Alleged irregularities in several counties are being probed.
By Dara Kam
Special to The Palm Beach Post
Thursday, October 07, 2004
palmbeachpost.com
TALLAHASSEE — Law enforcement officials are investigating voter registration irregularities in at least three counties in Florida, and election supervisors fear that the problem is so widespread it could lead to massive confusion on Election Day.
Third-party groups, including tax-exempt organizations known as 527s that engage in political activity, have been conducting voter mobilization drives in an attempt to persuade new or apathetic voters to turn out in support of their causes — mostly Democratic — on Nov. 2.
But problems with the applications, already reported to authorities in Miami-Dade, Duval, Monroe, Leon, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, could result in people who thought they had registered showing up at the polls only to discover they aren't eligible to vote.
Officials are investigating in Miami-Dade, Leon and Pinellas counties.
Of the forms collected by the voter mobilization groups, many are incomplete, have suspicious signatures or may have been forged, elections officials said Wednesday.
They have created an accountability problem that the legislature is expected to address in the session beginning in March, the incoming Senate president said.
Supervisors are concerned about "the quality and the timeliness of the work being received" and about the lack of accountability for the application-gatherers, said Bill Cowles, Orange County supervisor of elections and president of the statewide supervisors' association.
Supervisors have 15 days after the Oct. 4 closing date to report new registrations to the state Division of Elections. Potential voters whose applications were incomplete or unsigned are out of luck if they did not correct their forms by the deadline.
Applications bundled
Many of the third-party groups delivered bundles of applications, some collected as long ago as January, on the final day. Cowles said he received about 15,000 registration applications Monday, which he called "a disservice to voters."
"It is taking the control, the education and the accuracy of the work out of our hands," he said.
Voters who have not received registration cards by the end of October should call their elections office to check on the status of their applications and to find out where their polling places are, Cowles said.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating voter registration irregularities in Miami-Dade County and anticipates more complaints as supervisors sort through the applications, a spokesman said Monday.
In Leon County, elections officials are investigating 1,500 applications, including many from Florida A&M University students that were photocopied. All were for registration as Republicans.
Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho said most of the students contacted by his office indicated they had chosen "No Party Affiliation" and his office registered all of the applicants as independent.
In St. Petersburg, the state attorney's office is investigating allegations that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group pushing the minimum-wage ballot initiative, fraudulently changed party affiliations on voter-registration applications.
Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore said she received dozens of applications collected by an unknown third party at a high school, all completed in the same handwriting and with similar signatures. LePore plans to send them to state elections officials but said the questionable applications left her in a quandary.
The 1995 National Voter Registration Act, known as the "Motor Voter Act," took registration out of the exclusive domain of supervisors.
"It's also opened the door for fraud," LePore said. "We can't investigate unless there's something really glaring."
It is a third-degree felony to lie on a voter registration application, but state law provides for no penalty for those who sign up voters but do not hand in the paperwork or wait until the last minute, depriving voters of the opportunity to make corrections.
Election issues piling up
Legislators almost certainly will address the 527s, the voter registration process and other election issues in March, said incoming Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon. Setting the stage, he said, are legal challenges concerning provisional ballots, touch-screen machine paper trails, voter registration anomalies and the felon purge list.
"Much of it has been designed to lay a legal predicate for litigation in the event that this election is close and Florida's electoral votes are determinative in the outcome of the presidency," Lee said.
Lee, in Tallahassee, said he has told his staff to be prepared for an election challenge if the race is close and the Democrats lose.
"I guarantee you there will be challenges, ad nauseam," he said. "So we might as well get prepared for more satellite trucks in Tallahassee, because you can see them papering the various county courthouses around the state with complaints." |
