The state's notorious list of felons not allowed to vote still contains inaccuracies. Amazingly, it is up to individuals to prove they don't belong on it.
Published December 28, 2003
Imagine living in a place where some law-abiding citizens have to prove they are not hiding a criminal past, or even have to agree to be fingerprinted, just to exercise their right to vote in an election. If you are reading these words, there is a good chance you live in that place - Florida.
The seeds of the problem lie in the state's Constitution, which says even felons who have served their sentences cannot vote unless they have had their civil rights restored. That is an unnecessarily complex process that can take years to complete. Leading up to the 2000 presidential election, state officials compiled a now notoriously inaccurate list of felons that also included thousands of eligible voters.
One of those was David Murry, a Pinellas County mechanic who had been voting for the past two decades. He was denied a ballot in 2000 because his name showed up on the felons list, although election officials later admitted it was a mistake.
"I never did anything to deserve it, but they denied me my constitutional right to vote," he said.
It's not certain how many others found themselves in Murry's predicament, but the number ran to the thousands. Of the 4,500 voters who had a chance to appeal their inclusion on the list, about half were found to have been placed there improperly.
After the 2000 fiasco, the Division of Elections agreed to improve the accuracy of its felons list as part of a lawsuit settlement. The state spent $1.6-million on the process, but even Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who now oversees the division, admits the information will never be perfect because "there are just too many opportunities for a mistake to be made."
To her credit, Hood is actively engaged in the office's election responsibilities, unlike her predecessor, Katherine Harris. The fault lies not with Hood but with the difficulty of the task. The databases election officials use are inevitably riddled with gaps, inaccuracies and mistaken identities.
So a substantial number of voters find themselves in a difficult position, once again. The state recently filtered the felons list and found 12,000 names that may not belong there because of bad information. More than 2,100 are in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties.
Now, the supervisors of elections are supposed to determine who on the list gets to vote.
Many, perhaps most, of those named are not felons, but they will be treated as though they are. Pasco Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning says the law puts the burden on those voters to prove they don't belong there, not on the state to prove they do. Many unsuspecting Floridians will be getting a letter in the mail saying they showed up on a list of felons and need to submit a lengthy form filled with personal information to clear their names.
"I know it's almost like you're guilty until proven innocent, but we will help you prove your innocence," Browning said.
Actually, it's exactly like that, and it's not fair. Some voters erroneously added to the list will have to be fingerprinted just to retain their right to vote.
That is shameful, and Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature should change the law if that is how it is being enforced.
We believe felons who have paid their debt to society should have their rights restored automatically, although that's not likely to happen in the current political atmosphere. The state has put so few resources into the effort that more than 38,000 restoration applications are pending. Although the Parole Commission says it will request 20 more employees next year, it would still take five years to eliminate the backlog. Such neglect denies an important part of offender rehabilitation, which is to encourage an active civic life that includes voting.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of 600,000 Florida felons is going forward after a recent appellate court ruling. It argues that the provision is racially discriminatory and violates the U.S. Constitution because more black residents, proportionally, are denied their voting right. Without waiting for that case to be resolved, the governor and Legislature should make the restoration process simple and swift.
And no citizen should be denied the right to vote based on a faulty blacklist whose accuracy even the state's highest election officials cannot defend.
