Felon voters list made public

While elections officials and the media scramble to review the list, the judge's ruling might have farther-reaching effects.

By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published July 2, 2004

	Potential felons Florida released a list of more than 47,000 potential felons who are registered voters. County election supervisors are verifying the accuracy of the list and removing from the voter rolls confirmed felons. Some characteristics of the people on the list:

TALLAHASSEE - A list of more than 47,000 Floridians identified as possible felons who face removal from voter rolls is public.

Leon Circuit Judge Nikki Ann Clark ordered the state Division of Elections to release the list Thursday, and the agency quickly began distributing copies. The judge struck down a state law that allowed the public to view the list but prohibited copying it or taking notes from it.

"The right to inspect without the right to copy is an empty right indeed," Clark wrote in a seven-page order.

The judge's decision came in a case filed by CNN, which was joined by other news organizations, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Democratic interest groups.

"We'll adhere to it. We'll abide by it," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "We respect her decision."

The ruling is the latest development in a simmering debate over Florida's efforts to produce an accurate list of felons who should not be allowed to vote. The issue arose after the contested 2000 election, when a list produced by a private contractor proved to be riddled with inaccuracies and sparked complaints that thousands were improperly denied the right to vote.

The list of potential felons released Thursday was produced after more extensive screening. County election supervisors are supposed to verify the list's accuracy before removing voters from the rolls. Now, Democratic groups, news organizations and the public can scrutinize the list.

Clark, who presided over one of the key 2000 election cases, made clear Thursday that the state was following the law when it refused to release the list. She declared the 2001 law unconstitutional because the Legislature did not comply with the Florida Constitution and declare a "public necessity" when it restricted access to the felon list.

Only candidates, incumbents, governments, political committees and parties were allowed to obtain the list.

Some legal experts said the ruling means the master voter file, containing the names of nearly 10-million Florida voters, is public as well.

"There being no existing exemption, it definitely falls within (the Constitution) which says all records are public," said Alison Steele, a St. Petersburg lawyer who represented the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida in the case and who represents the Times.

Democrats, African-Americans and residents of three South Florida counties are disproportionately represented on the list of potential felons.

While 59 percent of the names on the list are Democrats, 42 percent of the state's voters are Democrats. African-Americans account for 46 percent of the names on the list but 15 percent of the state's population. And Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach voters represent 33 percent of the list of potential felons but 27 percent of the state's voters.

Republicans make up 20 percent and unaffiliated voters 13 percent, and white voters are 51 percent of the total. The overwhelming majority, 79 percent, are men.

Broward County has more people on the list than any other county: 6,599, or 14 percent, followed by Palm Beach, Duval and Miami-Dade. Hillsborough has 7 percent of the total, Pinellas has 4 percent, Pasco has 2 percent, Hernando has 1 percent and Citrus has less than 1 percent.

The accuracy of the list of potential felons has been a subject of intense debate, heavy with partisan and racial overtones, as Floridians warily approach a presidential election. Democrats said tens of thousands of voters, a disproportionate number of whom were African-American, were on a flawed purge list in 2000.

While Bush and the state clemency board have worked to reduce the huge backlog of ex-felons seeking to restore their civil rights, the state compiled a new felon list to help Florida's 67 county election supervisors prepare for the 2004 vote.

Pasco Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning said he expects to hire a private firm to review the list but is not sure how to pay for it.

"We're not equipped to do it ourselves," Browning said. "We don't know where to look or where to start to look."

While Clark's ruling specifically addressed only the statewide list of potential felons, election supervisors Buddy Johnson in Hillsborough and Deborah Clark in Pinellas were awaiting clarification on whether they would make public the county lists in their offices.

After a conference call Thursday afternoon with Bush's office, Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Bush appointee, began giving out compact discs containing all 47,763 names. The names are categorized several ways, such as by name, address, gender, race, birthdate, voter ID number, party, precinct, congressional and legislative district.

"We caution all those who view this information that this is a list of potential matches, not a final list," Hood said in a statement. "The Department of State has worked closely with the NAACP to develop a redundant and rigorous process to protect the rights of all eligible voters."

Florida is one of six states that permanently strip voting rights to felons for life unless they petition to have them restored. One election-law expert who usually represents Democrats said the release of the list will rekindle the debate over disenfranchising voters.

"The whole process of unfairly disqualifying people from voting is going to raise its ugly head again," lawyer Mark Herron said. "That will become grist for speculation and argument over whether there are political motivations for doing this at this particular time."

Democrats and liberal groups such as People for the American Way praised the judge's decision.

"I look at Judge Clark's ruling as reinforcing a constitutional principle that people have a right to know what their state government is up to," Nelson said.

At CNN and in Florida newsrooms, editors began discussing what to do with the voluminous list they had demanded be made public. Two possible approaches under discussion were a consortium of competing news agencies analyzing the names for possible mistakes or for news organizations to study statistically reliable samples.

The felon list had few defenders. Even state Attorney General Charlie Crist, a Republican, questioned whether it made sense, and was hesitant about defending the law in court. Instead, the state hired a private firm to defend the law.

Judge Clark, 52, a Democrat, was appointed to the bench in 1993 by Gov. Lawton Chiles, who employed her as a legal adviser. A Detroit native and one of seven children, she became the first African-American judge to serve on the 2nd Judicial Circuit in Leon County.

Four years ago, Clark played a visible role in the presidential recount battle. She was assigned a case filed by a Democratic activist that tried to throw out absentee ballots in heavily Republican Seminole County.

Before the judge could rule, lawyers for George W. Bush asked Clark to recuse herself because his brother, Gov. Bush, earlier rejected her candidacy for a promotion to an appeals court.

Clark dismissed the motion and stayed on the case, and rejected the Democrats' arguments. While election supervisors used "poor judgment," she ruled, it did not warrant discarding 15,000 absentee ballots.

- Times reporters Joni James, Michael Sandler, Alisa Ulferts, Bill Varian, Matthew Waite and researchers Connie Humburg and Aakash Patel contributed to this report.

Here are excerpts from Leon Circuit Judge Nikki Clark's decision that grants immediate public access to the state's list of 47,000 suspected felons who are believed to be ineligible to vote.

"Article I, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution provides that "every person has the right to inspect or copy any public record made or received in connection with the official business of any public body . . . except with respect to records exempted pursuant to this section.' This constitutional provision grants every person the fundamental right to inspect or copy public records. Whether the public chooses to inspect or copy is not the choice of the governmental agency which has custody of the record. It is the choice of the person who has requested access to the record. The right to inspect without the right to copy is an empty right indeed. . . . The right to inspect the suspected felons list without the right to copy the list would be valueless.

"The Division of Elections is hereby ordered to immediately open the suspected felons list for public inspection and permit the plaintiff . . . to copy and photograph the list."

[Last modified July 2, 2004, 01:00:38]