State won't try to force 48,000 voters off rolls

BY GARY FINEOUT

TALLAHASSEE - Florida's top election officials conceded Tuesday that they will take no legal action to force the state's 67 election supervisors to remove nearly 48,000 voters who have been identified by the state as potentially ineligible to vote.

This means the fate of these voters, some of whom appear to have been wrongly placed on the list, will be up to the election supervisor in each county, many of whom have been hesitant so far to remove any voter from the rolls. Some supervisors have said they were unsure if they had the time or staff needed to independently verify the background of voters prior to this fall's elections, but other supervisors have moved ahead anyway.

''If the Legislature had wanted to put in a time frame and a deadline [for removing voters] it could have done so,'' said Dawn Roberts, director of the Florida Division of Elections, adding that the state lacks any ''authority'' or ''mandate'' to force elections supervisors to act.

The statements on Tuesday came at a ''tutorial'' arranged by Secretary of State Glenda Hood, in which she and other state officials defended the state's $2 million central voter database, developed in the wake of the chaotic 2000 presidential elections.

The accuracy of the database has come under fire after The Herald and other newspapers identified felons targeted for elimination from the rolls who had had their voting rights restored by the state.

A New York legal group that has challenged Florida's lifetime ban that prevents felons from voting has also questioned whether the new database includes the names of all former prisoners whose rights have been restored.

A NEW SYSTEM

The database was developed to help weed out dead people, people registered in more than one county and convicted felons. It draws information from multiple sources, including arrest data, death information and the names of those have had their voting rights restored.

State officials contend the new database is an improvement over previous efforts, including flawed lists that were drawn up in 1999 and 2000 by a private company.

''We have come quite a long way,'' Roberts said. ``This really is a positive step.''

Although the database was ready in 2002, state officials did not include convicted felons on it until this year.

In May, the state sent elections supervisors a list of nearly 48,000 people it said were potential felons and ineligible to vote. That initial May memo gave no hint of discretion for supervisors, telling them that they ''must follow'' the procedures that require that a certified letter be sent to those on the list. Voters who did not reply to the letter or a subsequent newspaper advertisement, the memo told elections supervisors, ''must'' be removed.

But on Tuesday Hood put the burden solely on supervisors to research the background of voters before deciding whether enough evidence exists to purge them from the voter rolls.

''There has to be absolute proof; otherwise, they are not going to do anything but give the benefit of the doubt to the voter,'' Hood said.

Hood also announced that the Office of Executive Clemency was reviewing all of its files to make sure the state's election office had the names of all criminals whose rights were restored prior to 1977.

Last week, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law released a letter from the clemency office director that pointed out that the Office of Executive Clemency had not included some names from before 1977 because it did not have enough information to identify ex-convicts from that time.

TO MOVE SLOWLY

Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Constance Kaplan continued to insist that her office would in fact move slowly before removing anyone from the rolls.

''We are not going to take anyone off the active voting rolls unless we are 100 percent sure,'' she said.

However, state officials continued on Tuesday to insist that anyone who registered to vote prior to having their civil rights restored should be purged from the voter rolls even though they are now eligible to vote. The Herald has identified more than 1,600 voters on the list who fall into that category.

Roberts called such registrations ``invalid.''

''We ought not lose sight of the fact that this is an anomaly that should not have occurred,'' said Roberts, who said those names were included to alert county elections officials.

But the state could not answer what would happen if someone's name was removed from the rolls during the 30-day period prior to an election. Voters who register during that window cannot vote in the upcoming election.

ACLU LETTER

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida sent a letter to Hood on Tuesday questioning the legality of forcing 1,600 voters to re-register to vote even though their voting rights have been restored.

The ACLU contends that state officials have misinterpreted state law, and also may be in violation of federal voting laws.

''There is no legitimate purpose to be served by removing such a person from the records and then turn around and put him or her back on the records,'' said the letter sent by Randall Marshall, legal director for ACLU Florida, and Randall Berg, executive director for the Florida Justice Institute.

The letter says that Florida could be the target of a federal lawsuit if it continues to insist that those 1,600 voters must re-register.

Kaplan said that she would ask for legal advice before taking action against any voter whose rights have been restored.

U.S. Rep Robert Wexler, a Boca Raton Democrat, also jumped into the controversy on Tuesday, filing a bill in Congress that would require the state to notify all voters on the felons list that they are ineligible but that they can appeal the decision.

The legislation mirrors somewhat the current Florida law, but it would require that a notice go out at least 60 days before a federal election and 90 days before the voter is removed.