Voter Purge Ignores Many Hispanic Felons
State acknowledges a flaw in checking demographic data.

By CHRIS DAVIS & MATTHEW DOIG
NYT Regional Newspapers

Thousands of felons could get to vote this November for one reason: They're Hispanic.

A data quirk in the state's controversial effort to purge convicted felons from the voter rolls appears to have excluded Hispanics in greater numbers than other, more easily-defined races.

Only 61 of the 47,763 names on the potential purge list are classified as Hispanic. Hispanics make up 17 percent of the state population, but a little more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the names on the list.

The missing Hispanics could feed into the Democratic Party's contention that the purge is Jeb Bush's plan to help his brother win Florida in the November presidential election.

All but one of the state's Hispanic legislators are Republicans. And Cubans, who make up the largest single segment of the state's Hispanic population, have traditionally supported the GOP.

"It's sloppy work to say the least," said Allie Merzer, spokeswoman for the Florida Democratic Party. "Is it intent? I don't know. But something doesn't smell right."

Dawn Roberts, Florida's elections chief, conceded Tuesday that the method used by the state to create the list may have inadvertently excluded Hispanic felons.

Roberts said none of the Hispanics left off the list were ignored for political reasons.

"That was simply not a factor in our database," Roberts said. "We don't look at how they vote. We don't look at their race."

In fact, it may have been the state's efforts to create a purge list that could withstand scrutiny that led to the underrepresentation of Hispanics.

A person's identifying information, including name, birthdate, sex and race, had to match before that person could be placed on the potential purge list.

Information on a list of felons and a list of registered voters were then compared. If any one identifier didn't match, the person was kept off the list.

The problem comes for Hispanics who may have reported their race one way to the elections office and another way to the police.