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JONI JAMESUnprecedented legions of poll watchers from both parties are being sent out this year, armed with a 109-year-old voter challenge law.
TALLAHASSEE - More than ever, voters on Election Day may sense they are being watched.
They will be right.
Four years after Florida's contested presidential election, an unprecedented army of poll watchers representing candidates and political parties will be stationed at voting precincts throughout the state on Nov. 2.
And for the first time in recent memory, poll watchers may challenge whether some voters are properly registered.
By Tuesday's deadline, political parties and candidates are expected to flood elections offices with applications for poll watchers.
For example, Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson has collected 212 applications for poll watchers; 29 showed up for August's primary election.
Florida Republicans and Democrats say they are heavily recruiting volunteers to serve as poll watchers. They will not say what instructions they are giving them, but they are expected to draw on poll watchers' experiences in any post-election litigation.
The approaches are somewhat different.
Democrats say their goal is to have poll watchers ensure every eligible voter gets to vote. Republicans say they want their poll watchers to ensure election laws are enforced.
The poll watchers also are expected to be more aggressive in challenging the qualifications of voters. Longtime elections officials could not recall the last time they saw such a challenge.
State law allows each political party and candidate to post one observer at each precinct. The poll watchers must be registered voters from the same county and cannot be candidates or law enforcement officers.
But the law also includes an arcane 109-year-old provision that gives poll watchers the right to challenge on the spot an individual's qualification to vote. The challenge must be in writing and is similar to a sample affidavit included in state law.
Dawn Roberts, director of the state division of elections, sent a reminder last month to county elections supervisors about the poll watcher law.
The Sept. 29 memo suggested elections supervisors designate an area in each precinct for poll watchers to sit or stand to watch the check-in process. It said local officials also need to determine how to handle written challenges while other voters wait.
Democratic lawyers contend the memo was meant to encourage elections officials to go out of their way to accommodate poll watchers' challenges of would-be voters.
State law says poll watcher challenges must be addressed on-site by election workers before a citizen is given or denied a ballot. In many cases it will require calls to election headquarters to double-check voter registration or asking the citizen to sign another affidavit. If the challenge can't be resolved, the would-be voter may cast a provisional ballot and the county canvassing board would decide later if the citizen is qualified.
Multiple challenges could quickly clog voting precincts.
"The secretary of state's memo acts as a road map to challenge voters on Election Day," said Mitchell Berger, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who was a key member of Vice President Al Gore's 2000 legal team and is general counsel for John Kerry's legal team. "It's not a road map that ensures that a citizen interested in coming to the polls and voting will have the opportunity to exercise that franchise."
Among Berger's concerns: Polling places will come to a virtual standstill if Republican poll watchers challenge voters by comparing would-be voters' names to the state's controversial and since-discarded list of suspected felon voters. Or they might aggressively challenge any voter who shows up without a photo identification.
Berger said those tactics could intimidate voters, which is a felony.
A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood defended the memo and said there was no need to repeat what every supervisor already knows about voters' rights.
"They are reading into it things that really aren't there," Alia Faraj said. "Supervisors know no one should interfere with a person's right to vote on that day. They know their jobs, and they do it well."
Poll watchers' right to challenge a person's qualifications to vote has been a part of Florida elections since at least 1895.
"This goes back to when poll watchers knew who people were in their precincts and elections workers may not have," said John French, a Tallahassee elections law expert and one-time Florida Democratic Party executive director.
In modern times, poll watchers have been largely passive. They have helped political parties or candidates monitor voter turnout at key precincts so that last-minute, get-out-the-vote efforts can be targeted.
It is unlikely most voters will see a gantlet of poll watchers at their precinct. In Hillsborough County, for example, applications could double and still there would be just one poll watcher at most of the county's 359 precincts.
Broward County Deputy Elections Supervisor Gisela Salas, a 16-year-veteran of South Florida elections, can't remember when a poll watcher has challenged a voter's qualifications. "I'd have to say it is pretty unusual," Salas said last week. "But then there's never been the kind of talk of it like there is right now."