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League Says Pinellas Has Too Few Early Voting Sites

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 27, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Pinellas County has a dearth of early voting sites, which is "very unfortunate" for voters, the League of Women Voters said Friday.

But despite problems that may exist across the state, said Mary Wilson, national president of the nonpartisan league, Florida is not likely to be the state that creates the most election chaos this year, when voter turnout could exceed 80 percent.

Wilson, who appeared in Tallahassee on Friday after making a tour of large Florida counties, lamented the decision by Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark to open just three early voting sites for the presidential election this fall. By comparison, Hillsborough County will have 13 sites; Pasco will have seven.

Thirty percent of voters in the presidential primaries either cast absentee ballots or used early voting sites to make their choices, Wilson said.

"Early voting is big; voters enjoy it," she said. But that's not the whole picture. "Frankly, I don't think there is an election jurisdiction in the country that would be ready for an 80 to 85 percent turnout right on Election Day. That would strain the system just about everywhere, so if people do not take advantage of absentee and early voting, we're almost guaranteed long lines."

Clark has defended her decision on early voting in a letter to Rep. Kathy Castor, who wrote to the Pinellas elections supervisor Sept. 15 urging her to reconsider. In her response, Clark said Pinellas County commissioners ordered 10 percent budget cuts this year, and that Clark has cut her budget by $250,000 per election by eliminating remote early voting sites.

Clark argued that absentee voting, which she is encouraging, is more convenient for voters.

"Why would we ask our voters to stand in line for the same ballots we can mail to their homes?" she responded in her Sept. 16 letter, adding that 99,000 voters had requested mail-in ballots.

Jennifer Davis, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who oversees the state's elections, said early voting is a local decision - and not a cheap one.

Asked about a statement by Clark that early voting does not increase voter turnout, Davis said that's probably true. "Studies have shown that people who early-vote are the same ones who would show up on Election Day."

But both early and absentee voting can help alleviate the crush on Election Day, she said. Browning, she said, encourages voting by all available means.

Clark's push for absentee voting has not mollified Castor, D-Tampa, who said she is still pressing for more early voting sites.

"Increasing opportunities to vote, especially in the face of predicted record turnouts, is an essential part of the right to vote," Castor said in an e-mailed statement. "Having to spend hours in long lines on Election Day, especially if you're a working-class resident of south St. Pete, can have a tremendous impact on the ability to vote. It only makes sense to have more than three walk-in early voting sites in a county as large as Pinellas, especially considering that Hillsborough has 13."

Wilson also sounded the alarm about the state's no-match, no-vote law, which Browning implemented Sept. 8.

The 2006 law requires the state to cross-reference all new voter registration applications against a central state database. Voters who do not match and cannot resolve the discrepancy prior to Election Day can vote only with a provisional ballot, which will count only if the voter can prove his or her identify within the following two days.

Of 71,119 new voter applications received since Sept. 8, the state has flagged 6,341 for failing the database check, Davis said. Of those, the state was able to resolve 1,818 and sent 4,523 back to the counties, which must immediately notify non-matching voter applicants that there is a problem. Of the 4,523 sent back, the counties have so far resolved 1,256 nonmatching applications.

Though it will create headaches for local elections staff, Wilson said, she encourages every Floridian who registered after Sept. 8 to call their local supervisors and ask whether they are on the voter rolls. Voting with provisional ballots, she said, gives people a "false sense of security" because many are ultimately never counted.

The League president also injected an ominous element of mystery into her comments Friday by alluding to - but refusing to name - the state she thinks is likeliest to wreak election havoc this fall. Though Florida and Ohio have been ground zero for election debacles in the past, Wilson said she's betting on a different state.

"This close to the election there's absolutely nothing the voter can do about it, because the election administration needs to be improved," she said.

Wilson would say only that it is among the other states that she has or will be visiting. Those she listed: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

"There will be one," she said. "I strongly believe there will be one that all eyes will focus on after Nov. 4, or the night of Nov. 4. ... It's going to be just like you saw here in Florida in 2000, and what they saw in Ohio in 2004."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or cdolinski@tampatrib.com.

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