Supreme Court: Provisional ballots in wrong precinct don't count
By DAVID ROYSE
Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- People who cast a provisional ballot at the wrong precinct aren't entitled to have their votes counted, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday, rejecting an argument by labor unions that the rule wrongly disenfranchises voters.
The court said the law clearly states that provisional ballots must be counted only if the person was entitled to vote "at the precinct," and that the constitution gives the Legislature the authority to dictate voting rules.
Under Florida law, if a voter shows up at a polling place but officials have no record of them being registered, they are given a provisional ballot. That ballot is then held until officials determine if the person was entitled to vote at that precinct and hasn't already voted.
If they should have been allowed to vote, the ballot counts; if not, it's thrown out.
But a group of labor unions sued over the ballot law, saying it unconstitutionally disenfranchised voters who may not know their polling place. They argued that many people have new polling places because of redistricting, may have moved, or may have been displaced by a hurricane.
The court disagreed, saying that requiring provisional voters to vote at the correct precinct is no more unreasonable than requiring that everyone else vote at the right polling place.
Requiring voters to go to a particular polling site has been required in Florida for more than a century, said Department of State spokeswoman Jenny Nash.
"This affirms the fact that the secretary of state has been correctly upholding election laws, and we question why the plaintiffs would bring this in the 11th hour when laws concerning precinct-based voting have been in place for over 100 years," Nash said.
The Florida court's ruling was the opposite of what a federal judge in Ohio decided last week. There, U.S. District Judge James Carr blocked a directive requiring poll workers to send voters to their correct precinct and ruled Ohio voters can cast provisional ballots as long as they are in the county where they're registered. Ohio's secretary of state is appealing.
Alma Gonzalez, an attorney for the AFL-CIO, a plaintiff in the Florida case, said some people who need provisional ballots have registration that's in transition, either because they've moved or they're caught in a backlog. They may not know where their precinct is.
"It's not their fault," Gonzalez said.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union were also plaintiffs.
Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, which supported the plaintiffs, said the precinct requirement is a remnant of an outdated system.
"This is like saying you can only do your banking in this building downtown," Simon said. "What we're seeing here is the difficulty of trying to drag Florida kicking and screaming out of the horse and buggy era."
A similar lawsuit involving the same issue was filed by the state Democratic Party and is still pending before a federal judge in Tallahassee.
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