Judge: Law restricting access to voter rolls unconstitutional

THE NEWS-PRESS
 Published by news-press.com on July 1, 2004

A Leon County judge ruled unconstitutional a state law restricting access to a list of 47,000 suspected felons to be purged from voter rolls.

“The Division of Elections is hereby ordered to immediately open the suspected felons list for public inspection and permit the plaintiff and intervenors to copy and photograph the list,” wrote Circuit Judge Nikki Ann Clark in her order.

Last month CNN, joined by Florida Today, The News-Press and the Pensacola News-Journal, filed suit against the Department of State seeking to overturn a 2001 state law closing the records.

That law said the purge-list records were available for inspection, but did not include the ability to copy them.

Clark said the law violated the state’s constitutional guarantees for open records.

“Whether the public chooses to inspect or copy is not the choice of the governmental agency which has custody of the record,” Clark wrote in her order granting summary judgment to the media groups. “It is the choice of the person who requested access to the record. The right to inspect without the right to copy is an empty right indeed.”

Secretary of State Glenda Hood’s office said it was preparing a statement and did not have an immediate comment on the ruling.

Immediate requests for copies of the purge lists were made Thursday.

Those lists were sent by the secretary of state’s office to county election supervisors with instructions to begin taking people off eligible voter rolls. Florida felons who have not had their civil rights restored after they’ve served their sentences are not allowed to vote.