issues

By Bill Cotterell

CAPITAL CURMUDGEON

You know that edgy, finely honed sensitivity you feel after an ugly argument with your spouse? That icily polite interregnum that progresses from glum silence to a period of extra a
ccommodation and anticipation, as you try to avoid anything that might re-ignite the fight?

Well then, you have to wonder how Republican couples ever patch things up.

Judging from the state's handling of two touchy topics in the run-up to the 2004 elections - the purge list of supposed felons on voting rolls and the paperless touch-screen voting machines - it seems the GOP is as blind to appearances as it was in the 36-day furor that followed Florida's 2000 balloting.

On this, the anniversary of the Watergate burglary (which should be a national holiday, like England's Guy Fawkes Day), some of our leaders seem intent on proving once again that any minor political embarrassment can - with a little luck and a lot of hard work - be turned into a horrifying public relations disaster. The Democrats are happy to exploit the smoldering suspicions among "disenfranchised" voters (many of whom disqualified their own ballots four years ago) and the Republicans seem happy to help them.

Gov. Jeb Bush, Secretary of State Glenda Hood and their staff lawyers are probably right, legally and procedurally, in saying it's the 67 county elections supervisors' job to check the list of 47,000-plus voters and determine which are ineligible ex-cons. And they may be right in expecting the new touch-screen voting machinery to function so flawlessly that nobody will want a post-election paper trail.

It's all very proper and legally defensible. But there's right and then there's smart. This sure isn't smart.

We can hope every race from the White House to the Ochlockonee River Soil and Water Conservation Board will be decided by such thunderous avalanches that the word "recount" will not be heard in November. But there's a chance that some big races will be very close - again - and that Florida will determine not only who wins the White House but also which party controls the U.S. Senate.

It's too late to do anything about the touch-screen technology used by a majority of Florida voters. Even if they wanted to, there isn't time or budget for state and county officials to obtain printers and get them certified for Aug. 31 or Nov. 2.

But the Democrats don't need the equipment, they have the issue. People who were cheated in the past are rightly skeptical of assurances that when they touch the screen, the hidden hard drive will record their votes honestly.

The felon-purge list, meanwhile, is like one of those good news, bad news jokes. The good news is it's not as bad as it was in 2000. The bad news is it's still not good enough.

CNN, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and the Tallahassee Democrat have asked Leon County Circuit Judge Nikki Clark to allow publication of the list - which the public may now look at, but not copy. Only the parties, committees, candidates and officeholders are allowed to have it and they're forbidden to use the information for nonpolitical purposes.
Oh, good, nothing like a little secrecy to restore public confidence after the mess they made with the felon purge four years ago. It may be the law, but that's why departments have general counsels - to find other laws, legal precedents and sections of the Constitution providing a fig leaf of legality, so department heads can do what they want.

But maybe, in this case, they want secrecy. Maybe the Republicans don't want to patch things up with the angry voters of 2000. If they did, the decision makers might have sought an attorney general's opinion, even an advisory ruling from the Florida Supreme Court, rather than stonewalling on the felon list.

If they had said they were going to release the names, probably no one would have sued to keep them secret. If some wrongly identified voters sued, claiming that their privacy was violated, elections officials could say, "Well, one statute says to keep it private, but we've got these other statutes, some case law and the Constitution that says public records have to be public, so we used our discretion."

Case dismissed - or at least appealed until the 2005 Legislature gets a chance to amend or repeal the secrecy law.

After the 2000 experience, plus the human screw-ups that marred the 2002 Democratic primaries in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, risking an error on the side of openness would have been as prudent as trying not to re-provoke your spouse after a nasty argument.

But instead, the state seems to be saying, "Hey, trust us. It's a Florida election. What could go wrong?"