Lessons unlearned

Because of the voter purge fiasco in the 2000 election, one would think that the Florida Division of Elections would be bending over backward to get it right for the 2004 election. Alas, that assumption would be wrong.

With just only four months before the presidential election, the state not only hasn't done anything about restoring voters to the rolls who were erroneously purged four years ago but also has done very little to assure the same thing doesn't happen again. At a recent meeting of Florida's county election supervisors, the Elections Division had the perfect venue to unveil a comprehensive plan for documenting the accuracy of names on a list of potential felons who should be purged from voter rolls. But it did nothing of the kind, instead leaving it up to the individual counties on how to verify whether a name on the purge list is indeed a felon whose voting rights should be revoked.

As you may recall, in 2000 some 94,000 voters were identified before the presidential election as felons who by state law lose their right to vote. But many of those voters may have been unfairly denied the right to vote. Some were purged simply because their names were similar to those of genuine felons, and nobody bothered to check if they were the right people. Some were merely suspects whose charges had been reduced below felony status. Some were ex-felons who had received clemency or filed to win back their rights. Because local elections offices hadn't bothered to verify who was a genuine felon deprived of voting rights and who was not, many legitimate voters were turned away from the polls. Because George Bush carried Florida by just 537 votes - and thus its electoral votes and thus the election itself - it's believed that the presidential election hinged on this denial of the vote to legal, qualified voters - many of whom were blacks who likely would have supported Democrat Al Gore.

This year the purge list contains 47,000 names. Again, the election in Florida is expected to be close. But state elections officials say it's not their job to ensure the accuracy of the purge list, which is provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Rather, each of the 67 county election supervisors is responsible for checking on the accuracy of names on the list in their respective counties.

That means some will be more diligent than others in verifying the information provided by FDLE. Some urban counties like Hillsborough have more than 3,500 names to verify, a time-consuming job which requires checks of records held by the Clerk of the Court's office against FDLE records.

Indeed, were the names readily accessible to the public, say, online, people could verify for themselves if their names are on the list. The press doubtless would be running checks in their circulation markets to see if they could find "false positives," as it were. But even though this is a public record, state law prevents the list from being copied by anyone except political parties or candidates and their consultants. Outsiders may view the list at the state elections office in Tallahassee but may not copy it.

State elections officials risk a repeat of the 2000 debacle by not taking the voter purge issue more seriously. There should be a uniform process for counties to verify whether or not a name should be there. Florida can't afford another election foul-up; if one occurred, the assumption would be that it was deliberate.