Holy shamoley! There are lawsuits and accusations already flying over Florida's upcoming election. As in 2000, we have a Republican secretary of state who seems to be struggling. We also have a Democratic Party that apparently intends to sue her daily.
But only a diehard Republican or Democrat sides with or against Secretary of State Glenda Hood on every single fight. Reasonable people should think for themselves.
ISSUE NO. 1: PROVISIONAL BALLOTS. Hood's office was right on this one. A voter who shows up at the wrong polling place is not entitled to have his or her provisional ballot counted.
It ought to be - no, it IS, under the law - the minimal responsibility of a voter to know his or her precinct. The law does not say that voters can just stop by any polling place, like stopping by the corner ATM, to cast a vote and expect it to be counted.
ISSUE NO. 2: THAT DARNED CHECKBOX. Hood's office is so wrong here as to look like something out of Dickens, or maybe the harsh justice in Measure for Measure. She insists on rejecting several hundred signups of new voters because they didn't check a little box attesting they were U.S. citizens.
Here's the thing: The little box accompanies a signed oath of citizenship. The voters in question signed the form; they just didn't check the little box too.
State law requires "an indication that the applicant is a citizen." This ought to be good enough. Isn't Gov. Jeb Bush supposed to be a common-sense guy?
ISSUE NO. 3: TOUCH SCREEN VOTING. Despite the best efforts of Hillsborough County to prove otherwise, the machines themselves work fine. They add two plus two. Each machine used in Pinellas or Hillsborough counties produces a printed summary of their vote totals, and can even print out a copy of each individual ballot recorded.
Repeat after me: There. Is. A. Paper. Trail.
Admittedly, there might be something about touch-screen machines that makes it easier for voters to skip a race accidentally - the so-called "undervote." But that is human oversight, not a vote-eating software glitch. Besides, touch screens eliminate all "overvotes," casting two votes in the same race, a much bigger problem.
As for an Evil Conspiracy to rig the machines: Forget it.
ISSUE NO. 4: OVERSEAS BALLOTS. Something like 32,000 Floridians living overseas are getting two ballots, with potentially confusing instructions about which one to mail and which one counts. This was because of the last-minute court fight over including Ralph Nader on the ballot. Only one county, Seminole, took the common-sense approach of printing two sets of ballots in advance and mailing out the correct one.
ISSUE NO. 5: VOTER INVESTIGATIONS. It still seems heavy-handed at the least that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement went home-by-home to African-American voters in Orlando, investigating an aggressive absentee-ballot campaign in a city election.
On the other hand, the New York Daily News reported that 46,000 people were registered to vote in both New York and Florida. The strong majority of them are Democrats, but so what? They should be kicked off the voter rolls and cited.
ISSUE NO. 6: CHURCHES. We've got three choices: (1) Let churches stay tax-free and do politics all they want. (2) End their tax-free status. (3) Maintain the semi-fictional status quo, in which churches can play footsie with politicians up to a point. If we're gonna stick with (3), just remember that both sides get to do it, not just the side you like.
ISSUE NO. 7: OLD STUFF. I still say Glenda Hood and the Secretary of State's Office should be the subject of a criminal investigation for deliberately flawed methods to kick African-American felons off the voter rolls, but not Hispanic felons. What's more, they fought in court to keep their flawed list hidden from public view.
CONCLUSION: Hood is in over her head. She looks like a partisan who insists that whatever she says today is gospel - until she is proven mistaken again and changes her mind. The Democrats, meanwhile, are as annoying as sand in a swimsuit. They will attack this election's integrity at every step - unless, of course, they manage to win it.
