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Mailings Confuse Voters

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 21, 2008

A well-meaning voter registration campaign by an out-of-state women's organization is causing confusion among Pasco County voters and turmoil as far away as Tallahassee.

Since February, a nonprofit group called the Voter Participation Center has blanketed Florida with more than 1.5 million mailers urging residents to register to vote. The mailers include an envelope addressed to the secretary of state's office, which oversees elections.

The problem, say Pasco elections officials, is that many people are returning the mailers even though they are already registered to vote. As a result, the secretary of state's office has been inundated with paperwork, which it is sending back to voters' home counties.

"It's creating a lot of unnecessary work on our part, a lot of unnecessary panic on behalf of the voters," said Tammy Bentley, senior deputy supervisor of elections for Pasco.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Sarah Johnson, communications director for "Women's Voices. Women Vote." - the Voter Participation Center's parent group.

"We certainly don't want to create any more work for the already overworked elections officials," Johnson said Thursday.

Johnson's group is a Washington-based nonprofit organization that aims to get unmarried women to be more active in civic life.

The registration form being mailed is a generic document approved by the federal Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the wake of the tumultuous 2000 presidential election.

The Florida mailing is part of a 22-state campaign to register new voters, Johnson said.

She said her group notified the secretary of state's office in advance of the mailing.

Sterling Ivey, spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning, said the office has been getting between 3,000 and 4,000 voter registrations a day since the registration drive began. The office usually processes 1,500 applications per month, Ivey said.

Bentley said the mailings have created confusion and anger among some recipients because of mistakes in names or other identifiers. Some people have reported getting documents mailed to their pets or dead relatives, she said.

Johnson said her group's mailing list is drawn from a variety of commercial sources.

Bentley urged anyone receiving the mailing to contact the county elections office if they want to check their voter status.

"If you have any doubts, call us," she said.

WHO TO CONTACT

Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Office: 1-800-851-8754.

Voter Participation Center: Go to www.voterparticipation

center.org to be taken off the mailing list.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201 or kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com.

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