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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul van Wijk who wrote (652192)	10/27/2004 1:07:08 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Ruling blocks hopeful voters Thousands of Floridians won't be able to vote in five urban counties because they failed to complete their voter registration applications, a Miami federal judge said. BY JAY WEAVER jweaver@herald.com A Miami federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a lawsuit that sought to allow thousands of Floridians to vote in next week's general election, saying county and state officials didn't have to process incomplete voter registration applications. U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King ruled against three prospective voters who sued Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood and election supervisors in Duval, Orange, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. King said the voter applicants -- one from Miami-Dade and the other two from Duval -- could sue only their own county election supervisor, not the secretary of state or other county supervisors. More important, King said Miami-Dade and Duval election supervisors acted legally when they deemed their voter applications incomplete by the Oct. 4 registration deadline. King said the Miami-Dade plaintiff, Emma Diaz, a new U.S. citizen who failed to check off the voter registration box saying she was not mentally incapacitated to vote, ''created her own injury'' by not correcting the mistake by that deadline. ''I feel like crying,'' said Diaz, 23, of Miami Beach, whose application was received by the Miami-Dade election supervisor on Sept. 23. ``I thought I was at least going to get a chance, but no. I feel pretty offended because the ruling [said] that I caused this injury upon myself. `PARTLY MY FAULT' ''I know it was partly my fault because I should have checked better, but I was very excited,'' added Diaz, who filled out her voter registration form right after being naturalized as a U.S. citizen on Sept. 17. ``I just filled it out and turned it in. I overlooked [the mental incapacity box] completely because I thought the most important thing was my driver's license number, Social Security number and date of birth.'' Lawyers who filed the suit on behalf of the three voter applicants as well as other plaintiffs such as the AFL-CIO said they plan to appeal immediately in the hope of resolving the issue before Tuesday's election. They recognized, however, that time was running out for the upcoming presidential election. ''They were wrongly denied a precious right to vote, which they thought they could exercise on Nov. 2,'' said Sheila Thomas, a lawyer for the Advancement Project, a social action group based in Washington, D.C. ``It's important for our clients to seek justice.'' Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Hood, said the state was pleased by the decision. ''Once again, federal and state laws are very clear on which sections of the voter registration forms have to be filled out to deem that application complete,'' she said. The decision is the latest from courts across the state that rejected attempts to broaden voter rights on touch-screen recounts, provisional ballots and early voting. The federal suit involved potentially 14,000 people -- many of whom are African Americans and Hispanics -- who claim their voter registration forms were illegally rejected because they did not check off boxes for U.S. citizenship, felony status or mental capacity and did not provide an identification number such as a driver's license or Social Security. They say that state and county election officials chose not to accept them because they have adopted unduly restrictive registration practices and procedures that violate federal and state laws. They contend that the box omissions ''are not material'' errors under federal law. They also allege discrimination because a disproportionate number of rejected applicants are minorities. But Hood, who is responsible for maintaining uniformity in elections throughout Florida, asserts that voter applicants must check off those four boxes. If not, Hood maintains, county election supervisors must reject their applications. SOME FLEXIBILITY Despite those requirements, Florida's 67 election officials have some flexibility in interpreting voting laws, including registration. For example, after the three voter applicants and the unions filed suit on Oct. 13, Duval's supervisor of elections accepted more than 100 corrected registration forms -- including one resubmitted by a plaintiff in the federal case. In addition, four of the five counties -- Broward, Miami-Dade, Duval and Orange -- agreed to accept hundreds of voter registration forms on which the applicants failed to check off the citizenship box, but signed an oath affirming they are U.S. citizens. Herald Radio reporter Michael Hibblen contributed to this report. miami.com