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If I were a Florida resident,(which I used to be) I would look at the difficulties Florida had in the southern part of the state with voter registration as well. They appear to be the same type of problem. These lost voters also complained about their republican governor as if it was his fault they were lost.

That is why we call it Floriduh!

Computers are not very smart. They only know what is put into them. Look hard at the people providing the data. Therein you will find the culprit.

Failed By Her `Family'

There is no excuse for the DCF's losing track of this little girl, no matter how overwhelmed it is with cases. If nothing else, this special committee should find out how it's possible for a child under its care to simply disappear.

But the DCF is not the first to lose track of little Rilya. She was born to a drug-addict mother and a recidivist-felon father. Both had been stripped of their parental rights and have not been involved in the girl's care since she was an infant. Their whereabouts were unknown until a few weeks ago. Mom was located in Cleveland, dad in a Miami jail.

So it wasn't DCF that first failed this child; it was her family, or what passed as one.

Yes, the child-welfare system is supposed to protect kids born into dysfunctional situations, which is why it will receive the lion's share of the public's outrage. But it has an unceasing caseload, and the real outrage should be directed at the parents who are the cause.

Dealing With Dysfunction

The situation surrounding Rilya Wilson's birth is repeated thousands of times a year. Unprepared, unmarried women think nothing of procreating with losers and giving birth to not one, but sometimes a bunch of babies. Consequently, far too many children are born into households with no pretense of family cohesion. There are some 4,500 child abuse and neglect cases annually in Hillsborough County alone.