Posted on 07/10/2004 3:23:45 PM PDT by A_Niceguy_in_CA
State kills flawed felon purge list
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
meklas@herald.com
TALLAHASSEE - Florida election officials conceded an enormous mistake Saturday and abandoned the controversial list the state was using to remove convicted felons from the state's voter rolls.
The reason for the about face, after defending the list in a letter to local elections officials as late as 5 p.m. Friday: a flaw in the method fails to include most felons who classify themselves as Hispanic.
Secretary of State Glenda Hood announced at 1 p.m. Saturday that an ''unintentional and unforeseen discrepancy'' in the potential felon database ''related to Hispanic classification'' has forced the agency to eliminate the list from further consideration this election year.
Of the nearly 48,000 people on the list created by the Division of Elections, using information from the Florida Departments of Law Enforcement and Corrections, only 61 were classified as Hispanics.
The net effect of the decision is that the state will no longer rely on the list to remove felons from the voter rolls, thereby allowing individual supervisors of elections to come up with their own system of removing ineligible voters from the election rolls in their counties.
''We are deeply concerned and disappointed that this has occurred,'' Hood said in the statement. ``. . .We will be reviewing the issue to determine how it could have occurred and why it was not recognized until now.''
The method of determining how convicted felons would be identified was laid out in a 2002 settlement agreement between the state and several civil rights groups. The method uses race as one of several factors to determine whether a felon has registered to vote. The others are first name, last name and date of birth. If one of those fails to match up, the name is not added to the list for potential purging.
But the database of felons supplied by FDLE does not list Hispanic as an ethnic group ''believe it or not,'' said Nicole DeLara, spokeswoman for the secretary of state. ``We have not been able to determine why this wasn't caught. The potential felon database is now retroactively void.''
This is the second major about face in less than a week by the Republican administration as persistent scrutiny by the media and civil rights groups forced Gov. Jeb Bush and elections officials to back off previous positions about their handling of the list of former felons.
On Wednesday, the Division of Elections acknowledged that the list of potentially ineligible voters included 1,600 former felons whose voting rights had been restored.
Civil rights advocates, who have demanded the state withdrawal the list, on Saturday praised the decision.
''It's unfortunate it took this long to come to the realization that the list was just fraught with errors and it wasn't meant to be,'' said Randall Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute. ``But it's a good thing that they realized he error of their ways and are doing the right thing for once.''
The accuracy of the statewide list has been called into question on a number of fronts.
The New York-based Brennan Center for Justice last month questioned whether the state mistakenly included on the list thousands of people whose voting rights had been legally restored by the Florida Clemency Board.
State officials challenged the center's findings, but admitted the Office of Executive Clemency did not give the Division of Election clemency records for former felons whose rights were restored prior to 1977.
''We just found one problem after another with the list,'' Jessie Allen, associate counsel at the Brennan Center, said Saturday. ``It's wonderful the Secretary of State decided to step up and do the right thing.''
Last week, The Miami Herald reported that more than 2,100 Florida voters, many of them black Democrats, were on the list even though their civil rights had been formally restored by the state.
Of those, more than 1,600 got their voting rights back after they had registered to vote, prompting state officials to demand they re-register before November's election or risk removal from the rolls.
The Florida Justice Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida threatened to sue, and the state scrapped that policy late last week.
Berg and ACLU legal affairs director Randall Marshall also urged the state to kill the entire list.
''It makes perfect sense,'' Marshall said Saturday. ``It's the absolute right thing to do.''
So, Flor-i-Duh polling booth workers won't know whether or not a voter is legal?
What happened...did the state run afoul of no-help-to-ICE policies?
It sure is nice to know all these felons will be able to vote Democrat.
Democrats the party of criminals.
You do that to a couple of dozen people and it won't happen again.
I recall that Florida had already identified several thousand felons who voted in the 2000 election. Most likely they've not done anything about those guys as of yet. This summer would be a good time for some "show trials".
Maybe it's because you can't crosscheck last names with Hispanic ethnicity because Hispanic ethnicity is based on last names.
For example there may be three people with the name John Lee on the list. One may be white, one black, and one oriental. But by definition, everyone named Joe Hernandez is Hispanic, regardless of their color.
Sounds like Jeb needs a few good men and women in state government to help him out. What moron was in charge of putting this list together? They sure did a great job lousing it up!!!!!!
The Dems just don't understand that their campaign to get felons the vote loses them more votes than if every single one of these felons actually showed up to vote, and voted straight-line Democrat.
Never interfere with your enemy while he is wounding himself!
I know a former felon (here in Fl.)who was sent a letter for jury duty a few months back. No, he'd never registered to vote down here. Didn't even care about politics til clinton, whom he hated. Sounds like the dems making a fraud list to me.
RINO's give up without a fight and allow the left-wing lies prevaol.
this country is almost DEAD!
Purge those you know are felons and revise efforts to locate hispanic felons who are registered.
I seem to recall something in this issue with regards to how people were booked for crimes here in Houston.
So convicted felons are free to vote?
This is a great victory for the Democrat Party.
nice to know that so-called non-partisan civil rights (ACLU) groups are doing their best to steal the election for the John-Johns.
Voting in FL is going to get even uglier.
All I see is that it will be left to The county Supv. of Elections to purge the felons,which can be accomplished by running criminal histories and cross checking local records. I am sure that each county has already been given a heads up for the potential felons in their County. They can check the newspapers for arrests just like they check obits to purge the deceased from the files. That is what they get paid to do.
LOFL!!!
You do realize that Democrat counties will purge nobody, right?
I doubt Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward (Gore's favorite counties) will purge the felons from the voter lists. In fact, they may actively seek out criminals to register them to vote. With this development, the liberals can now focus on suing the election board on the issue of recount procedures.
Somebody who could only get a government job, apparently.
See my tagline.
Why can't Republicans rig elections like the democRATs? Why don't we have the caliber of frauds like the Daleys, or Kennedys, or Longs, or...never mind.
W. is going to win this election anyway, just like the last time (Did you hear that Roberts? Oliphant, Bois, Daley, and the rest of you criminals?).
5.56mm
This is what they were SUPPOSED to do with the list they got in 2000. The Secretary of State's (Katherine Harris) office comissioned the list, sent it to county election supervisors, and the rest was up to them.
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