To: American Spirit who wrote (34773 ) 7/10/2004 3:54:29 PM From: Ann Corrigan Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 81568 Here's some fodder for your propaganda machine: Fla. Scraps Felon Voting List 10-Jul-2004 10:50AM Story from AP TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida elections officials said Saturday they would not use a list of people believed to be convicted felons to purge voter rolls, acknowledging a flaw that left off some Hispanics. The problem in compiling the list was unintentional, said Nicole de Lara, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood. "Nevertheless, Supervisors of Elections are required to uphold their constitutional obligation" and will find other ways to ensure felons are removed from the rolls, Hood said in a statement. The decision was made after it was reported that the list contained few people identified as Hispanic; of the nearly 48,000 people on the list created by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, only 61 were classified as Hispanics. That was because when voters register in Florida, they can identify themselves as Hispanic. But the potential felons database has no Hispanic category, which excludes many people from the list if they put that as their race. The law enforcement list was compared to the voter rolls to determine who should be barred from voting. The flaw in a state that President Bush won by a margin of just 537 votes could have been significant -- Hispanics in Florida tend to vote Republican. Elections supervisors in Florida's 67 counties had begun reviewing the list of 47,763 potential felons identified by state law enforcement in May. Florida is one of only a handful of states that does not automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons once they've completed their sentence.