Proposed bills would make voting harder for many Floridians

By Kathleen Haughney
From the Sun Sentinel

College students seeking to vote at their campus precinct will find it harder to do. So will women who’ve changed their name but not re-registered before an election.

The time for early voting would be cut from 14 days to six.

Groups like the League of Women Voters will find it tougher to register voters.

And citizens attempting to amend the constitution will have to gather more than 600,000 signatures in two years instead of four.

All these changes are in Republican-backed bills steaming through the Florida Legislature, despite vigorous opposition from county supervisors of elections as well as Democrats, who’ve labeled them GOP attempts at “voter suppression.”

The election supervisors worry that the changes – after two relatively problem-free elections – will inconvenience and frustrate voters.

“If there’s something we don’t want to happen, it’s that registered voters lose confidence in the process if they’re faced with obstacles when they try to exercise their right to vote,” said Evelyn Perez-Verdia, spokeswoman for the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office.

Republican lawmakers argue that the changes will stamp out fraud and save local governments money.

“If we don’t take action to put an end to the fraud, our vote doesn’t matter as much,” said Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando, during a House debate on HB 1355 last week.

But their arguments about rampant fraud are on shaky ground.

The office of Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who served under two Republican governors, has said the past few elections have been clean, thanks to reforms passed after the notorious 2000 election. Chris Cate, a spokesman for Browning, said via email the state Division of Elections is trying to determine if there have been any voter fraud cases referred to the state lately.

Eisnaugle, on the House floor, recalled that Orange County election officials received a registration form for “Mickey Mouse,” among other fictitious names, in 2008. But Orange Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles says the “Mickey Mouse” registration was rejected by his office – and that firm evidence of voter fraud is hard to come by.

Asked to cite evidence of fraud, Sen. John Thrasher replied, “You’d have to ask the election supervisors about that.” Thrasher is the former chairman of the state Republican Party.

But despite the lack of evidence of fraud – and protests from election supervisors – Republicans in both chambers are moving full speed ahead.

Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said there was some “good stuff” in the bill and said the proposal to cut early voting may be an “efficiency.” SB 2086 would allow just six days for early voting, with sponsor Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, arguing that it will save local government money.

“There is a trickle of two to three people per day at a very high cost to keep those public libraries and polls open and people working them and so forth,” said Diaz de la Portilla.

In the 2008 general election, 32 percent of all voters voted early, according to a state report, including those who cast absentee ballots. But 52 percent were Democrats – compared to 30 percent who were Republican – prompting Democrats to charge this is an effort to hold down their vote in a presidential election year.

Cowles said that in non-presidential years, a shorter early voting period would be fine. But in presidential election years, turnout rises – and in 2008, there were long early-voting lines reported by many counties.

“I think in presidential elections, we need more time,” Cowles said.

But elections supervisors are most troubled by a section of both bills that would make it difficult for people to change their names or addresses at the polls on Election Day. That’s allowed under current law, and tens of thousands of voters – many of them college students and women who were newly married or divorced – took advantage in 2008.

During the 2008 election, Broward County processed 5,000 name and address changes, Perez-Verdia said. Cowles said in Orange County, there were 3,000 address changes that year.

The House would allow only voters whose previous address was in the same county to change it at the polls. The Senate version, in its final committee today, does not allow even that: voters with a new address or name change would have to cast provisional ballots and then later show proof of their identity and residency.

Democrats, who relied heavily on college students in the 2008 presidential race as they will in 2012, say they fear that voters forced to cast provisional ballots won’t provide follow-up documentation, meaning their votes won’t be counted.

“Clearly this is a partisan power grab by the Republicans and it’s shameful,” said Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff. “It’s clear this bill is designed to disenfranchise college students, members of the military, women and minorities.”

The 157-page House bill also gives groups seeking to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot two years to gather sufficient signatures, rather than the four years in current law and sets out more stringent requirements for voter registration groups, including one that they turn in voter cards within 48 hours of them being filled out by a potential voter.