Get to correct precinct to vote

By Howard L. Simon South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted August 30 2004 
 
Four months after the disputed 2000 presidential election, the Governor's Select Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards and Technology recommended that the state Division of Elections "examine viable options for using provisional ballots so that voters whose eligibility is in question at the polling place on election days can submit votes in appropriate races subject to verification of their eligibility."

In response, the Florida Legislature enacted a law that permits a vote to be cast by provisional ballot.

In 2002, Congress also responded to the widespread reports of voter disfranchisement in Florida, especially of minority voters, by enacting the Help America Vote Act. The law mandates the use of provisional ballots in federal elections in order to prevent properly registered voters from being turned away from the polls. Under HAVA, if an individual declares that he/she is a registered voter in the jurisdiction and eligible to vote for federal office, but the name does not appear on the list of eligible voters for the polling place, the voter must be offered a provisional ballot. HAVA makes the right to cast a provisional ballot, and have it counted, dependent upon being registered in the jurisdiction of the voting registrar which in Florida is the county, not the precinct in which the individual is standing.

Provisional ballots are designed to deal with the situation, reported frequently in 2000, in which eligible voters arrived at the polls and were denied the right to vote because their voting precinct had been changed at the last minute; their voter registration information had not been processed in a timely fashion; there were clerical errors with the registration lists; those seeking to vote did not register in time, or they simply showed up at the wrong polling station.

The purpose of a provisional ballot is to avoid disenfranchising voters and allowing their vote to count if the Board of Canvassers confirms that the person is a registered eligible voter and that the signature on the provisional ballot and on the poll book matches.

Sadly, the Florida Legislature turned an idea for progressive reform aimed at protecting the right to vote into a scheme to disenfranchise voters. While almost all states have some form of provisional balloting, Florida and about a dozen other states enacted schemes in which the entire ballot cast by an eligible registered voter is discarded as "illegal" if the ballot is cast in a precinct other than the one in which the voter resides. Many states, but not Florida, allow a vote cast by an eligible registered voter to be counted in multidistrict, state and federal elections, even if cast outside the precinct of residence.

Since the state Division of Elections does not keep records of the number of rejected provisional ballots, it has been difficult to compare the extent of this problem in Florida compared to other states.

Somehow election officials seem to be able to accommodate the right to vote for people from all precincts in a county at the now required early voting sites. Why can't this same accommodation be made on Election Day? Should bureaucratic convenience be permitted to trump the fundamental right to vote?

Until Florida's nefarious provisional ballot scheme is struck down by the courts, here's some advice: If you are given a provisional ballot, vote at your own risk. You will be disenfranchised; that's what Florida law requires.

Poll workers should be trained to direct voters to their correct precinct before they hand them a provisional ballot. For the voter, it's better to follow the advice of the League of Women Voters: "Provisional ballots should be considered a last resort, rather than a catch-all solution for eligibility questions that arise at the poling place."

Protect your right to vote. If poll workers offer you a provisional ballot, ask for directions to the correct precinct where your vote will count.

Howard Simon is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.