Officials warn of another 'Florida-style' election this year

By CATHY ZOLLO, crzollo@naplesnews.com
July 4, 2004

"Florida-style" anything sounds inviting as long as it's not an election.

But even with the high-sounding election reforms that came out of the 2000 presidential race, election experts including the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights say the country may be in for another round of Florida-style election controversy this fall.

Despite the reforms outlined in the 2002 Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, progress has been slow in implementing those reforms.

Though Florida is ahead of many states in some categories because HAVA was based on the state's Election Reform Act of 2001, voting rights experts say Florida still has a long way to go.

"We are concerned that American isn't ready to vote, and the reason why we're concerned is because of information out of Florida," said Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, noting the raging controversy over the state's felon list.

She also noted issues around poll worker training and whether or not people know how to use the equipment as well as being aware of provisional ballots in the event they are told they are not on the rolls.

"The message we got in the primary season and in some local elections was that people who use the provisional ballots don't know what to do with them," Berry said.

Provisional ballots are in place to allow voters to cast ballots who may not be allowed to vote for many reasons. Their eligibility to vote and whether or not to count their ballots would be determined later.

In the 2000 election, there was no such ballot, and many people erroneously turned away at the ballot box had no recourse.

There is also concern that the Election Assistance Commission, or EAC, an oversight body for HAVA that was a provision of the bill, wasn't appointed by President Bush or confirmed by Congress until December 2003.

That's a little more than three years after the election debacle that launched the reform effort and ten months after the deadline set by HAVA for naming the commission. And that's a named commission that initially had no money to obtain office space or staff.

The EAC was supposed to devise standards for voting systems that local elections official could purchase to replace outdated and inaccurate systems that might have caused problems in the 2000 election.

In an oft-repeated cart-before-the-horse scenario, many communities didnt wait for the appointment of the commission and pushed forward with buying replacement equipment in the hope it would fall within standards set later by the EAC.

The legislation, designed to prevent another round of hanging-chad battles and felon list fiascoes, is the first major election reform the United States has seen since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Berry also notes that HAVA is a toothless law that provides money to states for election reform but no consequences for not abiding by it.

Earlier this month, Division of Elections spokeswoman Jennifer Nash said the state had received $26 million in HAVA funds last year, and Gov. Jeb Bush announced on June 22 that the state received another $47 million.

Out of the first allotment, Nash said, the state has spent $3 million on voter education, $1 million to begin developing a voter database, and $11 million in reimbursements to the state for money it gave to counties in 2001 and 2002. The remainder, Nash said, is in a trust fund.

The state's central voter database was supposed to be online by January 2004, but Florida asked for and received an extension of the deadline to 2006.

Despite repeated attempts to reach elections officials last week, no one was available to discuss the implementation of HAVA or how money allotted under the bill will be spent.

Supervisors of elections in Collier and Lee counties said any money they receive would likely be related to making polling places and voting methods accessible to handicapped people.

"We have not received any actual monies from the federal government at this point," said Sharon Harrington, Lee County supervisor of elections. They are in the process of working out the formula for the different counties that have been complying with HAVA since 2002.

She expects some of the money to come for modifying polling places to make them accessible to handicapped people.

Jennifer Edwards is hoping as well that local taxpayers will be reimbursed for the handicapped-accessible voting machines the county bought in 2002.