As I've reported often to you for several months now, things are changing here in Florida politics in 2008. I'm not saying Florida is in the bag for Obama, but I am saying that regardless of the outcome of the presidential race here, politics will have changed for the better (for us) after the election is over. One example of these changes is a quiet revolution going on this week in county election offices across the state, which are fighting back against the GOP's onerous voter registration tactics, as reported in today's St. Petersburg Times. Emboldened, perhaps, by Charlie Crist's recent decision to extend the hours of early voting sites, the state's county election offices are saying, "Enough is enough."
Over the past few days, county election officials have staged a revolt against Republican Secretary of State Kurt Browning over how to handle the more than 12,000 newly registered voters in Florida whose registrations have been rejected thanks to a new "no match, no vote" law that went into effect on Sept. 8. These rejected voters are heavily African American and Hispanic, young, and Democrats. The law requires that a newly registered voters' driver's license or Social Security number provided on a voter registration application match the number in the state's database.
Roughly 12,000 would-be voters have been snagged by the new requirement and should have received letters telling them to contact their local election supervisors to clear up the discrepancies.
If they don't, Browning says elections officials should give provisional ballots to no-match voters who show up at the polls and tell them they have 48 hours to deliver, e-mail or fax any identification documents to the elections office. The documents will then be reviewed by the county canvassing board, which decides if the vote counts.
But county election offices are fighting back against Browning's guidelines and are trying to avoid handing out provisional ballots at all costs. Instead, at least half of the offices are allowing voters to verify their identity at the polling site (rather than requiring them to follow-up within the two days after the election), so that they can complete a regular ballot on the spot.
A record voter turnout this year, plus a new voter verification law, could lead to the casting of thousands of provisional ballots Tuesday.
In any close races, that could delay election results for several days as county officials try to figure out which provisional ballots are valid and which ones aren't.
That prospect is prompting a rare revolt among nearly half of Florida's election supervisors, who worry provisional ballots will overwhelm them. Against the wishes of Florida's top election official, some county officials say they have the power to decide when some voters should receive a regular ballot versus a provisional one.
"We're trying to avoid all provisional ballots, at all costs," Volusia County Supervisor Ann McFall said. "It's a lot of extra work."
That's a good thing, since provisional ballots often don't get counted. Across Florida, county canvassing boards rejected 41 percent of the approximately 2,000 provisional ballots cast in the 2004 primaries, according to a St. Petersburg Times analysis. Hillsborough and Pinellas counties (in the Tampa Bay region) threw out more than half of their provisional ballots. Giving voters a regular ballot, and eliminiating the hassle of requiring them to follow-up in the next two days, is clearly going to increase the fairness of Florida's elections.
This is a quiet but significant revolt among Florida election officials. For years now, supervisors of elections have been pretty much "in the tank" for the Florida GOP (that's certainly the case here in Hillsborough County). As the Times reports, it's rare for election officials to openly defy the Secretary of State's guidelines. Although part of the officials' motivation is certainly self-serving (dealing with all of those provisional ballots in two days would be a difficult task for many election offices), the officials also seem to be saying, "Let's just let people vote and be done with it." That's progress folks.
I'll repeat an action item list from a previous diary about what you can do to help ensure these 12,000 rejected Florida voters actually get to vote:
- If you know anyone in Florida who registered to vote this year, check the list of rejected voter registrations to see if their name is on the list. If you are one of those wonderful souls who has volunteered to register voters in Florida, you might want to check the list for the names of any people you registered whose names you might remember.
- If a person's name is on the list, they need to contact their County Supervisor of Elections Office to determine the problem and rectify it immediately. (You'll find a list of Florida's election offices here). Sometimes the problem is as simple as a misplaced number written down on the form or an error in one of the government databases (imagine that!). Voters need to show the elections office proof of the correct information, preferably a driver's license or a state-issued ID or Social Security card. Often the problem can be resolved via fax or e-mail.
- If a person is on this list and resolves the problem before Election Day, I would encourage that person to vote early if at all possible, and not wait until Nov. 4, just to make sure there are no lingering problems. Here's a list of Florida's early voting sites.
- Common Cause is running phone banks to contact all 12,185 people on the no-match list. If you want to volunteer to help, e-mail DCressman (at) Commoncause.org
I've signed up for GOTV work here in Florida every day from now until the election. I encourage everyone here to do at least one thing every day to help Obama win. Good luck folks!
UPDATE:
More good news on the election fairness front today, out of (gasp!) Ohio. The Dept. of Justice has said "Thanks But No Thanks" to W's request that the DOJ help the GOP suppress the votes of 200,000 Ohioans:
The Department of Justice will not require Ohio to disclose the names of voters whose registration applications did not match other government databases, according to two people familiar with discussions between state and federal lawyers.
The decision comes about a week after an unusual request from President Bush asking the department to investigate the matter and roughly two weeks after the Supreme Court dismissed a case involving the flagged registration applications.
Who knew that Ohio would become the symbol of election fairness in 2008? What a difference four years makes. (H/T Detroit Mark)