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.

Florida: Federal election commission may take back seat to Florida reforms | OrlandoSentinel.com

Voting problems are nothing new. But as President Barack Obama showed Tuesday night, so are proposed solutions. In announcing his plan to create a new commission to “fix” long voting lines, Obama was mirroring similar efforts that followed the razor-thin — and infamously controversial — 2000 election. But unlike that response – Congress created the Election Assistance Commission that over the next decade doled out more than $3.2 billion to help states buy voting equipment, recruit poll workers and improve record keeping – the Obama White House has yet to say much about who’ll be named to the new commission or what they’ll be asked to do. Meanwhile, the 2002 commission is foundering, virtually inactive and unfunded. “There is nothing they are doing that is sufficient enough to justify their existence,” said U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., a longtime critic. “It’s the perfect example of what [former president] Ronald Reagan said — that the closest thing to eternal life on this Earth was a government program.” That may leave Florida voters, tens of thousands of whom waited up to seven hours to vote on Nov. 6, waiting to see if the lines they faced will become a serious federal issue or just more political fodder. At this point, it seems far more likely that the first response will come from the Florida Legislature.

Florida: League of Women Voters Wants More Election Changes than Proposed | Sunshine State News

Election reforms proposed by Secretary of State Ken Detzner are an “encouraging” first step, the League of Women Voters of Florida announced Wednesday while putting a number of their own suggestions before legislators. “The League of Women Voters of Florida does not believe that the secretary’s recommendations alone are sufficient to enable Florida to move past the problems that have plagued our democratic process and which were clearly apparent in the most recent general election,” wrote League President Deirdre Macnab to Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, who chairs the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee.

Florida: Emails raise questions about Florida redistricting | Miami Herald

New documents are raising questions about whether Florida legislators ignored rules intended to prevent political parties and incumbents from influencing the once-a-decade process of redistricting. Emails show that top Republican Party of Florida officials met in late 2010 to “brainstorm” redistricting with political consultants and legislative employees involved in drawing new districts for Congress and the Legislature. That was just a few weeks after voters overwhelmingly adopted the “Fair Districts” constitutional amendments that set new standards for redistricting and were intended to remove partisanship from the politically charged job of creating new maps. The Associated Press requested the documents after they were presented in a court hearing last week. Several groups have filed lawsuits seeking to have a court throw out the maps eventually adopted for both Congress and the Florida Senate.

Florida: GOP proposal: Give Gov. Scott power to remove county election supervisors if problems arise | Palm Beach Post

Targeting five counties that saw the worst problems during the 2012 elections, Florida legislators are considering giving Gov. Rick Scott and his administration broader power to remove elections supervisors or put them on probation. Some critics say the move is an attempt to scapegoat supervisors for long lines caused mainly by legislators, who shortened early voting and lengthened the ballot with 11 proposed constitutional amendments. The proposal came from Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a Miami Republican who sponsored the 2011 election bill (HB 1355), signed into law by Scott, that critics say made voting more arduous last year. Diaz de la Portilla’s latest measure would require supervisors to issue reports to the Florida secretary of state three months before an election, attesting to their readiness.

Florida: Ken Detzner: Early Voting Flexibility will Help Restore Voter Confidence | Sunshine State News

Florida supervisors need more flexibility in the days and locations they can set up elections, highlights the message from Secretary of State Ken Detzner on a vast number of changes needed to improve voting in Florida. Certain unnamed supervisors failed — Detzner charged in his review of the 2012 contest — to “prepare effectively and it reflected poorly on the entire state.” ‘One county or precinct that does not properly serve its voters does a disservice for the entire state and has the potential to cloud the positive steps taken by the rest of the state to conduct an accessible and efficient election,” Detzner stated without making any recommendation on any officeholder. “Supervisors of elections and county commissions must take it upon themselves to oversee elections through responsible leadership and efficient administration.”

Florida: State Department issues elections recommendations | Palm Beach Post

A possibly longer early voting period, more kinds of early voting sites and limiting the length of constitutional questions placed on the ballot by the Legislature are among Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s recommendations to lawmakers released today. Detzner’s suggestions, based on conversations with supervisors of elections in what he called “under-performing” counties including Palm Beach, dovetail with what the supervisors are requesting.

Florida: Long voting lines spark top election official’s recommendations | CNN

The long lines at Florida polling stations on November 6 have led the state’s top election official to recommend expanded early voting and shorter ballots. The suggestions, issued Monday by Secretary of State Ken Detzner, come after harsh criticism of Florida’s voting system, which was the subject of national attention even before long lines and reporting delays came to light after Election Day. While Detzner’s report indicated the 2012 general election “was a fair election as a whole,” the process “should be improved upon. The area for improvement most commonly mentioned was the length of lines at polling places, which were believed to have been caused by the record number of voters, a shortened early voting schedule, inadequate voting locations and a long ballot,” the report read.

