A state official says that a small box - left unchecked - could keep people from voting.
By JONI JAMES
Published October 5, 2004
TALLAHASSEE - It's not enough for new Florida voters to swear an oath that they are U.S. citizens, Secretary of State Glenda Hood says.
They also have to make sure they check a little box on their voter registration form.
Otherwise, they should be barred from voting Nov. 2, Hood says.
The result: Potentially hundreds of Floridians won't be able to vote because they failed to check the box even though they signed the form.
Hood's strict interpretation of state law drew the ire Monday of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's Florida campaign chairman and third-party groups that have registered thousands of voters in Florida.
"This is really in my opinion a technicality," said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, Kerry's Florida campaign chairman. "If you sign the form, under the threat of prosecution if you lie, that should be good enough to allow them to vote."
Meek stopped short of accusing Hood, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, of playing partisan politics.
"But this is the very same office that went out of its way to make sure Ralph Nader was on the ballot," Meek said. Democrats, who fear Nader will undermine Kerry's chances of winning, sued unsuccessfully last month to keep him off the ballot.
Hood said last week that thousands of people could be turned away from the polls Nov. 2 because their voter registration cards were rejected for technical reasons. Most registered through third-party groups that are not as careful as elections officials, Hood said.
But the head of one of those groups said Hood should err on the side of voters.
"All things being equal the secretary of state should be moving mountains to let people vote," said Brian Kettenring, head organizer for Florida ACORN, or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which announced Monday it had 212,317 new voters in Florida. "We believe the secretary of state should be giving voters every benefit of the doubt."
Monday was the last day to register in time for the Nov. 2 ballot.
Election offices across the state were flooded with last-minute voter registration forms.
Hood could not be reached, but Division of Elections director Dawn K. Roberts defended the decision after staffers met with Meek, who tried to persuade her to change the policy.
The state Legislature, in revamping the state's election laws in the wake of the 2000 recount, was specific in what it wanted on the form, Roberts said.
"Quite frankly, the outrage should be on the third-party groups that are just being so sloppy about registering voters," Roberts said. "That is where the accountability should be."
At issue is an opinion written by Hood's general counsel, Richard A. Perez, last Thursday and forwarded to all 67 county supervisors of elections on Friday.
Voter registration forms should be deemed incomplete if applicants did not check the box and sign the oath, Perez wrote.
But opponents say state law merely calls for "an indication that the applicant is a citizen of the United States."
Other states, including Republican stronghold Colorado and swing state Ohio, have concluded that a signature attesting to citizenship is enough.
The Miami-Dade elections supervisor accepted 43 voter registration forms that did not have the citizenship box checked after some 8,000 registration forms deemed incomplete were re-examined, said Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the Miami-Dade elections department.
The Advancement Project, a civil rights law firm in Washington, D.C., thinks there are thousands of other Florida applications that should be reviewed, including 6,400 in Broward.
Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson said only one form was rejected because the citizenship box wasn't checked.
More than 6,600 other forms were rejected for a variety of reasons.
"It's very, very, very rare that that particular field is the only incomplete field," Johnson said.
Said Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning: "Voters have to take some responsibility to make sure that form is completed.
"If it's an IRS tax return and you didn't sign it or complete every box on there, you're going to get it returned to you."
Times staff writer David Karp contributed to this report. Joni James can be reached at jjames@sptimes.com or 850 224-7263.
