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Bush proposes condensing election power

The governor says the secretary of state should control how counties run their elections.

By ALISA ULFERTS
Published February 18, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Ever since November, state officials have been crowing about how well Florida ran its presidential election.

Popular early voting, healthy turnout and only a handful of official complaints seemed a testament to voting changes lawmakers passed after the 2000 presidential election debacle.

So it came as a shock to legislative leaders and county elections supervisors when Gov. Jeb Bush unveiled a sweeping proposal Wednesday that concentrated power over how counties run elections in the hands of Secretary of State Glenda Hood.

"I have seen very good policy die because of a flawed process and an unwillingness or inability to get a buy-in from all the stakeholders," Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said Thursday. "I think that will hurt the secretary of state in the Legislature when she goes to try to accomplish this objective."

The bill would give Hood the final word in interpreting state and federal elections law, as well as voter rolls.

It also would grant her the authority to seek fines and criminal charges against county supervisors of election who fail to follow her interpretation of elections law.

The measure is supposed to be a response to a federal law that requires, among other things, a statewide voter database and uniformity in voting.

But critics say it goes far beyond the federal law.

Faced with legislative leaders' concerns and a near mutiny among some county elections supervisors, Bush said Thursday he's willing to compromise on a bill that preserves the role of county supervisors as caretaker of the voting rolls.

His real priority is to give the secretary of state some recourse when they fail to do it, Bush said.

"I kind of like the idea that supervisors should be responsible for maintaining the list. The problem is when they ignore their responsibility," Bush said.

"There needs to be a means ... for the secretary of state, who is the chief elections officer, to be able to have the wherewithal to sanction and, if necessary, take charge," he said.

Bush didn't name specific supervisors who he says failed in their duties, but last year he criticized several who refused during the last election to purge voters whose names appeared on a state list of felons, who can't vote in Florida unless they've had their civil rights restored.

The state ultimately scrapped the list, which turned out to be flawed.

And the state had to step in and order Duval County to include early voting sites in minority neighborhoods after the county initially refused.

Citrus County Supervisor of Elections Susan Gills, incoming president of the Florida State Supervisors of Election Association, said she has been assured the final bill will be palatable to her group.

"I feel quite assured when all is said and done we'll have something beneficial to voters and that we can live with," Gills said.

When asked if the state could be trusted to come up with an accurate list of felons for counties to use, Gills said: "I'm hoping."

Sen. Bill Posey, the Rockledge Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections, said he hasn't seen the bill but thinks Bush will be willing to work on it with lawmakers.

"It's not like they're trying to shove it down anyone's throat. They haven't even given it to me yet and I'm chairman of the damn committee," Posey said.

Posey said Bush's proposal will get lots of scrutiny in his committee.

But one part of it he likes is the attempt to standardize certain procedures, such as how supervisors maintain the voter rolls in their counties and how procedures such as early voting and absentee ballots are handled.

"You can't have one set of standards in one part of the state and another set of standards in another," Posey said.

Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate in Washington, D.C., said he would support a central official being the final word on elections laws and procedures in some states - but not Florida.

The state has a history of political contamination in its highest elections office, he said, making it unwise to designate that office as the final arbiter on laws and procedures.

"There have been a lot of interpretations by Katherine Harris and her successor that have been partisan interpretations," Gans said, referring to Hood's predecessor, now in Congress. "(But) if the secretary of state were isolated from politics, that would be fine."

Sen. Nan Rich echoed those concerns.

The Weston Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections said Hood's office has become an extension of Bush's office, and that the close association threatens the integrity of the state's voting procedures.

"There's not a pretense, even. It seems that the governor's office and the secretary of state are becoming one and that's wrong," Rich said.

The Bush proposal came in the form of two large bills drafted jointly by staff members of Bush and Hood.

In addition to the controversial elements, it would give Florida voters more privacy at their polling sites next year.

It also would give those who cast provisional ballots a week, instead of two days, to prove their eligibility.

Rep. Ron Reagan said he's neither surprised nor concerned that the two would float a proposal, and said the issue would receive a lot of time and attention in his committee.

"Conceptually there are some good ideas in it," said Reagan, R-Bradenton, and chairman of the House Ethics and Elections Committee.

"It's a work in progress," he said.

[Last modified February 18, 2005, 00:14:06]