Florida: Pasco County elections supervisor supports change | TBO.com

When Pasco Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley first accepted chairmanship of a committee tasked with reviewing state voting laws, he “thought it would be a fairly low-key” assignment. Then the 2012 general election garnered media coverage over long delays in the Florida vote count, Corley said. The Pasco vote tally went smoothly, but a handful of larger counties experienced snags. “I’ve been a busy boy,” Corley said. He has been leading the Florida State Association of Supervisor of Elections committee that came up with suggestions for changing state elections laws. Corley is the association’s secretary.

Florida: Panel of Both Major Parties Propose Voting Fixes For Upcoming Legislative Session | TheLedger.com

Leaders in both major political parties agree changes must be made to Florida’s election laws, but they are far apart on how to fix the problems and who’s to blame for issues that arose in the 2012 election. A panel of Republicans and Democrats from the Legislature and from county supervisor of elections offices agreed this week that there must be longer periods for early voting and shorter amendments on ballots. They also said proposed fixes will be offered in the upcoming 2013 session of the Florida Legislature, which starts March 5. The panel was part of a pre-legislative seminar sponsored by The Associated Press, and while there was agreement that more days and more locations are needed for early voting, there was no agreement on who necessitated those changes.

Florida: Report on Long Lines, Other Election Problems May Miss Deadline | Sunshine State News

County elections supervisors may have to wait another week before they find out how the state’s top election official viewed their handling of the 2012 election. The anticipated findings and recommendations that will be the product of a review by officials from the Division of Elections, including a tour by Secretary of State Ken Detzner of the county supervisor offices deemed the most troubled, may not be ready until after Detzner’s Feb. 1 deadline, a spokesman for Detzner stated. “It is not completed yet, but I think it’s likely to be finished by sometime next week,” Detzner’s spokesman, Chris Cate, replied in an email on Monday. Detzner’s report, called for by Gov. Rick Scott, is also expected to focus on changes that need to be made, particularly at the Central and South Florida counties, where much of the media attention was focused on long, slow lines and delayed results.

Florida: House Speaker Weatherford opposed to GOP Electoral College plans | Tampa Bay Times

Republicans in five states, notably Virginia, have discussed changing the way they award Electoral College votes in presidential races by apportioning them on each congressional district, rather than thestate’s popular vote. The reason: Republican Mitt Romney would have won the presidency despite losing the popular vote in states where the GOP controls the legislatures: Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. But Florida, the largest swing state, won’t go along with changing the Electoral College if Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford has any say (and he has a major say).

Florida: Voters weigh in on Governor’s early voting flip | www.wokv.com

Governor Rick Scott says he wants to look at reforming early voting laws to allow for more days, hours, and shorter ballots.  This comes just a couple years after he signed into law the very bill that cut down early voting days and hours. We spoke to African-American voters at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast on Friday and everyone said they were at the very least glad Governor Scott is going to review the early voting laws, but not everyone was convinced he’s doing it for the right reasons. “It’s not surprising.  I mean, in politics you have people that flip-flop back and forth all the time.  It’s just when they need a vote, who’s going to support them in what they need to say at the moment is honestly how I feel…it’s unfortunate that all this happened at such a time where we needed early voting.

Florida: Frustrated voters: 201,000 didn’t vote because of long lines | Orlando Sentinel

The long Election Day lines around Florida may have turned away more than 200,000 frustrated would-be voters who gave up and went home before they cast ballots — or else saw the lines and elected not to join them. Analyzing data compiled by the Orlando Sentinel, Ohio State University professor Theodore Allen estimated last week that at least 201,000 voters likely gave up in frustration on Nov. 6, based on research Allen has been doing on voter behavior. His preliminary conclusion was based on the Sentinel’s analysis of voter patterns and precinct-closing times in Florida’s 25 largest counties, home to 86 percent of the state’s 11.9 million registered voters. “My gut is telling me that the real number [of voters] deterred is likely higher,” Allen said. “You make people wait longer, they are less likely to vote.”

