Voter-roll list mailed to Florida counties

By Paige St. John, Gannett News Service
 Published by news-press.com on August 13, 2004

TALLAHASSEE — Florida election officials on Thursday mailed counties names of nearly 1,000 voters they now say should never have been purged from voter rolls four years ago.

Secretary of State spokeswoman Jenny Nash said the letter came as the result of mediation from a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups.

“These were reasonable requests that we were willing to accommodate in mediation,” Nash said. “We worked together and are happy with the outcome.”

The packets, sent by mail courier, should arrive at election supervisors’ offices today. They include the names of voters targeted for removal in 1999 and 2000 because of felony convictions. The catch is that their crimes occurred in states that automatically restore voting rights following completion of a criminal sentence.

The letter from Hood said names of voters convicted of felonies in Illinois and Ohio were forwarded to election supervisors. In May, the letter said, the Division of Elections sent county officials names of voters convicted of felonies in Connecticut, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin who should be returned to voter rolls.

Supervisors, awaiting the lists, said they would have no problem updating voter rolls to reflect the newly restored rights of those people.

However, they said they would have a harder time giving those voters the good news.

“Good luck,” said Santa Rosa elections supervisor Doug Wilkes. “If they don’t know where these people are, how would we?”

“Trying to locate people is going to be a monumental task,” said Gary Beauchamp, deputy elections supervisor in Collier County. “I don’t know what we would do other than send a letter to their last known address.”

It is too late for new voters to register in time to vote in the August primary elections, but county officials said those restored to the rolls will not be affected by that deadline.

Division of Elections officials, Nash said, are “confident (election supervisors) will perform their due diligence.”