2,465 on felons list can vote, secretary of state says

By Jim Ash, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Friday, July 9, 2004

TALLAHASSEE Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood has reversed herself regarding a list of potentially ineligible voters, saying that nearly 2,500 people on the 47,000-name list should be able to vote.

Even though they had paid their debt to society and had their civil rights restored, 2,465 former felons were originally included on the watch list for possible removal from the voter rolls because they may not have re-registered to vote after they received clemency.

A spokeswoman for Hood on Thursday called the decision to include the names on the list in the first place a "technical" one.

The voters were lumped into a category called "clemency after registration," by computer technicians who compiled the list of 47,000 voters, which has been sent to county elections supervisors, who have the responsibility to verify the list's accuracy before purging felons from the voting rolls.

Technicians created the special category because they were concerned that even though records showed these 2,465 felons had their civil rights restored by the governor and Cabinet, some may have failed to re-register to vote as is required by state law, department officials said.

"It was not a policy decision but rather, it was a technical decision made by our systems technicians," Hood spokeswoman Nicole deLara said. "The technicians were unsure of how to treat such individuals in the database, as this anomaly was potentially in violation of state law."

Hood reversed the decision late Wednesday evening, sending a notice to county election supervisors to essentially ignore the names of the 2,465 on the list for potential removal. She made the about-face under pressure from civil rights groups and an increasingly skeptical group of local election supervisors.

After media reports that the watch list of 47,000 potential felons was riddled with errors, Hood had held a "tutorial" for reporters in her Tallahassee office Tuesday. At that session, Hood could not say who made the decision to single out the 2,465 voters.

However, in Wednesday's letter to elections supervisors, Hood said the CAR category was created because some felons could have registered to vote "after a felony conviction but prior to having been granted clemency."

"Since it is the intent of the division to ensure that all eligible voters are allowed to vote, the 'CAR' has now been removed," Hood wrote.

The change came a day after civil rights groups complained about the policy.

"The ACLU of Florida is pleased that the department responded promptly to the concerns that we raised and has taken steps to ensure that qualified voters will not be required to re-register," said ACLU spokeswoman Alessandra Soler Meetze.

The change may not make much of a difference, at least for this year's primary and general elections in Palm Beach County.

Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore said her office is so swamped verifying signatures on ballot petitions that it is unlikely to complete a thorough review of the potential felons list before the election. If such a review cannot be made, LePore has previously said that she will err on the side of the voter, allowing those on the list to vote.

"We are going to use every resource available to make sure that we don't take anybody off in error," LePore said. "Our priority right now is petitions."