Are republicans cooking up another questionable Florida election?

By
Alvaro F. Fernandez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Al’s
Loupe                                                                              Read Spanish Version

Are
republicans cooking up another questionable Florida election?

By
Alvaro F. Fernandez
alfernandez@the-beach.net

I
am afraid Florida may again play a key role in deciding the
presidency. That scares me.

Remember
2000? Then Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris managed to
purge thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of eligible voters (a
large majority black voters) off the rolls in that presidential
election. One thing led to another and history tells us George W.
Bush won the White House by 537 votes in Florida.

Last
month Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning decided, four weeks
before the closing of voter rolls for this election, that he would be
enforcing a law called the “no match, no vote” voter verification
statute. This law prevents newly-registered voters from voting by
regular ballot if the state doesn’t verify their driver’s license
or Social Security number by matching it with a state or federal
database — even when the source of the problem is a clerical or
typographical error committed by any of the 67 Florida supervisors of
elections offices. The St. Petersburg Times has also reported
recently that “the Social Security Administration says that
matching voter data with its database fails 46.2 percent of the time
— about the same odds as flipping a coin.”

Last
year, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP), the
organization I lead in Florida, together with other civil rights
groups, challenged the law in federal court. The court blocked
enforcement of the law for the presidential primary — 16,000 voters
had been blocked by the law before the ruling. That ruling was later
reversed on appeal, but the lawsuit continues, and there hasn’t yet
been a final ruling. This makes all the more puzzling Browning’s
announcement that he would abruptly begin enforcing the burdensome
law on September 8, just weeks before the registration deadline.

Studies
indicate that this law disproportionately impacts voters of color who
have nontraditional names, including Latino voters who use two
surnames, thus increasing the likelihood of clerical errors. In 2006
and 2007, 65 percent of the unmatched applicants were either Latino
or African American. Latinos comprised only 15 percent of the
applicant pool, but a whopping 39 percent of them were prevented from
registering. African Americans comprised only 13 percent of the
applicant pool, yet 26 percent of them were kept from the rolls.

When
Browning made his recent announcement, he laughed off complaints by
groups like SVREP. He said that if at all, the law would affect maybe
“200” persons in Florida. Governor Charlie Crist, who has backed
Browning’s effort, was quoted in The St. Petersburg Times as
saying, “I don’t want election fraud. I want people who are
voting to be who they purport to be.” — this despite scant
evidence of voter-registration fraud in Florida. And while election
officials must
verify voters’ identities — that is, make sure voters are who they
say they are — this law does not
accomplish that purpose. Indeed, voters who verify their identities
by showing poll workers their drivers’ licenses, U.S. passports or
military identifications will have their votes go uncounted if they
do not give election officials an extra copy of an ID card in the two
days after
the election.

The
sad fact is that the last time I checked before the October 6 book
closing, Florida Division of Elections had reported that 228,795 new
voter registrations had been filed since the state started enforcing
the law on Sept. 8. Of those, 32,847 had been flagged and sent to the
agency’s voter registration bureau, with 10,422 sent down to county
election supervisors to try and confirm identifications. The counties
have resolved 2,933 of them — leaving 7,489 potential
voters off the rolls for
now.

It
is obvious that the requirement places unnecessary obstacles in the
paths of people who are energized by the upcoming election and
excited to vote for the first time — and disenfranchises voters
unless they correct clerical errors made by the government. Browning
should not put Florida’s voters at risk. The Division of Elections is
already overwhelmed trying to process a backlog of thousands of new
applications. Forcing officials to contend with an unnecessary
matching law when they’re already inundated makes no sense —
especially because the law won’t stop any voter fraud and will stop
thousands of citizens from having their ballots counted on Election
Day.

Of
course, there is always another possibility. Crist and Browning are
both republicans. Polls show that the presidential contest will come
down to the wire in Florida. And there has been a turn of events. In
years past, the democrat had to win Florida in order to capture the
presidency. There has been a reversal of fortune this year — if
McCain does not garner Florida, he can forget the presidency…

As
we have seen in the past, 537 votes (and less) can determine who will
be our next president. Might these guys be cooking up another crazy
election result in Florida? I guarantee the republicans are nervous.
There have been hundreds of thousands of new voters registered.
Figures tell us that there are two democrats registered for every one
republican. That doesn’t bode well for Bush’s party.

My
advice: Vote early or vote by mail. But make sure you vote. And
assure yourself that your vote was counted.