Tribune editorial: Registration irregularities troubling

October 7, 2004

With Florida's general election less than a month away, concerns about the integrity of that vote continue to mount.

In recent months there have been allegations of voter intimidation, discovery of faulty registration purge lists and the continuing controversy over touch-screen voting machines that leave no paper trail and therefore reduce the potential for accurate recounts if needed. The state didn't need any other questions being raised. 

 
But, this week the Florida Department of Law Enforcement began investigation 1,500 voter registration forms received by the Leon County Board of Elections that apparently were altered to register college students as Republicans.

According to Associated Press, Leon Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho became suspicious when it was noticed that all the registration forms were photocopies rather than originals. Then the office noticed that the new voters were between the ages of 18 and 24, voters that often claim no party affiliation.

"When we saw that all of these individuals were registered as Republicans, a buzzer went off," Sancho said.

Most of the forms indicated the new voters were students at Florida A&M University, Florida State University and Tallahassee Community College. The elections office contacted a couple dozen of the students.

"Once it became clear that their information did not jibe with the information on the application forms, that's when we decided to act," Sancho told Associated Press. "The overwhelming majority of them had not ed the Republican Party as the party they wanted to be registered in."

Because of the fraud, the 1,500 students would not have been allowed to vote. However, Sancho registered all of them with no party affiliation so they will be able to vote.

We don't know if the fraud was perpetrated by some overzealous individual or individuals or was in any way under the auspices of the Republican Party. We certainly hope the latter is not the case and there has been no indication of such. But, when dirty tricks in an election turn to criminal activity, there must be accountability and punishment.