A top official involved in Florida’s contentious push to identify and remove potentially ineligible voters is stepping down just two weeks before the Aug. 14 primary. Division of Elections Director Gisela Salas is leaving her job this week to take a position closer to her home in Ocala, Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Monday in an email to county election supervisors. Salas, who earns $90,000 a year, was hired in May 2011 to oversee the office that does everything from approve certain types of election machines to issuing opinions on how to interpret election law. But Salas was also deeply involved in the effort by the state to identify non-U.S. citizens on the voter rolls.
Many local election officials halted the effort to remove non-U.S. citizens from the rolls amid conflicting legal opinions and complaints that a list of more than 2,600 voters produced by the state was flawed. The state had derived the list by comparing driver’s license information with voter registration rolls. But while non-U.S. citizens were on the list, there were also more than 500 citizens on it. The state plans to restart the push to identify non-U.S. citizens after it runs the names through a federal immigration database. The federal government recently agreed to give Florida access to the database but the two sides have not yet signed a formal agreement.
A spokesman for Detzner said the decision by Salas to resign was unrelated to her job performance. Spokesman Chris Cate noted she was still commuting back and forth to her home in Marion County. “This is her decision,” Cate said.
Full Article: Top elections official steps down | The News-Press | news-press.com.
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