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Bush signs bill limiting early voting

Legislators say the bill will bring uniformity. Democrats say it will suppress working-class voter turnout.

By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published June 21, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Early voting proved to be so popular in its first test in Florida last year that election supervisors wanted to expand the hours and add more locations.

But the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected both requests, and on Monday Gov. Jeb Bush signed a law limiting the hours of early voting and confining it to election offices, city halls and libraries.

The new law limits early voting to no more than eight hours a day, changing the old law that allowed early voting at least eight hours a day. Early voting also cannot be held more than eight hours on any weekend, and it must end the Sunday before the election.

Legislators defended the eight-hour limit as a way to bring uniformity to a new way of voting. Democrats accused Republicans of trying to suppress turnout in Democrat-leaning counties with working-class people who can't leave work to vote during the day, such as in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

The changes would apply to the 2006 elections, when voters will choose a governor and U.S. senator.

Elections officials in four diverse Florida counties reacted with disappointment.

"It is going to be a little bit more limiting," said Lori Hudson, deputy elections administrator for Pinellas County. "We have to decide what are the eight hours that are going to be best for serving the citizens."

A year ago, Pinellas offered early voting sites for 10 hours a day, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Miami-Dade, the state's largest county, offered early voting in 12-hour sessions from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., to allow people to vote before or after work.

"Early voting was extremely popular here, and we wanted to give people the flexibility to vote when they wanted to," said Seth Kaplan of Miami-Dade's elections department. "It's the law, and we'll comply."

Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson took a different tack from his colleagues and praised the early voting law as a positive step.

"There is a desire among everybody to be more consistent among the counties," Johnson said, echoing the sentiment of the bill's sponsors. "My own personal view is that early voting in Florida is still new and some caution moving forward is good."

The bill Bush signed (HB 1567) also expands a no-solicitation rule from 50 feet to 100 feet at early voting sites, and prohibits elections supervisors from changing early voting sites less than 30 days before an election.

Democratic lawmakers pounced on the bill's effect on early voting.

"Apparently, the Republicans also decided that early voting was too successful, because they are now preventing our communities from using it more than eight hours per day," said Rep. Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale, the House Democratic leader. "Isn't the whole point of democracy to encourage more people to vote?"

Citrus County Elections Supervisor Susan Gill, president of the statewide association of elections supervisors, said 51 percent of Citrus voters cast early ballots in 2004.

Gill said she must offer early voting at cramped branch libraries in Floral City and Homosassa. Elections supervisors will try again next year to persuade the Legislature to expand early voting, Gill said, their last chance before the 2006 elections. Orange County Elections Supervisor Bill Cowles said many libraries are not large enough to accommodate what voters want, such as more machines, precinct workers and parking spaces.

Cowles said he saw signs of partisanship in the Legislature's 2005 decisions.

"It could be that many of these limitations are there to limit the voters' ability to participate in early voting," Cowles said. "The Republicans are more focused on polling place elections versus the Democratic Party, which would like to have more expanded opportunities, and they've embraced the early voting."

[Last modified June 21, 2005, 02:30:30]