Florida: 3,000 Voter Registrations List a UPS Store as a Residence

dr rich swier ^ | April 25, 2014 | Gregg Prentice

[dontreadthis]

Voter Fraud? If they’re not catching the easy stuff, what else are they “missing”?

Are some of Florida’s Supervisors of Elections skirting the law? Supervisors are tasked with maintaining an accurate voter roll. One of the requirements on the Supervisors is to ensure that voters provide a legal residence address. Yet a December 2013 analysis shows more than 3,000 voter registrations statewide listing their residence address at a UPS store, potentially illegally.

Florida Law is clear and, with minor exception, requires that voter registrations listing other than an address of legal residence should not be accepted, because they are “ineligible” (F.S. 98.045 (1)(h)). This is considered so important, that it is a felony to willfully submit any false voter registration information (F.S.104.011(2)).

Accordingly, if these “ineligible” registrations are found to exist, Florida statutes also provide for their prompt correction or removal (F.S. 98.075(6) & (7)).

This correction or removal process is supposed to be enabled by Florida Law mandating that each Supervisor maintain a list of valid residential street addresses. This list is explicitly for the “purposes of verifying the legal addresses of voters residing in the supervisor’s county”, (F.S. 98.015(12)).

Yet, further review of this mandated list reveals that of the 3,000 UPS store registrations, more than:

A) 1,200 match addresses already known as commercial that were ignored,

B) 500 match addresses erroneously marked as residential,

C) and 1,100 have no match at all.

Unbelievably, even though our Supervisors are required to submit to the State their updates for their valid residential street address lists on a monthly basis, B & C above could be fixed by the trivial repair or addition of around 120 records.

This mandated list of valid residential street addresses, combined with the simplest of today’s computers, should enable every Supervisor to easily and routinely identify these “ineligible” registrations at the touch of a button. But, it seems actually finding that button is for too many of our Supervisors a step too far.

Now an optimist might think perhaps all these UPS store registrations occurred only recently, and we just need to allow enough time for the Supervisors to do their job. But that optimism would be naive. Because more than 2,300 of the more than 3,000 recently discovered UPS store registrations had the exact same UPS store listed as their residence at least 15 months prior.

Think about that. As we approached our 2012 General Election, Supervisors across our State, for the lack of 120 records and a button press, allowed at least 2,300 likely “ineligible”, potentially law-breaking registrations to remain on the rolls, ready to vote, potentially in the wrong precincts and races.

And vote they did. Approximately 800 of those 2,300 likely “ineligible” registrations voted in our 2012 General Election.

Even more condemning, since Federal Elections occur in even years, the Supervisors are required by law to perform their primary “list maintenance” during the odd years. Yet these 3,000 UPS store registrations were identified in December of 2013 as the Supervisors’ odd year voter roll efforts came to a close. So it’s pretty clear too many of our Supervisors aren’t nearly as effective in their jobs as one might hope.

On a brighter side, of the 67 counties in Florida, 38 were clean. And of the other 29 counties with UPS store registrations, 19 have promptly responded with “Thank-you”, and/or indicate they are following the law and promptly working on the issue. Another 7 counties required phone calls before responding with claims they were making progress.

But even though the Supervisors by law must “Notify the registered voter of his or her potential ineligibility by mail within 7 days after receipt of notice or information” (F.S. 98.075(7)), the remaining 3 counties after more than a month have either not responded at all to multiple requests, or are have only responded weakly. And these three offenders are some of Florida’s most populated counties: Broward, Orange and Hillsborough.

Broward county receives the “here’s your sign” award with fully 40% of the 3,000 potentially ineligible records, and simply responding they’re in process.

Orange County indicates, without explanation, they have sent zero letters to their 116 registrations.

And even though every one of their 117 registrations were from addresses already listed as commercial, and 83 of those have been that way for at least 2 full years, Hillsborough’s response via their County Attorney was to charge $58 for a Public Records Request to determine that zero letters had been sent out.

The Florida Division of Elections is aware of these findings and, under Governor Rick Scott, has shown an interest in following-up on and ensuring our Supervisors’ compliance with the law. But to ensure free and fair elections it clearly is the citizens who must demand all of our Supervisors go well beyond the bare minimum passiveness required by law.

Because all this nonsense leaves one to wonder: If some of our Supervisors lack sufficient skills or decency to catch the easy stuff, what else are they “missing”?

[SunkenCiv]

• Rand Paul: I think Republicans may have over-emphasized voter fraud

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks dontreadthis.

[okie01]

On a brighter side, of the 67 counties in Florida, 38 were clean.

Which leads me to fearlessly predict that 38 Florida counties have Republican County Supervisors, while the other 29 have Democrat County Supervisors.

[Joe Boucher]

What about all those Canadians who vote here in Florida?

[Yaelle]

So bush really did win. ;)

[weston]

Not even a smidgen of corruption Ping

[GOPJ]

Democrats have many ways to cheat but this one is small potatoes compared to ‘voting the people who don’t show up’... That’s where the big numbers come into play...

[jmaroneps37]

“No Democrat voter fraud to see here folks, move along.”

[Joe Brower]

Florida Freeper

[The Duke]

It’s totally inadequate to “scrub the voting rolls” .. there needs to be talk of severe criminal penalties.

[cyn]

The photo: LOVE IT, lol!

Kick those dang registrations out. Who turned them in, anyway? (Ok, ok, I’ll go back and read some more!)

[Jet Jaguar]

Yep!

[GILTN1stborn]

UPDATED EMAIL FROM TODAY:

We made the front page of the Tampa Tribune today:

Faulty filter let Hillsborough voters list unlawful addresses

The article comes across non-critical, but piecing it together you’ll notice:

If Supervisor Latimer “had known they were on there” he would have done something about it. (Just not anytime in at least the last 2 years.)

Or was it they “identified the problem” before it was reported. (And still hadn’t done anything about it in more than two years).

Supervisor Latimer says “we were looking at a list of citizens who were eligible to vote”. (They voters might be, but their registrations aren’t. He knows the registrations according to the law are definitionally “ineligible& quot; to vote.)
(Info incorrect or not in the article: And if they’re all so “eligible to vote”, why has he already deleted 31 of them from the voter roll? And if he’s only fixed ONE registration as of the end of April 2014 how does he know the rest are “eligible to vote”?)

The law says he has 7 days to mail notices once he knows of a potentially ineligible registration. Yet he says “The delay in sending out the notifications was because his office had to verify the addresses and check for clerical errors”. (Really? That’s your justification for breaking the law? And by “delay” were you referring to the month long delay from December 2013, or the 2+ year delay since before Mar 2012? And exactly how long does does he think it takes to “verify” 151 addresses?)

And the timing of the notices being mailed out the business day after the citizen’s public records request submission was just “coincidence”. (Really? Or perhaps that was the moment he sensed a front page story in his near-term future?)

Those of you who are already working with us on our voter roll know there’s plenty more to come.

So we clearly need to keep our elections office on a short leash.

If you know folks who would like to help, give them my number.

Best Regards,
Gregg Prentice

[GILTN1stborn]

Link to Tampa Tribune article http://tbo.com/news/politics/faulty-filter-let-hillsborough-voters-list-unlawful-addresses-20140512/