News

Clarity hard to find with felon list

A Times analysis finds the list of those who should be purged from voter rolls is largely accurate. But weeding out all of the mistakes will be difficult.

By MATTHEW WAITE
Published July 3, 2004

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William Miller of Tampa symbolizes the challenges awaiting county election officials as they try to verify the accuracy of thousands of names of potential felons who could be prevented from voting.

Miller, a 50-year-old unemployed mechanic, is on the state list even though he has a clean criminal record and is a registered voter. He apparently has been confused with another William Miller, a Pennsylvania man who shares the same birthday but has a different middle name and a Florida criminal record.

"Weird," the Tampa Miller said Friday when told he is on the list of more than 47,000 potential felons. "I've never been arrested for felonies."

As news organizations and activist groups began reviews of the state list, Democrats complained that the list's imperfections are unacceptable - even if they represent a relatively small portion of the names. The rhetoric rekindled debates after the contested 2000 election, when countless voters were improperly labeled as felons and prevented from voting.

"This potential careless and needless disenfranchisement of thousands of voters is extremely disturbing," Democratic national chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Jeb Bush dismissed the Democrats' complaints as "pure politics." Bush's office and state election officials emphasized that the list of potential felons is intended to be a guide for county election supervisors, not the final word on who is eligible to vote.

A St. Petersburg Times analysis of a random, representative sample of 359 names on the potential felons list in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties found the state's list to be substantially accurate:

59 percent of the names on the list from the two counties will be clearly identified as felons by electronically checking local court records. Names, dates of birth, race and sex information, and often addresses, will match exactly.

37 percent of the names will require a more thorough check to verify they are felons. It could require a search of another county's records or a trip to the courthouse to dig up records that have been in storage or on microfilm for decades.

4 percent, or more than 220 names, could be like Miller and appear on the list in error. Some of the names appear to be matched to records that are incomplete or lacking clear felony conviction information.

Also complicating the issue is clemency.

Felons must petition the state for clemency to win back their voting rights. The state's list of potential felons includes hundreds of voters who have received clemency and should be eligible to vote.

Exactly how many is unclear.

The Miami Herald reported Friday that the list includes as many as 2,100 voters who have been granted clemency. But state officials said that number is inaccurate because it includes hundreds of people who were registered to vote, committed felonies and were later granted clemency. Secretary of State Glenda Hood said those people must register to vote again.

That explanation infuriated Democrats.

"When the state goofed up, suddenly it's the responsibility of someone else, not the state of Florida," said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami. "They'll throw individual citizens under the bus and say it's their responsibility - not the state, not the governor. That's the hypocrisy of democracy in the state of Florida."

The Times found as many as 1,000 names on the statewide potential felons list who completed their sentence and improperly registered to vote before they received clemency.

Another 1,000 people on the list appear to have committed crimes after they were granted clemency and might not be eligible to vote.

In Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, the Times found about 380 names of people who appear to have received clemency but are on the state's list of potential felons.

Those are the sorts of issues county election officials have to sort out. For anyone verifying a criminal record, the task can prove frustrating.

Some criminal charges are filed as felonies but ultimately are disposed of as misdemeanors. Some felony charges are dismissed entirely.

Or a judge upon sentencing a defendant might withhold a formal finding of guilt, meaning a defendant would retain their right to vote. But Florida Department of Law Enforcement criminal records can show some of these defendants as having been convicted, when technically they haven't been.

Some defendants are in court computers with multiple birthdates.

Some are listed in records with two different middle initials.

Then there's the case of twin brothers Flennoy Omega Powell and Glennoy Alpha Powell of Tampa. Both have the same birthday, different Social Security numbers, different driver's licenses and different criminal histories.

Glennoy Powell has several felony drug convictions. His brother, who is registered to vote, has no felony record but appears on the list of potential felons.

Most of the names on the state's list of potential felons clearly are not entitled to vote even though they were registered voters.

Example: Michael Anthony Saraceno, 42.

Saraceno is registered to vote in Pinellas County, but he is serving a life sentence after his September conviction for murdering his wife in Clearwater.

To check the list of felons, the Times created a statistical sample of 359 names for Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

The sample is large enough to reflect the make-up of the entire counties' list of 5,529 names, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent. The Times checked court and other public records for the voters' home county, searching for matching name, date of birth and other identifying information.

Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties have not started verifying names on the state list, and Pasco is contracting out the review.

Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said the felons list is "not a priority for us" and doubts her office will be done verifying it by the Aug. 31 primary. She said other issues, such as verifying ballot petition signatures, take priority.

Clark does not look forward to addressing the list of potential felons.

"We know how to conduct elections. We know how to do voter list maintenance," she said. "We are not trained to investigate court records."

Hillsborough Supervisor Buddy Johnson has a detailed and complex flow chart, listing each way each record will be verified before a letter starting the process will go to the voter.

Any doubt, he said, and the voter stays a voter.

"It's a meticulous task that involves the lives of individuals," Johnson said. "It's such a fundamentally important right, the right to vote."

- Times researchers John Martin, Kitty Bennett, Caryn Baird; Times computer assisted reporting specialist Constance Humburg; and Times staff writers Steve Bousquet, Brady Dennis, Graham Brink, Bill Levesque and Carrie Johnson contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 3, 2004, 01:24:37]

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