supervisor wary of bill creating voter registration list (Florida)

[Judi Lynn]

supervisor wary of bill creating voter registration list

(Last modified: March 28. 2005 9:53PM)

The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Senate committee Monday approved creation of a statewide voter-registration master list despite warnings from one elections supervisor that thousands of voters lose their rights every time the state tries to set up a new database.
(snip)

Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho said the state got so many complaints in 1998 that it told counties to stop using the database. In 2000, he said, "between 5,000 and 50,000 voters were disenfranchised" by inaccurate listings.

Sancho, one of the more outspoken of Florida's 67 county election supervisors, told the committee that "since 1998 through 2004, we have not been error-free on elections" due to faulty list-keeping at the state level.

"If you do this to one person out of 1,000 and you've destroyed the credibility of the process," said Sancho, a nonpartisan whose elected office is in Tallahassee. "We have a problem today with the credibility of our elections."
(snip/...)

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050328/APN/503281163

[bluestateguy]

1. I guess it's never too early for these thugs to start planning for 2006

and 2008.

Maybe Bush did win Florida in 2004 legitimately (Oh God, that's gonna start a lot of sniping from the peanut gallery), but it is a well known fact that thousands of people were still wrongly scrubbed from the rolls in that state, just as they were in 2000 (when Bush certainly did not legitimatley win Florida). Nonetheless, all the machinery was in place in Florida for the Bush team to steal the state again if it was actually close enough that Kerry might get more votes there.

These so called "purgings" get fucked up every single time, and conveniently it always seems to be a disproportionate number of black and non-cuban hispanic people who are scrubbed.

Then of course after the election the state sheepishly admits to making mistakes, expresses their "regret" in a letter to the disenfranchised voters (never an apology, of course, but "regret") and promises them that they can surely vote next time. Next time.

[truthisfreedom]

2. if bush did win Florida by numbers last year, the reason was that he threw

cash at them... tons of it. there are numerous reports of low-accountability cash being dumped into Florida after the hurricanes. granted, these people needed money, but it was handed out with zeal, not caution.

[scarletlib]

3. that's jeb's term in office so far

coincidence? I think not.

[ixion]

4. okay... the database mismanagement here is intentional

they can manage databases for hundreds of other items w/o this error ratio. It seems only when they try to do a voter db that all of a sudden they can't seem to manage the data.

Ah-ha, charade you are.

[soup]

5. We need 66 more Ion Sanchos.

He's been very vocal about this mess all along.

>>It's not known how many people were barred in error from voting in 2000, but Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho found his office could verify that only 34 names on the list of 694 supposed felons in his county were actually felons ineligible to vote. Sancho said the 820 suspected felons on the new Leon County list will not be disqualified until there's a thorough check - a time-consuming process that may not be finished until after the Aug. 31 primary.

"Clearly, it's going to be late," Sancho said. "Our guarantee to the citizens of Leon County is when we finish, the list will be accurate. They deserve no less."<<
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/8884904.htm

note: apologies if the link is not viable - the article is from June 10, 2004

Has anyone seen a transcript of this bill? Does it include provisions for public access under the Sunshine Law? In 2004, it took a law suit against the state to finally get the hugely bogus list released.

I'll probably have a 1,000 questions, but that's the first that comes to mind. :need coffee:

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Bite the bullet, Dems. If you don't do one voter registration

for the entire Florida, you'll have property heavy Republicans voting in more than one precinct.