WARNING: Florida Senate Okays Statewide Voter Master List!

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/11253860.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Senate OKs statewide voter catalog

Sancho: Thousands could lose voting rights

By Bill Cotterell

DEMOCRAT POLITICAL EDITOR

A Senate committee approved creation of a statewide voter-registration master list Monday, with Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho warning that thousands of voters have lost their rights every time the state has tried to set up a database.

The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee also approved abolition of runoff primaries. The runoffs were suspended in 2002 and 2004 but will come back next year if the Legislature doesn't stamp them out.

<>But Sancho 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. He cited repeated attempts to purge convicted felons from registration rolls, which resulted in county supervisors refusing to use lists, sent from Tallahassee, because of numerous errors.

<>Sancho said the division tried to create voter databases in 1998, 2000 and 2004. He said the state got so many complaints in 1998 that it told counties to stop using the database and that in 2000, "no stop-order was given" and it was estimated that "between 5,000 and 50,000 voters were disenfranchised" by inaccurate listings.

Sancho noted Posey's bill requires that Hood's agency "shall review such information and make an initial determination whether the information is credible and reliable." He said there should be a higher standard for tossing out a voter registration.

"If you're establishing a database that essentially governs who votes and who will not, I would like the word 'accurate' inserted somewhere in the Division of Elections' charge on the database," Sancho said. "The objection that the supervisors of elections had to the database last year was not because we don't want to keep felons from voting, but because we don't want to disenfranchise voters."

[whistle]

1. More of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris shadows being cast...

...over the freedoms of voters in Florida.

[sybylla]

2. I believe this is required by HAVA

Wisconsin is trying to fund the creation of a statewide voter list. We've already had a bit of a scandal over the awarding of the contract. But I was under the impression that HAVA (Help America Vote Act) passed in 2002 required a statewide voter list to be in place by 2006.

[flpoljunkie]

3. It is required by HAVA, but every effort should be made that it's accurate

We have had very poor results in the accuracy deparment with past voter data bases--beginning with Choice Point and Katherine Harris.