State won’t release list

Court says list of those to be purged from voter rolls is not public record

06/24/04
By JACOB OGLES
Daily Commercial Staff Writer
TALLAHASSEE
Officials from the Florida Department of State say releasing copies of a list of possible felons is not required by state law, and the state constitution does not guarantee a copy of public records so long as they are made available.

“Statute merely requires that records to which it applies ‘shall be open for personal inspection by any person,’ ” reads a state response to the lawsuit, filed Wednesday by attorneys for the Division of Elections. The response further argues that the right to make copies of public records is not “fundamental in nature,” as a lawsuit by Cable News Network claims.

CNN filed a lawsuit to throw out the law exempting the felon list from public records laws. The Tallahassee-based First Amendment Foundation later filed a motion of intervention, and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, filed a “friend-of-court” brief on behalf of the news agency.

In its suit, CNN contended that “there is an enormous public interest in scrutinizing the potential disenfranchisement of such a large pool of citizens in what portends to be a closely contested presidential race.”

Reporters from CNN and other news agencies in the state, including The Daily Commercial, have been allowed to look at all or part of the list of potential felons, but not to copy the list. State officials said even if reporters memorize the list and write down the names later, it would violate the law.

Candidates for political office, officials in political parties and political action committees can receive a copy of the list, but can only use it for political purposes. Nelson’s brief argues this creates a “special class of citizens” entitled to the list.

The list of potential felons includes 47,000 names of registered voters in the state whose names match enough criteria with felony charges. County supervisors of elections must research and verify these names before purging the names from voter rolls. Lake County Supervisor of Elections Emogene Stegall said she has checked about 40 of the 696 Lake County names.

First Amendment Foundation president Barbara Petersen said the list of potential felons is not the same as voter rolls and should not be protected by the same law.

Though the registration books have been protected since the early 20th century, according to Petersen, the database was created by a 2001 law. That means it should be subject to the Government-in-the-Sunshine law, Petersen said.

News agencies have said they want the list so that its accuracy can be tested independently. The full list would need to be copied in order for a full review to be done.

In 2000, state officials contracted a private firm to create a similar list, but there were numerous errors in the 173,142 names. Many supervisors refused to use the list, including Stegall and Sumter County Supervisor of Elections Karen Krauss. But many others did, resulting in hundreds of voters claiming to have been wrongfully denied the right to vote.

President Bush won Florida’s 25 electoral votes with a 537-vote margin over Democrat Al Gore. The state’s electoral delegates were enough to win the national presidential election.

The state response denies that verification of this list would affect whether voters are disenfranchised this year because it is only a potential list and all names must be verified locally before anybody is actually d from the registration books.