Posted on 05/25/2002 2:16:13 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
State and county officials are spending the holiday weekend conducting the final test on a new system to check lists of registered voters against those of felons and dead people.
The new database matching system was required by the Legislature in the wake of the 2000 election, when several voters complained they were improperly prevented from voting because they were wrongly identified as felons.
State officials say the new system, which Florida paid the consulting firm Accenture $1.6 million to design, will be better than previous efforts to check for illegal voters because it will be updated daily by computer.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will provide felon records for the system and other agencies will provide death records and names of people found mentally incompetent by the courts.
County election supervisors then can see each day whether any of their registered voters appear to match those records.
It is illegal for felons to vote in Florida unless they formally apply to have their voting privileges reinstated.
Because of similar names, some false hits will happen - but the system is designed to filter out as many of those as possible. Its designers say it should get better and better at avoiding false matches because it will report back to FDLE to alert the agency to mistakes in its data.
"The strength of this system is that it gets corrected instantaneously," said David Host, spokesman for the Florida Department of State.
Meg McLaughlin, Accenture's project partner, emphasized that the new Florida database will not remove any names from the rolls.
Instead, county elections officials will see the possible matches and check them out further.
The Legislature set a June 1 deadline for the system to be running.
"After the holiday weekend (the state) will start running the matches," McLaughlin said.
Some supervisors are skeptical about whether the new system will correct all the problems from 2000.
"Our experience with the central voter file in 2000 had been disappointing, and I'll withhold judgment until I see (the new one) up and running," Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Pam Iorio said.
Iorio said data on criminals is difficult to verify, partly because they use aliases.
"Unless there has been some real improvement with data collection from the sources, there are going to be some problems," Iorio said.
In at least one test in a smaller county, the system performed well, said Jane Watson, president of VR Systems, a company that provides the software 37 counties use for their local registration databases.
Bay County, in the Panhandle, put several names into the system and received matches, which it then checked out to see whether they were really the same people.
"They were spot-on, every one," said Watson. "Every single match was accurate."
"Meg McLaughlin, Accenture's project partner, emphasized that the new Florida database will not remove any names from the rolls.
Instead, county elections officials will see the possible matches and check them out further."
Well, that's $1.6 million wasted.
William Flax
"Hello, this is the Broward County election judge. Our records seem to show that you were convicted of three felonies before you died, is that true? Its not? O.K., that's all I wanted to know. Have fun voting for the democRAT candidate of your choice. And remember, vote early and often."
The right to go wherever you want is just about the most fundamental right there is. If the state can deny you the right to move freely by incarcerating you against your will for committing a felony then the state can sure as hell deny you the right to vote for committing a felony.
"It is tyranny to deny someone their rights after their sentence is complete."
That would be true except - time served is only part of the sentence. The rest of the sentence includes the loss of 2nd amendment rights, the loss of voting rights, the loss of many employment opportunities - and if a sex offender, having name, address and picture posted for public scrutiny.
Most offenders are aware of these penalties prior to committing the felony, but few expect to ever be caught and punished.
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