Florida: State embraces online voter signup, but fraud concerns linger | Tampa Bay Times

At the dawn of what promises to be a busy and potentially volatile election year in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott's administration reports good progress in implementing a new system of online voter registration by 2017. The report raises familiar concerns that electronic voter registration could increase the possibility of fraud or identity theft and says the state will require "adequate and enhanced security protocols." The Legislature last spring passed a bill allowing OVR by October of 2017, appropriated $1.8 million for the first stage, and ordered the Division of Elections to produce a progress report by Jan. 1. The 16-page report, sent to House and Senate leaders on New Year's Eve, promises "timely and successful implementation" of the system by working in conjunction with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and all 67 county election supervisors.

Florida: How other states have modernized elections offers lessons for Florida | Miami Herald

This November in Austin, Texas, voters will pick a president during their regular trip to the grocery store. Maine residents who have never voted will register on Election Day. Every Colorado voter will get a ballot in the mail that they can mail or drop off anytime before the polls close. And some Alaskans will simply mark their ballots online. More and more, waiting in line at a neighborhood school or church to vote on a Tuesday in November is becoming archaic. Around the country, states are changing their laws accordingly, hoping to make casting a ballot as convenient as possible. And then there’s Florida, a state that has shunned same-day voter registration and vote centers as an alternative to busy precincts. Citizens here have to request a mail-in ballot every other election year or set aside time to go to a polling place.

Florida: Judge approves voting rights’ groups map of Senate districts | Tampa Bay Times

A state judge on Wednesday approved an entirely new map of Florida's 40 Senate districts that was recommended by a coalition of voting rights groups. The decision is yet another political and legal setback for the Republican-controlled Legislature and adds much more political uncertainty with the next session less than two weeks away and at the dawn of a presidential election year. "This is another great result for our clients but also a great result for every voter in the state of Florida," said David King, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. King said voters will elect senators and members of Congress from constitutional districts in the 2016 election, and added: "I'm confident that there are a substantial number of more competitive districts in this map." The Senate had no immediate comment on Circuit Judge George Reynolds' order, in which he accepted a map recommended by the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and other plaintiffs. Reynolds' 73-page ruling orders the Senate to randomly assign district numbers to all 40 districts within three days of a final judgment being entered.

Florida: Rep. Corrine Brown files new challenge to Congressional district changes | Miami Herald

Arguing that an east-west configuration for her district “combines far-flung communities worlds apart culturally and geographically,” lawyers for U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown asked a federal judge Tuesday to void Florida’s latest congressional redistricting plan. The complaint marks the next phase of a legal battle over the state’s political boundaries that has raged for nearly four years. The first two drafts of a congressional plan — approved by the Legislature in 2012 and tweaked in 2014 — were thrown out by state courts for violating a voter-approved ban on political gerrymandering. But the reorientation of Brown’s congressional district, which has long ambled from Jacksonville to Orlando but now would run from Jacksonville in the east to Gadsden County in the west, prompted the Democratic congresswoman to file suit this year against the change. After the Florida Supreme Court officially approved the new district early this month, Brown was allowed to update her case Tuesda

Florida: Voters told to update signatures in advance of presidential primary | Miami Herald

With a presidential primary right around the corner, many Florida voters are being told they must update their legal signatures to ensure that their absentee ballots will be counted. Hundreds of thousands of voters have received letters from county elections supervisors urging them to fill out new voter registration forms or risk having their ballots rejected. The practice of signature verification is becoming increasingly common as more Floridians vote by mail rather than at early voting sites or on Election Day. Now that the Legislature allows voting by mail for any reason, experts say it’s inevitable that it will become the preferred way of casting ballots in Florida. “You MUST complete the enclosed voter registration application and check the ‘signature update’ box so that we can update your voter registration record,” reads a letter from Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Penelope Townsley. “If you plan to vote by absentee ballot in an upcoming election, be sure to submit your signature update at least 15 days prior to the election.”

Florida: Supervisors want new Florida Senate districts by mid-March | Tampa Bay Business Journal

As a Leon County circuit judge ponders plans for redrawing Senate districts, the state's elections supervisors said in a court document Wednesday that they would like the map to be finalized by March 15. The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections said local officials need time before candidate qualifying in June and primary elections in August to take steps such as remapping counties to establish new district lines, creating new precincts and establishing polling places.

Florida: Elections supervisors to court: Decide Senate redistricting by March 15, please | Florida Politics

Florida’s election supervisors are asking the courts to resolve the state Senate redistricting saga by March 15 to protect the “quality and integrity of the (voting) process.” The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections filed its notice Wednesday with Circuit Judge George Reynolds, who is in the process of deciding how to redraw the state’s 40 senatorial districts. Reynolds, who sits in Tallahassee, held a trial on the matter last week. His recommendation goes to the Florida Supreme Court, which has the final say on a new map. With Florida’s primary election on Aug. 30, the supervisors need lead time “to remap and re-precinct their counties following approval of new Florida Senate districts by this Court.” Absentee ballots must go out 45 days before the primary, and new polling locations will have to determined.

Florida: Senate redistricting trial ends as judge weighs options | Miami Herald

After eight rulings by the Florida Supreme Court and an admission of guilt by legislators, the Senate redistricting trial ended Thursday with a Tallahassee judge asking the parties to tell him their top choices for a new Senate map. Leon County Circuit Court Judge George Reynolds now must decide whether to accept one of four proposals offered by the challengers — a coalition of the League of Women Voters, Common Cause of Florida and a group of Democrat-leaning individuals — or a map drawn by Senate staff but never voted on by the Legislature. The challengers said Reynolds should pick one of two maps that create four Hispanic-majority districts in Miami-Dade County, boosting the number of Hispanic-dominated seats from three and opening the door to a Hispanic district dominated by Democrats.

Florida: Senate rests case in redistricting trial | News Service of Florida

The Florida Senate rested its case in support of a proposed map during the second day of a redistricting trial Tuesday, as lawyers for voting-rights organizations prepared to grill the chief map-drawer for the chamber. The main witness Tuesday was University of Utah political-science professor Baodong Liu, who questioned whether plans offered by the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida would offer Hispanic and African-American voters a chance to elect candidates of their choice in some districts. That requirement is part of the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” amendments, which voters added to the state Constitution in 2010. An original Senate map, approved by lawmakers in 2012, has been set aside under an agreement between the voting-rights groups and the Legislature that acknowledged it would likely be struck down by the courts.

Florida: Political futures in balance as Senate redistricting trial begins | Orlando Sentinel

A trial that will decide the fate of Florida’s 40 state Senate districts and shape the political future of the state began Monday in Leon County circuit court under a pressing deadline to have the districts in place for the 2016 elections. The trial is only expected to last a week but the case will also be reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court. An attorney for the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections said Senate maps need to be in place by “mid-March” to allow time for supervisors of elections to conform the new districts to ballots for each precinct ahead of primary elections in August. In opening statements, lawyers for the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, the voting rights groups challenging the Republican-controlled Legislature’s maps, said they’ll show that lawmakers rigged the process again, just as they did with congressional districts, to favor the GOP. “This is simply business as usual in the Legislature,” said League of Women Voters attorney David King.

Florida: Trial on Senate redistricting plan opens | Palm Beach Post

The latest battle in a four-year war over redistricting in Florida is poised to begin Monday in a Leon County courtroom, with Republican dominance in the state Senate possibly hanging in the balance. Palm Beach County’s four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — would see the area they represent changed significantly under district boundaries floated by a voters’ coalition, which has clashed steadily with the GOP-led Legislature. The proposed maps could even lead to two senators, Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, and Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, running against each other in a redrawn county district that stretches into Broward County. By contrast, a map submitted by the Senate would prove less disruptive to the county.

Florida: Ex-felons Struggle to Regain Their Voting Rights | The Intercept

The remnants of Hurricane Patricia were sweeping over Orlando, Florida, and Eddie Walker was soaked. It was a Wednesday morning in late October, and Walker, the pastor of In God’s Time Tabernacle, located in the downtown neighborhood of Parramore, had spent part of his morning repairing a jammed window in the white 2001 Chevrolet van that he uses to transport food donations from grocery stores and fast food restaurants across the city to his parishioners, many of whom are homeless or recovering drug addicts. When I found Walker behind his church, he beckoned me out of the rain and into the van’s cab. Walker is barrel-chested and of medium height, and his voice carries with a pastor’s booming resonance, even when he speaks quietly. I’d come to hear Walker’s life story, but from the start his cellphone continuously interrupted our conversation. Volunteers were calling to troubleshoot logistics. “Anything that you can get and you don’t have to pay for,” Walker pleaded into his phone, “order as much as you can, ’cause we can use all of it.”

Florida: State Supreme Court approves congressional map drawn by challengers | Miami Herald

With just over four years left before another redistricting cycle begins, the Florida Supreme Court gave final approval to Florida’s congressional map Wednesday, rejecting the Legislature’s arguments for the fourth time and selecting boundaries drawn by the challengers in time for the 2016 election. “Our opinion today — the eighth concerning legislative or congressional apportionment during this decade since the adoption of the landmark Fair Districts Amendment — should bring much needed finality to litigation concerning this state’s congressional redistricting that has now spanned nearly four years in state courts,” the court wrote in a 5-2 decision. The ruling validated the map drawn by a coalition led by the League of Women Voters, Common Cause of Florida and several Democrat-leaning individuals, and approved by Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis after the Florida Legislature tried and failed to agree to a map in a special redistricting session. Although the boundaries are now officially set for the 2016 elections, the map is expected to be challenged by at least two members of Congress in federal court. U.S. Reps. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens, and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, have threatened a lawsuit for restricting the ability of their constituents to elect minorities to office.

Florida: House plan to streamline election dates in Florida counties raises concerns | Florida Times-Union

A proposal introduced in the Florida House intended to increase turnout in municipal elections could lead to substantial changes in when Jacksonville, Baldwin and Beaches voters go to the polls. Rep. Matt Caldwell said he introduced the elections proposal out of concern that too many city officials are being elected by just a small fraction of voters. Caldwell is chairman of State Affairs Committee, which voted Thursday to back the plan requiring municipalities in the same county to hold elections on the same day and preferably in November. Most people know that state and federal elections are held the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Caldwell said. “I guarantee you nine out of 10 people are going to say I have no idea” when their municipalities hold elections, he said. He added that statistics bear that out with voter turnout in many city elections hovering around 10-15 percent.

Florida: Court Begins Working Through Redistricting Issues | CBS Miami

A Leon County judge and lawyers for the Legislature and voting-rights organizations on Tuesday began muddling through the legal process for deciding on a new set of districts for the 40-member state Senate. While the hearing before Circuit Judge George Reynolds was largely procedural, attorneys for the two sides clashed over whether the coalition of voting-rights organizations, which includes the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida, faces the same burden of proof as lawmakers do when a full-blown trial about the maps begins Dec. 14. Reynolds has the task of recommending one of five maps — one drawn by Senate aides and four drawn by the voting-rights groups — to the Florida Supreme Court after the existing map was set aside as part of a legal settlement. Lawmakers conceded in that settlement that the current map, drawn in 2012, would likely be found by the courts to violate a voter-approved ban on political gerrymandering adopted two years earlier.

Florida: Cities Push To Retain Control Of Local Election Dates | News Service of Florida

Florida’s municipalities intend to fight a proposal now before state lawmakers that would take away their ability to set local election dates and could extend the terms of some current elected officials. State lawmakers on Thursday will look at a proposal that seeks to improve local voter turnout by requiring every city, town and village to line up their elections the same day each year. The proposal (PCB SAC 16-04), scheduled to go before the House State Affairs Committee, would require the local elections to either mesh with statewide November general elections in even years, or be held every other year on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in odd years.

Florida: Election supervisors urging Florida Supreme Court to decide on new district lines | First Coast News

It's a debate that's been going on for more than a year. Now, election supervisors say they, along with you, the voters, are at the mercy of the courts as they wait for the new congressional district lines to be drawn. The redistricting could affect where you vote and who you're voting for. "It affects the candidates right now: not knowing who their constituency is and those things will flush themselves out as it goes through the court process," said Clay County Supervisor of Elections and soon to be President of the Supervisors Association, Chris Chambliss.

Florida: Both sides make conspiracy accusations in Florida’s redistricting fight | Miami Herald

The knock-down fight over the political future of the Florida Senate entered its third round this week as lawyers for the coalition of voting groups accused Republican lawmakers of conspiring again to protect incumbents, while the Legislature’s lawyers accused opponents of “operating in the shadows” to help Democrats. The Senate’s map “smacks of partisan intent” because it failed to maximize population and respect political boundaries, “while offering unmistakable benefits for the Republican Party and incumbents,” wrote the lawyers for the coalition plaintiffs, led by the League of Women Voters and Common Cause of Florida. But the lawyers for the Republican-led Senate and House blasted the plaintiffs for relying on map drawing experts who had ties to Democrats and therefore drew maps that “systematically” benefited Democrats.

Florida: 2 redistricting proposals pulled | News Service of Florida

A coalition of voting-rights organizations has withdrawn two state Senate redistricting proposals it had submitted to a Leon County judge, virtually ensuring that at least one district will cross Tampa Bay when the legal fight ends. The coalition, which includes the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida, announced the move one day before the groups and the Legislature are set to file briefs with Circuit Court Judge George Reynolds objecting to each other’s maps. The state Senate has submitted a single map that would cross the bay. Reynolds is supposed to recommend one of the plans to the Florida Supreme Court as the best way to follow the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” redistricting standards approved by voters in 2010, after the Legislature agreed in a legal settlement that the current map would be found in violation of those rules.

Florida: Maps shuffled in state Senate redistricting fight | Florida Politics

The plaintiffs in the state Senate redistricting case have reshuffled their proposed maps to redraw the state’s 40 senatorial districts, saying they want to “narrow the issues for trial.” Part of their reason was the much-maligned “jumping the Bay,” or districts that cross the water from Hillsborough County into Pinellas County to capture a Democratic voting base in southeast Pinellas. On Tuesday, the League of Women Voters of Florida, Common Cause and others withdrew two maps and submitted a new “corrected” map, after filing six versions of a redrawn district map last week. In a notice filed by attorney David King, they took away one map that “includes a fourth Hispanic district in South Florida (District 38) and an African-American district in Hillsborough County that does not cross Tampa Bay into Pinellas County (District 19).”

Florida: Legislators propose increasing term limits | Miami Herald

Is eight years enough? For Hialeah Sen. Rene Garcia, a Republican, and West Palm Beach Rep. Mark Pafford, a Democrat, the answer is “no” — if Floridians want to diminish the influence of special interests in the Legislature. Rep. Mark Pafford, shown speaking to reporters during the 2015 AP Florida Legislative Planning Session in October, is a sponsor of a bill that would extend term limits to 12 years from 8.
Republican Sen. Rene Garcia of Hialeah, right, is a sponsor of a bill that would extend term limits to 12 years from 8. Rep. Mark Pafford, shown speaking to reporters during the 2015 AP Florida Legislative Planning Session in October, is a sponsor of a bill that would extend term limits to 12 years from 8. “We are a representative democracy and we should be making sure that it is the elected officials who move agendas forward, and not the lobbyists,” said Garcia, who was elected to the Senate unopposed in 2010 and 2012 after serving eight years in the House.

Florida: Senate sends combination map to high court | News Service of Florida

The Florida Senate on Wednesday recommended to a Leon County judge a plan for the chamber's 40 districts that was never voted on by either the House or Senate during a recent special redistricting session. The proposal to Circuit Judge George Reynolds, who will ultimately decide which map to suggest to the Florida Supreme Court, would essentially combine two "base maps" that were drawn by legislative aides in the run-up to the special session. Legislative leaders say that process insulated the base maps from political pressures that could have led to violations of the anti-gerrymandering "Fair Districts" amendments approved by voters in 2010. The special redistricting session, prompted by a legal settlement between the Legislature and voting-rights organizations that challenged the current Senate map, ended in failure after lawmakers couldn't agree on how to redraw the map to fix districts that violated the Fair Districts standards.

Florida: Redistricting challenger file six new maps with variations on Miami and Tampa Bay | Tampa Bay Times

Leon County Circuit Court Judge George Reynolds was handed seven options for drawing the Senate maps on Wednesday, giving him the opportunity to be the “seamstress” he suggested might be needed to stitch together various pieces of the proposals. Six of the proposed maps come from challengers to the lawsuit, a coalition of voters and voting groups led by the League of Women Voters. Each of their proposals is a modification of what they presented to Florida Senate during the special redistricting session that ended two weeks ago but the variations offer the judge a menu of options to two district areas: Miami Dade County and Tampa Bay. The variations between the maps boil down to whether they create a fourth Hispanic district in Miami Dade County, or leave it at three, and whether they cross Tampa Bay to create an African American-majority district in Hillsborough.

Florida: Some Florida voting machines not replaced since Gore/Bush in 2000 | WTSP

A recent report identifies Florida, home of the 2000 Bush-Gore election fiasco, as one of the states at-risk of future voting problems due to the age of its voting equipment. According to theBrennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, 30 out of Florida's 67 counties have not updated their voting machines in more than a decade, increasing the possibilities of technology breakdowns and glitches on Election Day. At least a dozen of the 30 counties mentioned will have new equipment in-place in time for the 2016 presidential primaries, including Manatee County, which just received new equipment this week. That leaves Polk County as the only county in Greater Tampa Bay that has not replaced its equipment in more than a decade. In fact, its optical scan machines are the same machines the county used for the 2000 presidential election.

Florida: Sarasota County agrees to borrow $1.65 million for new voting equipment | Your Observer

Sarasota County commissioners, at their Nov. 17 meeting, unanimously approved the purchase of a new voting system without a sealed bid process, after becoming dissatisfied with one of the two certified vendors in Florida. The county will pay $1.65 million for the system, to be purchased from Election Systems & Software (ES&S). That purchase will be paid for initially by a loan from the Pooled Commercial Paper Loan Program of the Florida Local Government Finance Commission Program, and repaid over seven years from the general fund. Because there were only two vendors available, one of which had been deemed operationally unacceptable, the county elected not to use a sealed-bid procurement process.

Florida: New voting machines arrive in Jackson County | Floridian

Two months after Secretary of State Ken Detzner visited Marianna to talk about elections equipment headed to 12 small counties, new voting machines arrived at the offices of Jackson County Supervisor of Elections Sylvia Stephens. “We are very excited to have our new equipment delivered so we can prepare and look forward to a successful election year in 2016,” Stephens said. At the Oct. 13 county commission meeting, the board opted to buy the updated equipment, part of a deal negotiated between the small-county consortium, the state and equipment vendor Elections Systems & Software. For the $1.5 million transaction, the roughly $131,000 cost to Jackson County will be reimbursed by grant dollars passed on from the state. Trading in older models helped facilitate a discount on the new machines.

Florida: Anti-Gerrymandering Measures Didn’t Work. Here’s How Both Parties Hope to Change Them. | National Journal

Flor­ida is the only state to out­law par­tis­an ger­ry­man­der­ing while leav­ing the re­dis­trict­ing pro­cess in the hands of par­tis­an le­gis­lat­ors rather than cre­at­ing an in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion. And after three years of lit­ig­a­tion and four months of at­tempts to draw new le­gis­lat­ive and con­gres­sion­al maps, loc­al Re­pub­lic­ans and Demo­crats have reached the con­clu­sion that the state’s unique sys­tem of re­dis­trict­ing can­not go on. Demo­crat­ic le­gis­lat­ors, in­spired by a June U.S. Su­preme Court rul­ing re­af­firm­ing the leg­al­ity of in­de­pend­ent re­dis­trict­ing com­mis­sions, hope to win Re­pub­lic­an sup­port for an in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion to re­draw dis­trict bound­ar­ies in Flor­ida. And after months of re­dis­trict­ing chaos, some Re­pub­lic­ans have hin­ted that they could get on board.

Florida: Judge denies Senate motion to appoint new consultant in redistricting case | Florida Politics

A Tallahassee trial court judge Friday afternoon denied a motion filed by the Legislature’s attorneys that sought to appoint a special consultant. Second Judicial Circuit Judge George Reynolds sided with a coalition group of plaintiffs who brought the Senate redistricting challenge that ultimately invalidated the chamber’s enacted maps. Lewis said the time frame for the court’s work was too short to implement a new course of action. “The ship has sailed, and we are on the sea with this process,” said Lewis, denying the motion brought by Senate counsel Raoul Cantero.

Florida: Judge orders Florida Senate redistricting trial to move forward | Tampa Bay Times

Leon County Circuit Court Judge George Reynolds rejected a request by the Florida Senate to have the court hire a redistricting expert to redraw the Senate maps, saying "we just don't have enough time left" to hire a newcomer to the process and get the boundaries set in time for the 2016 election. The quick decision after a 30-minute hearing Friday was a blow to the Florida Senate, whose lawyers argued that by hiring an expert to draw the maps instead of relying on the Legislature or challengers, they could streamline this litigation and reduce the burden to the parties and Florida's taxpayers. "It appears to me we just don't have enough time left to engage in any process, other than the one we are currently on," Reynolds said in denying the Senate request. "I do that with some reluctance because I could use all the help that I can get in making this decision.''

Florida: Senate asks court to hire expert to resolve redistricting impasse | Miami Herald

After months of feuding, the Florida House and Senate reached a redistricting truce on Thursday and asked the court to hire an expert to draw a new map revising the state Senate boundaries instead of conducting a five-day trial next month. “The appointment of a consultant would streamline this litigation and reduce the burden to the parties and Florida’s taxpayers by eliminating the need for costly discovery and a five-day evidentiary hearing,” wrote the Senate lawyers to Leon County Circuit Court Judge George Reynolds. “It would also eliminate any suspicion that the adopted map was laden with improper intent.” Reynolds had asked the parties to submit a scheduling plan for the Senate redistricting trial by Thursday. But after receiving the call for an expert, Reynolds issued an order saying the trial would move ahead as scheduled, with maps submitted by next Wednesday. There was no mention of what he will do with the Senate’s request.