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A Times Editorial
Until the state can verify its voting lists, which used to prevent double registrants, felons and the mentally incapacitated from voting, it shouldn't use one.
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 5, 2002
Lawyers at the Department of Justice were right to give Florida's elections reforms a clean bill of health. We have gone much further than most states in correcting the problems that led to a contested outcome in last year's presidential election. But the department was equally astute in singling out for further inquiry Florida's method of assembling a statewide voter list. While state and county officials have made other changes with relative ease, the central voter database remains a stumbling block to a complete elections overhaul.
In an ideal world, the division of elections would be sufficiently competent, committed and well staffed to assemble the disparate information making up Florida's central voter file and to ensure its relative accuracy. Then the lines of accountability would be clear whenever a voter's registration is questioned. But the Department of State has so muddied the waters that it is highly unlikely that Florida will have a reliable master voter list to use in next year's gubernatorial primary.
For an administration that made voting reform a central mission, that is regrettable. The impending shift of the elections function to the governor's office offers an opportunity to declare once and for all that responsibility for the list -- in all its stages -- rests with the elections division. Maybe then federal officials, county elections supervisors and the public can renew their faith in the state agency's record keeping.
So far, this critical part of elections reform has been marked by intransigence and denial. The Legislature ordered state elections officials to create a reliable central list of voters, and suggested that the division contract with the state clerks of court association, which already kept several statewide databases. Those talks collapsed when the clerks rightly demanded some safeguards that the information they were using was valid. They estimated that it would cost about $300,000 to conduct initial checks. The division declined to find those funds or ask the Legislature for them. State officials opted instead to build the list themselves. That was four months ago. Now, less than a year before the first primary, the division has admitted defeat and hired a private company to build the database.
Problem is, no one along the data chain wants to vouch for the accuracy of the information that makes up the list and is used to throw out double registrants, felons and the mentally incapacitated. The state would like to say a contractor is responsible for building the database while county supervisors are required to verify the information. The contractor would like to say all its information came from the state. And the supervisors at the county level would like to say that any checks they perform would be against statewide data anyway -- the same information state officials already gave to the private contractor.
If bad information goes into the database, it is guaranteed that mistakes will come out. Perhaps before the division tackles these new challenges, its officials need more clout and cooperation. Maybe then it can work with county clerks and supervisors so that all of them check their data entry against handwritten records to reduce typos. Perhaps then the system for reporting plea bargains and mental health adjudications can be improved. And the department can shoulder responsibility for any research to clear up discrepancies when disputes between data sets arise. Otherwise, Florida will be giving tacit approval to a unverified database for which nobody wants to take responsibility. Federal officials would be justified in delaying the use of such a list until Florida gets the last piece of its voting act together.