Division of Elections Still Faces Criticism

By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Ledger Tallahassee Bureau
ldunk@earthlink.net

TALLAHASSEE Katherine Harris is in Congress. The state elections office has moved out of the Capitol to a less prominent building that also houses a museum featuring mastodon bones and Spanish doubloons.

But heading into another critical presidential election, controversy still shrouds the state Division of Elections, now run by Secretary of State Glenda Hood.

Criticism has focussed on a mistake-ridden list of 48,000 alleged felons sent to local elections supervisors in May. Problems have emerged with new touch-screen voting machines, used by most of the state's largest counties. And the head of the elections division abruptly resigned in June, less than six months before the presidential election.

Some are suggesting that Florida could see a repeat of 2000, when George W. Bush won the presidency in a disputed election that gave him a 537-vote edge in Florida.

At the middle of that controversy was Harris, who has since been elected to Congress. She was eventually replaced by Hood, a former Orlando mayor who was appointed to her job in February 2003 by Gov. Jeb Bush.

Hood said she is doing everything she can to maintain confidence in the voting system, which she acknowledges is a complicated task that inevitably draws political challenges.

"At the end of the day, we will all share that ultimate goal to make sure that the voters feel confident that their votes will be counted and that the integrity of the process is at its absolutely highest level," she said.

Others are more skeptical.
"I'm not confident that the Division of Elections is any more competent in 2004 than 2000," said state Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale. "I think Glenda is trying to do a good job, but whether she has her hands tied is another question."

Most of the recent controversy has centered on the list of 48,000 "potential" felons that the division - which is now housed in the same building as the Museum of Florida History - sent to the 67 local elections supervisors in early May.

After a court ordered the document to be released for public review, independent analysis showed Democrats and black voters dominated the list. It also showed that more than 2,000 voters were on the list who had won their civil rights back through the state clemency process.

Saying the list is reminiscent of one used in 2000 to turn some voters away from the polls, Democratic lawmakers asked for the list to be discarded.

"Florida's use of the current felon purge list directly undermines the ability of our citizens to exercise their constitutional rights to choose their local representatives, their state leaders, and indeed, their next president," state Sen. Les Miller, D-Tampa, and two other lawmakers wrote in a letter to the governor last week.

State elections officials defended the process, saying local election supervisors would thoroughly investigate the status of voters on the list with the direction to "err on the side of the voters" when in doubt.

But after a flaw was discovered that could have allowed convicted Hispanic felons to cast ballots in November, elections officials announced Saturday they will not use list.

The division had already made some adjustments in the use of the list, announcing last week that voters who had been granted clemency but didn't re-register to vote would not be removed from the voting rolls.

Dawn Roberts, director of the division, said improvements have been made since 2000, including a new law that spells out how such a list would be used and how voters must be notified and given the right to appeal the decisions.

The potential felon list is part of the state's effort to create an improved statewide voter database.

It was one of the recommendations from a gubernatorial panel created after the election problems in 2000. It is also a provision in federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed in 2002.

The database is designed to verify registrations and eliminate ineligible voters, including those who have died and those convicted of felonies.

Ultimately, the system will also be linked to state driver's license records and the Social Security administration for further verification.

Roberts said like all databases it can have errors. And some of those errors are the result of trying to compile information from sources that are not integrated, including local court records, state criminal files and local elections supervisors.

But she said that by using "due diligence," administrators can smooth the problems out.

"These things will be found and corrected," she said.
Another controversy centers on the touch-screen voting machines used in 15 of Florida's 67 counties. The remaining counties use optical scan machines that read paper ballots.

Critics contend the touch-screen machines have had problems and do not provide "a paper trail" to allow a recount if a controversy arises.

A lawsuit was filed last week contesting the way a vote recount would occur if touch-screen machines are used.

State election officials have defended the machines, saying providing printers to duplicate the screens would be too costly and they contend unnecessary.

Neutral observers say Florida, which was the epicenter of election controversy in 2000, has made major strides since the last presidential election.

"Florida is the only one that did soups to nuts reform," said Mark Pritchett of the Collins Center for Public Policy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that is advising the state on the implementation of the federal HAVA requirements.

The improvements include new technology, such as the touch-screen machines that replaced the controversial punch-card machines in counties like Palm Beach, which became famous for its use of the confusing "butterfly ballot" in 2000.

He said the state has new standards for voter education, vote recounts and the use of provisional ballots.

Pritchett also said placing the blame for election problems solely on the state Division of Elections is somewhat misleading, as Florida maintains a largely decentralized voting system, comprised of 67 local supervisors of elections.

"There is some misconception I think among the public that everything is run out of the Division of Elections," he said. "That's only half true."

But Pritchett said the question remains whether the improvements will prevent the problems of 2000 from reoccurring.

One way to measure the validity of the election is to make sure the margin of victory in the election exceeds the margin of error. That didn't happen in the last presidential race.

"Our margin of error was huge," Pritchett said.

In another razor-thin election, those problems could again be magnified, he said. Voter errors, machine problems or mistakes by poll workers all become more critical in a tight contest.

"It doesn't excuse it. But that's the way elections are," he said. "There are no perfect elections out there."