TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Applications Mount In Florida Voter Registration Crush

ADVERTISEMENT

By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 25, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - This year's presidential election has fired up so many people that the Florida Division of Elections can't handle the volume of voter registration applications it is receiving, the Secretary of State's office said Wednesday.

The state is turning to county elections supervisors to help process the paperwork in time for the Nov. 4 election.

The backlog is unrelated to a database check that Florida requires to verify the identity of every new voter applicant, state officials said. Some voter advocates worry that the requirement, paired with the crush of applications, risks leaving more would-be voters with only a provisional ballot on Election Day.

"The fear here is, are they going to knock people out of the process so late in the game that they effectively have no recourse?" said Brian Kettenring, Florida organizer for ACORN, a liberal-leaning organization that claims to have registered 135,000 people to vote this year. "We want the secretary of state to know that all of Florida is watching."

The state Division of Elections has received an "unusually high volume" of voting applications in the past 10 days, with 25,000 on Tuesday alone, state Elections Division Director Don Palmer said Wednesday in a memo to county election supervisors.

The state office has hired 25 extra temporary employees working 12- to 14-hour days to process the applications, and is still hiring more - but it's likely not going to be enough, Palmer said, unless counties pitch in, too.

"We will need to forward many of these applications to the counties of registrants to ensure they are timely processed," Palmer wrote. "Therefore, the DOE will be sorting the applications that we believe we may not be able to process within the statutory time frame and sending them to the particular county in which the registrants reside."

A 2002 federal law requires the state Division of Elections to accept applications from individuals and voter registration drives, just as county elections offices do - therein lies the potential for overload, said Jennifer Krell Davis, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's office, which oversees the Division of Elections.

It is easier now for voter registration groups simply to dump applications at the state office, Davis said, rather than sort them by counties. "I think we had 15 tubs of registrations dropped off by one group the other day."

Turning to counties for help is nothing new for the state office, Davis said.

The state wants especially to take advantage of election staff in counties with smaller populations or turnout.

Gulf, Okaloosa, Bay, Pinellas and Nassau counties have volunteered to help sort applications as well as process them.

"This is a normal pressure valve that's part of our process," Davis said.

Brian Corley, elections supervisor for Pasco County, recalled receiving express packages of voter applications from the state for processing, prior to the Jan. 29 presidential primary election.

Corley's office is already buzzing with phone calls from inquisitive voters, demands from political parties for blank applications and higher-than-normal requests from voters for absentee ballots. "We're averaging about 800 absentee ballots every day, out the door."

The Pasco office has received and processed 7,114 applications since Sept. 1. Corley said he almost spit out his coffee when he read that the state elections division had received 25,000 voter registration applications in a single day. "That's just overwhelming."

It will be a strain, he said, if the Pasco office receives a large load of applications from the state. "But we'll roll up our sleeves and get the job done."

All eligible voters in Hillsborough who register prior to the deadline will "absolutely" wind up on the voter rolls, come Election Day, said Buddy Johnson, county elections supervisor. His own office is already receiving large numbers of applications, he said. As of Wednesday evening, 8,500 awaited processing. Johnson said his staff will do whatever it takes to make sure that every eligible voter gets to vote.

Davis, of the Secretary of State's office, stressed that the crush of applications has nothing to do with the state verifying voter identifications.

Intended to prevent voter fraud, the state's 2006 "no match, no vote" law requires that identification numbers on a new voter's application match those in the state's database.

If any of the numbers differ, the applicant receives notice that he or she must offer proof of identification.

Voters unable to resolve the discrepancy prior to the election can vote by provisional ballot, but they must prove their identity within two days after the election for their vote to count.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning delayed enforcing the no-match, no-vote law this year until Sept. 8, after a judge declined to grant an injunction requested by voting rights activists.

Pam Haengel, vice president and co-founder of the Florida Voters Foundation, criticized Browning for implementing the rule at a time when a crush of voter applications was expected.

"It's like trying to start a parade during a hurricane," said Haengel, who thinks the rule exceeds federal requirements.

Davis said fears about voter verification are overblown. Regardless of the number of applications, the state must have all voter applications processed 13 days after the last day residents can register, Oct. 6, and it will, she said. Voters whose registrations are flagged during the verification process will still have two weeks after Oct. 20, the first day of early voting, to prove their identification; if they cannot, they can vote using a provisional ballot. "And that's the absolute worst-case scenario."

Kettenring said ACORN is "winding down" its registration drive now to leave time to process applications. ACORN has run afoul of the Republican party and McCain presidential campaign recently, the latter accusing the group of turning in fraudulent registration applications. ACORN has dismissed the charges, which the group claims are politically motivated.

The political parties continue to press last-minute registrants to sign up. To date, the Democrats have had the most success with new applicants, turning in 105,000 new applications June through August, compared with 50,000 from Republicans, according to the state Division of Elections.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign continued the full-court press Wednesday. Before the Democratic hopeful took the stage, Clearwater field organizer Ben Mishkin, encouraged everyone in the crowd to help elect Obama.

"We're going to be at football games, barber shops and beauty salons," said Adrianne Marsh, spokesperson for the Florida campaign. "We're out and about making a final push, finding people who are not registered, registering them and getting them out to vote."

News Channel 8 reporter Krista Klaus contributed to this report. Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or cdolinski@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT