Florida: Groups Object to Restrictions in Elections Bill | South Florida Times

Several groups on Monday criticized language in an elections bill that they say would make it more difficult for some minority, disabled and elderly voters to cast ballots. A provision in the wide-ranging bill wouldn’t allow voters to use assistants to cast ballots if they didn’t previously know them. Also, nobody could assist more than 10 voters per election. That means that people who can’t read English, are blind, have a disability or have trouble voting for any other reason wouldn’t be able to ask for help from trained volunteers at the polls unless they already know them. “This is again not about what’s best for Florida’s elections, but it’s politicians getting in the way of solutions for democracy,” said Gihan Perera, executive director of Florida New Majority, a group that advocates for minorities.

Florida: Election bill may limit outside volunteer help in elections | NBC

Some controversial changes may soon be coming to Florida elections. A  provision in a new wide-ranging elections bill proposed by Republican State Senator Jack Latvala would limit the ability of outside volunteers to help in elections if they did not know the voter prior to the election. The law would also limit the number of people volunteers could help to 10 voters per election. Voting rights groups blasted the Florida Republican’s rewrite of the bill in a conference call with reporters on Monday, saying that the bill would make it harder for some minority, elderly, and disabled voters to cast their ballots. They argued that people who don’t speak English, or have trouble voting for any other reason wouldn’t be able to seek help from trained volunteers at the polls unless they already know them. Executive director of Florida New Majority advocate group Gihan Perera said that the bill would not help reform elections but instead create new barriers to voting for the Latino community and other segments of the population.

Florida: Florida Senate Passes Bill That Could Expand Early Voting | NBC

The Senate passed an elections bill Wednesday that would let elections supervisors expand early voting days and sites in an effort to avoid the long lines that left Florida open to criticism last November. The bill, in part, would undo some of the changes the Republican-led Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott made to elections laws two years ago, when they cut early voting days from 14 to eight days and prohibited voting on the Sunday before Election Day. It passed 26-13. The bill (HB 7013) would require at least eight days of early voting, but would leave it up to elections officials if they wanted to have as many as 14 days, including the Sunday before Election Day when many black churches have organized “souls to the polls” voter drives.

Florida: Voting rights groups criticize Senate’s elections bill | Tampa Bay Times

Local and national voting rights groups voiced opposition Monday to an elections bill that’s awaiting a final vote in the Senate on Wednesday. The groups zeroed in on a provision in the bill (HB 7013) that changes the law for voters who need assistance at the polls. Under the change, sponsored by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, a person seeking to assist a voter at the polls must already know the person, and no one may assist more than 10 voters in an election. “These restrictions on assistors will make it harder to vote, particularly for rmany of Florida’s Latino and Hispanic residents,” the groups said in advance of a conference call with Florida reporters.

Florida: Most Former Felons Not Given Back Civil Rights | South Florida Times

Changes under Republican Gov. Rick Scott are making it more difficult for Florida’s former felons to get their voting rights restored, which critics say has suppressed the minority vote and hurt Democratic candidates. As one of his first actions after taking office in 2011, Scott, as chairman of the Florida Board of Executive Clemency, undid automatic restoration of voting rights for nonviolent ex-offenders that previous Gov. Charlie Crist helped adopt in 2007. Since then, the number of former felons who have had their voting rights restored has slowed to a trickle, even compared with the year before Crist and the clemency board helped make the process easier.

Florida: Browning on election bill provisions: “bad public policy” | Palm Beach Post

Former Secretary of State Kurt Browning called a provision included in the Senate’s election package yesterday allowing the secretary of state to dock election supervisors pay and essentially put them on probation “bad public policy.” Browning served more than two decades as the Pasco County supervisor of elections before going to work for Gov. Charlie Crist as secretary of state in 2006. Browning stepped down from the post for the second time last year and was elected Pasco County schools superintendent in November. Browning was in the Capitol on Wednesday for school superintendents’ meeting with his one-time boss, Gov. Rick Scott.

Florida: Elections reform bill: Senate poised to pass elections reform bill | Orlando Sentinel

The Florida Senate is poised to pass an election reform inspired by last year’s criticized elections, but will likely do so without the votes of minority-party Democrats who object the fix doesn’t completely solve all the problems that led to long lines and late vote counts. Though there are some difference between the House and Senate bills (SB 600/HB 7013), both would give elections supervisors discretion to hold between eight and 14 days or early voting, and allow early voting on the Sunday before a general election.

Florida: Senate Republicans crack down on foreign-language interpreters for voting | Miami Herald

Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old North Miami voter who became a symbol of Florida’s elections woes, could again find it tough to cast a ballot now that the Republican-controlled state Senate voted Tuesday to keep a crack down on foreign-language interpreters at the polls. The Senate maintained the last-minute measure on what appeared to be a party-line voice vote while debating a bill designed to reverse the effects of an election law that helped create long lines and suppress the vote in 2012. On Election Day at Victor’s polling station, there weren’t enough interpreters for the Creole-speaking native of Haiti and hundreds like her. Turnout was heavy. And lines lasted for hours — partly due to a slew of proposed state Constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by the Florida Legislature.

Florida: Proposed voting changes stoke new concerns | Tampa Bay Times

Say the words “fraud,” “Miami” and “grand jury” in the same breath, and you’re going to get people’s attention in Tallahassee. Especially when the subject is voting. Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez Rundle wants the Legislature to reinstate an old Florida law requiring voters to obtain a witness signature from someone 18 or older in order to cast an absentee ballot. It’s one of 23 recommendations from a Dade grand jury that investigated the practice of absentee ballot brokering in last year’s primary election. The witness requirement, enacted after a 1998 absentee voting scandal in Miami, was wiped off the books in 2004. Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, revives the requirement in SB 600, saying the prosecutor lobbied him to do so. (Witnesses’ signatures would not have to be verified.)

Florida: Election Fix Bill Could Disenfranchise 100,000 Voters | Sunshine State News

After Florida once again surfaced as an error-ridden quagmire at the polls during the last presidential election, lawmakers crafted legislation attempting to end its starring role as late-night talk-show fodder. Now, however, a controversial proposal within the bill has critics crying foul and could force Florida legislators to take a second look. The Senate Rules Committee approved the elections bill on a 10-5 party line vote last week. It was the final committee stop for SB 600 before going to the Senate floor.

Florida: Florida leads in denying ex-felons voting rights | Miami Herald

Changes under Republican Gov. Rick Scott are making it more difficult for Florida’s former felons to get their voting rights restored, which critics say has suppressed the minority vote and hurt Democratic candidates. As one of his first actions after taking office in 2011, Scott, as chairman of the Florida Board of Executive Clemency, undid automatic restoration of voting rights for nonviolent ex-offenders that previous Gov. Charlie Crist helped adopt in 2007. Since then, the number of former felons who have had their voting rights restored has slowed to a trickle, even compared with the year before Crist and the clemency board helped make the process easier. Civil liberties activists say Florida’s rights restoration rules are the most restrictive in the nation and have the effect, if not the intent, of suppressing the minority vote. A disproportionate number of black Floridians are convicted felons – 16.5 percent of Floridians are black, yet black inmates make up 31.5 percent of the state’s prison population – meaning a higher percentage of African-Americans don’t have the right to vote after completing their sentences. And black voters tend to support Democrats. Exit polls show only one in 10 supported Scott in the 2010 election.

Florida: Senate holds firm on witnessing absentee ballots; Pasco elections chief calls it ‘a recipe for disaster’ | Tampa Bay Times

The Senate Rules Committee approved an elections bill Tuesday on a 10-5 party-line vote, setting the stage for floor action on one of the major pieces of legislation in the 2013 session. The bill (SB 600), sponsored by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, expands early voting sites and gives election supervisors the discretion to offer 14 days of early voting, including the Sunday before the election. The minimum amount of early voting is eight hours over eight days, including the Sunday nine days before Election Day. Latvala’s bill drew a rating of “B” from the League of Women Voters of Florida, whose president, Deirdre MacNab, called the bill “strong.” The league said the bill would be better if it repealed the 2011 requirement that voters who move from one county to another cast provisional ballots.

Florida: Elections bills set for Senate debate | The Florida Current

Gov. Rick Scott’s opposition to raising the $500 cap on political contributions to candidates will probably sink campaign-finance reform for the 2013 session, the Senate sponsor of a new elections package said Tuesday. The Senate Rules Committee cleared the two biggest political bills of the year for floor action, voting along party lines for a bill intended to fix the long lines and balloting problems that haunted Florida’s elections in November and approving a plan to abolish the shadowy “committees of continuous existence” that candidates can use as political slush funds. But each bill picked up potentially troublesome provisions that will be hard to work out in the final three weeks of the session. Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, sponsored both bills. In March, the House OK’d a finance package raising the $500 cap on contributions to $5,000 per donor in statewide races and Supreme Court retention votes, and $3,000 for district and county races. The Senate bill initially proposed a $3,000 cap but the Rules Committee adopted an amendment lowering the maximum to $500 in all races — the same as it is now. The governor said recently he opposes raising the limit, which was set in 1992.

Florida: Fear, loathing and partisanship in Senate on elections bill | Tampa Bay Times

A series of partisan clashes on an early voting bill Tuesday brought a stern lecture from Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, the point man on the legislation, who said he was “taking it a little bit personal.” He leveled a volley of criticism at Sen. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, leader of the Senate’s 14 Democrats, who tried in vain to change the bill to Democrats’ liking. Latvala’s bill seeks to address the chaos and long lines at the polls last fall, but Democrats say it doesn’t go far enough. Case in point: The bill (SB 600) mandates at least eight days of early voting for eight hours every day. Election supervisors can expand that to 14 days for 12 hours a day, including the Sunday before the election, but it’s optional, as supervisors wanted, and not required. Smith offered a batch of amendments that failed on 5-3 votes in the Senate Community Affairs Committee, including allowing early voting at any precinct and mandatory 14 days of early voting including the Sunday before the election. Smith said the bill gives county elections officials too much discretion so that it will lead to varying early voting schedules. “It’s almost comical,” Smith said.

Florida: Miami’s Voter Fraud Is Only the Beginning of Election Hacking | The Atlantic Wire

Authorities have confirmed tor the first time ever, that hackers attempted and almost succeeded at rigging a Miami primary vote, uncovering underlying security issues with the online voting systems of the future. In the Miami-Dade primary election last August, requests for over 2,500 phantom absentee ballots flooded the Miami Dade voter registration site, a phenomenon which a grand jury has now confirmed came from hackers, reports MSNBC’s Gil Aegerter. Because it had some hallmarks of trickery, the election department’s software was able to halt the scheme before it actually affected the election. But, the scarier part is how easy the hack was to perform, as theMiami Herald‘s Patricia Mazzei explains. With a tiny bit more skill, this person could have bypassed the trigger that caught the hack. “And that, of course, is the most frightening thing: that any moderately or even marginally skilled programmer could have done this,” Steven Rambam, who reviewed the IP addresses associated with this hack told Mazzei. So, yeah, this is just the beginning.

Florida: Partisan divisions return as Senate panel OKs voting bill | Miami Herald

It was bound to end sooner or later, and it did on Monday. The bipartisan cooperation that marked early work on an elections bill vanished as Democrats on the Senate Ethics & Elections Committee repeatedly forced roll-call votes on amendments the Republican majority opposed. The GOP prevailed on a series of 8-5 votes and on final passage of the bill (SB 600), sponsored by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, the panel’s chairman. A visibly peeved Latvala at one point said he would consider giving way on a point the Democrats wanted, “but not now,” he said, and he quickly left the hearing without speaking to reporters. With other Republicans rallying around Latvala, the GOP-crafted bill has two major provisions that worry election supervisors: a requirement that anyone voting absentee must have an adult witness their signature, and a requirement that anyone who wants an absentee ballot mailed to an address other than their voting address must fill out an affidavit.

Florida: Democracy with headaches: Rush of last-minute absentee ballots challenges election officials | Palm Beach Post

At 6 p.m. on Tuesday, an hour before the polls closed, two supporters of Riviera Beach mayoral candidate Bishop Thomas Masters delivered 300 absentee ballots to the Supervisor of Elections Office. The ballots, collected from city residents, gave Masters enough of a lead to avoid a runoff but they also raised the ire of Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, who presides over the time-consuming process of manually opening each envelope, comparing the signature on the absentee ballot to the voter’s registration and then tallying the vote. Most absentee ballots arrive by mail or are delivered to the supervisor’s office at least a day before the 7 p.m. deadline on election night — when the polls close. That gives Bucher and her staff time to tally the absentee ballots before machines begin counting ballots cast that day at the polls. But when absentee ballots come in at virtually the last minute, as they did Tuesday, ballot counting stalls and it takes longer to get results in all races.

Florida: Legislature tries fixing loophole preventing some servicemembers from voting | wtsp.com

Following a 10 News Investigators report that drew national headlines, lawmakers in the state capital are trying to close a legal loophole that prevented dozens of active servicemembers from casting votes last fall. In November, 10 News reported how routine maintenance of the voting rolls was removing servicemembers overseas. Because many of the voters hadn’t cast a ballot or been in contact with supervisor of elections offices in four years, they were un-enrolled, as required by the law, which is designed to prevent voter fraud. But if a military veteran requests a mail ballot prior to the election and discovers he or she has been removed from the rolls, the person is allowed to re-enroll up to five days before election day.

Florida: House passes election overhaul bill | HeraldTribune.com

The Florida House on Tuesday voted – once again – to overhaul the state’s elections law, this time by partly undoing changes from 2011 that were blamed for confusion and long lines at the polls in the last election. On the first day of the annual legislative session, House members approved 118-1 a bill (HB 7013) that increases the permitted days of early voting from eight to 14. It allows early-voting polling places at more kinds of sites, like fairgrounds, civic centers and convention centers. And it sets a 75-word limit on proposed initial ballot summaries to constitutional amendments. The bill also restores the possibility of early voting on the Sunday before Election Day, when blacks often vote after church in a tradition known as “souls to the polls.”

Florida: The real GOP voter fraud: Employees admit forging voter registration forms | MSNBC

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement revealed Tuesday that two employees of a company hired by the Republican Party of Florida to register voters admitted they committed fraud during the 2012 election season. The two former employees of Strategic Allied Consulting are facing third degree felony charges after admitting that they submitted dozens of forged voter registration applications last fall ahead of the 2012 election. The employees, Rebekah Joy Paul and Christian Davis Price, told investigators they forged forms in order to meet the required number of applications and receive payment. Paul also said that her bosses at Strategic Allied instructed her to not register Democrats, although a lawyer for the company denies that allegation.

Florida: State finds evidence of voter registration fraud | Daytona Beach News-Journal

Two employees of a company once aligned with the Republican Party of Florida admitted to law-enforcement authorities that they forged voter registration forms. It’s the first result in a far-reaching voter fraud investigation that was launched last fall – and initiated at the urging of the party after election supervisors started flagging questionable applications. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported Tuesday that the two ex-employees were charged with a third degree felony. But prosecutors back in January decided to place both of them on probation because neither has a criminal history. Strategic Allied Consulting was hired by Republicans to do voter registration drives in Florida and other states. But last fall, the state party fired the company and took the additional step of filing an election fraud complaint against the company with state officials.

Florida: Democrats Push for (at Least) 14-Day, One-Size-Fits-All Early Voting | Sunshine State News

It doesn’t matter how many supervisors of elections complain that their small Florida counties don’t need 14 days of early voting and can’t pay for them, 14 days should be the law say Senate Democrats. “What’s the price of democracy?” asks Senate Minority Leader Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale. Senate Dems met with the capital press Monday to lobby for seven steps they want to see in the final elections bill. Never mind that the Republican-controlled Legislature is moving to change the state’s election law to prevent the long lines of last November, Democrats say the GOP proposal doesn’t go far enough.

Florida: No legislative push so far to crack down on election supervisors | TCPalm.com

So far, lawmakers tasked with fixing Florida’s elections issues have focused on long lines and wait times, not the administrative and equipment trip-ups that plagued counties like St. Lucie. The Legislature kicks off its two-month lawmaking marathon Tuesday, but there’s still no official push to let the state crack down harder on elections supervisors who bungle their duties. The top lawmaker delving into elections reform, Sen. Jack Latvala, has stressed the idea does warrant discussion. “I do think this is an issue that we’re going to want to debate in this committee as we put this bill together,” Latvala, a Clearwater Republican, told the Ethics and Elections Committee he chairs on Feb. 5. But Sen. President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, stressed that it’s not a top concern. “I don’t know that giving the governor or the state more authority to remove someone takes the place of having someone who can actually do the job,” Gaetz said.

Florida: Lawmakers may restore two weeks of early voting | ABC

Florida’s election troubles last November are prompting state lawmakers to consider changing the state’s election laws this spring, but critics say the current proposals don’t go far enough. On Thursday, a group of African-American leaders accused Republican state leaders of enacting election changes in 2011 that deliberately tried to keep certain voters from casting ballots. They said the reforms caused long lines at polling places and made it harder for people to vote. Now the Legislature is moving to undo some of those changes. The main election reform bills currently under consideration would restore 14 days of early voting, limit ballot summaries from the Legislature and allow counties to open more early voting sites.

Florida: Florida foils web-based voter fraud plot, but next attempt could be more elusive | Fox News

A Florida case could signal the wave of the future in voter fraud. South Florida election officials have reportedly foiled a plot to fraudulently apply online for thousands of absentee ballots in three 2012 primaries, but the masterminds remain at large amid concern that they could be successful the next time around by making minor adjustments. Officials in the state’s Miami-Dade region said they blocked the effort to get 2,552 absentee ballots in three August primaries because the requests rolled in just minutes apart on July 7, 2012, according to The Miami Herald, which conducted its own investigation. A six-month grand jury probe found the requests were made under the cover of international Internet provider addresses and were limited to three races — a congressional race in which the hackers tried to request absentee ballots for Democratic voters and two state legislative races in which they tried to get ballots for Republican voters.

Florida: The case of the phantom ballots: an electoral whodunit | Miami Herald

The first phantom absentee ballot request hit the Miami-Dade elections website at 9:11 p.m. Saturday, July 7. The next one came at 9:14. Then 9:17. 9:22. 9:24. 9:25. Within 2½ weeks, 2,552 online requests arrived from voters who had not applied for absentee ballots. They streamed in much too quickly for real people to be filling them out. They originated from only a handful of Internet Protocol addresses. And they were not random. It had all the appearances of a political dirty trick, a high-tech effort by an unknown hacker to sway three key Aug. 14 primary elections, a Miami Herald investigation has found. The plot failed. The elections department’s software flagged the requests as suspicious. The ballots weren’t sent out. But who was behind it? And next time, would a more skilled hacker be able to rig an election?

Florida: Miami-Dade has authority to enact absentee ballot law, judge rules | Miami Herald

In its effort to crack down on voter fraud, Miami-Dade County has the authority to limit how many absentee ballots a voter can possess, a judge ruled Friday. The ruling came in the case of Sergio “El Tio” Robaina, whose lawyers had challenged a county ordinance that makes it a misdemeanor to collect multiple absentee ballots. Prosecutors say Robaina, 74, illegally collected absentee ballots and filled out two against the wishes of two voters, one of them a woman with dementia. He faces two felony counts of voter fraud and two misdemeanor counts of illegally possessing absentee ballots. The Miami-Dade County Commission, worried about the perception of election fraud, passed the ordinance two years ago. A person may turn in only two absentee ballots in addition to their own: one belonging to an immediate family member and another belonging to a voter who has signed a sworn statement designating that person as responsible.

Florida: House gives Democrats minimum number of early voting hours | Tampa Bay Times

A House committee gave Democrats a victory in the hard-fought effort to find a fix to the long lines at the polls that embarrassed the state during the last election. The House Approriations Committee unanimously passed a bill to extend early voting hours, provide voters with more polling places for early voting and give elections officials more flexibility in setting the early voting sites. The measure, which restores 14 days of early voting and imposes a maximum of 168 hours, restores many of the changes made in 2011. Republican lawmakers pushed legislation that year that limited elections supervisors to eight days of early voting and a maximum of 96 hours, sparking the waiting lines and delayed results that gave Florida another Election Day black eye. But the Republican-controlled committee agreed with Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, and passed his amendment that to set a floor of 64 hours of early voting, rather than the 48 hours the original proposal would have allowed. Other Democrats were not as successful.

Florida: Supreme Court to weigh constitutionality of voting rights protection | Tallahassee Democrat

Iron-fisted enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act transformed American politics, especially in the South, by making sure minorities had a clear path to the ballot box and an equal shot at public service. Forty-eight years later, after the re-election of an African-American president, the heart of that law is on trial. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Feb. 27 in a case that is sure to ignite a national debate over how far the country has progressed on racial issues and whether minority voters still need extra protection. Shelby County, Ala., opposed by the Justice Department and civil rights groups, wants two key sections of the Voting Rights Act declared unconstitutional. Section 5 bars election officials in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination from changing their voting procedures unless they first prove the changes won’t hurt minorities. Section 4b uses a formula to determine which states, counties and municipalities are subject to Section 5. Though they are not challenging the law, five Florida counties — Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe — are covered by the Voting Rights Act.

Florida: State House Panel Approves Bill To Expand Early Voting Days | CBS Miami

While a proposal to expand the number of early voting days and limit the length of a ballot passed in a House subcommittee on Wednesday, Democrats said it will need change if it is to garner bipartisan support. The measure (PCB EES 13-01) would allow supervisors to increase the number of early-voting days to 14, though they could remain at the current standard of eight. It would also limit some ballot summaries for legislatively-sponsored constitutional amendments to 75 words, a standard that already applies to citizen initiatives. However, if the Legislature approved more than one summary for an amendment as a fallback to deal with court challenges, only the first would be subject to the 75-world limit. And if the attorney general were required to rewrite a flawed ballot summary, that revision would also not fall under the new rules.