Florida: Governor Backs Changes in Election Law | NYTimes.com

Two months after Florida was denounced for its chaotic election process, Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday endorsed three major changes proposed by the state’s election supervisors. Governor Scott said he would support increasing the number of early voting days, including adding back the Sunday before Election Day, widening the range of polling places and reducing the length of ballots. In 2011, the Republican-controlled Legislature changed Florida’s election law by shortening the number of early voting days and hours and tightening other election rules, including voter registration. Mr. Scott, a Republican, signed the bill, despite criticism from Democrats and voter and civil rights groups who said Republicans simply wanted to reduce the number of Democrats voting. Election supervisors warned at the time that truncated early voting would lead to long lines and pose other hurdles. They were proved right. Voters in some counties and precincts waited in maddening lines, both during early voting and on Election Day. Some voters in Miami-Dade County cast their ballots after the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, had conceded the race. Recently the governor has distanced himself from the 2011 election law. He told the state’s legislative black caucus this week that the election law was not his and that he had nothing to do with passing the bill.

Florida: Scott does about-face on early voting | News-Journal

Gov. Rick Scott – who slashed early voting from 14 to 8 days, then defended the decision in court – said Thursday he thinks returning to 14 early-voting days will help ease long lines and delays in counting ballots that once again made the rest of the country question whether Florida knows how to run an election. The Republican governor also wants more early-voting sites and thinks ballots should be shorter. The 2012 ballot was unusually long after the Republican-dominated Legislature crammed 11 proposed constitutional amendments onto it and didn’t stick to the 75-word ballot summary that citizens groups must adhere to when placing a question on the ballot by petition. “We need shorter ballots. We need more early voting days, which should include an option of the Sunday before Election Day. And, we need more early voting locations,” Scott said in his statement.

Florida: Don’t blame me for election law, Rick Scott tells black lawmakers | Tampa Bay Times

Facing a highly critical group of black legislators, Gov. Rick Scott largely defended his record Tuesday but distanced himself from a controversial election law that led to fewer early-voting days and long lines. Scott agreed with black lawmakers that the 2011 election law contributed to the chaos at the polls in November, including long lines all over the state and up to seven-hour waits in Miami-Dade. But Scott, who is seeking re-election in 2014, said it was largely a decision of the Legislature. “It was not my bill,” Scott said. “We’ve got to make changes, I agree. … The Legislature passed it. I didn’t have anything to do with passing it.” Scott signed the bill into law in 2011. His administration spent more than $500,000 in legal fees in a largely successful defense of the law, though a federal judge struck down new restrictions on groups that register voters.

Florida: Officials want shorter ballot, more early voting | Pensacola News Journal

Long voting lines in November that again put Florida under national scrutiny could be eased in future elections if lawmakers restore the early voting days they cut and stop putting so many long constitutional amendment proposals on the ballot, a Senate committee heard Monday. A panel of nine election supervisors representing counties around the state told the committee that they should have the flexibility to hold at least eight and up to 14 days of early voting, and to be allowed more flexibility in choosing early voting sites. They also said the 11 long questions the Republican-dominated Legislature jammed onto the ballot increased voting time and required more time to scan the multi-paged ballots. “A shorter ballot reduces voting times and election costs. We must not just look at the number of words, but the number of amendments,” Duval County elections supervisor Jerry Holland said.

Florida: County Supervisor of Elections: Private voting equipment companies should be held more responsible for election machine mishaps | TCPalm.com

St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections Gertrude Walker told state lawmakers Monday that private voting equipment companies should be held more responsible for their role in election mishaps. Speaking to the Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections, Walker said many of the vote-counting issues experienced during St. Lucie’s election wouldn’t have occurred if the right memory cards were made available. “I believe, as (Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections) Susan Bucher stated earlier, that voting equipment companies should be held accountable for the work that they do in this state, if they are certified vendors,” Walker said. Bucher’s Palm Beach County office had its share of vendor troubles. Workers had to recopy more than 30,000 ballots after a vendor misprinted the ballot.

Florida: Supervisors blame lawmakers for long Election Day lines | OrlandoSentinel.com

Florida election supervisors taking heat for last fall’s elections woes pointed the finger Monday at two sources of confusion and angst that were outside of their control — the length of last fall’s ballot and limits on early voting days and locations. Last month, Secretary of State Ken Detzner blamed Florida’s long lines and delay in calling a presidential winner on five “underperforming” county elections offices in Broward, Lee, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties. The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee took testimony under oath Monday from four of those five county supervisors. They argued that much of the blame fell on a historically long list of 11 constitutional amendments that slowed lines, and a bottleneck of voters brought about by reducing early voting days from 14 to 8.

Florida: Some lawmakers push to make voter registration automatic | BayNews9

In the way of higher-than-usual turnout for November’s election, advocates say even more people would have turned out if registering to vote were easier. Voting is an essential American right, but to exercise it, Americans have to sign up. The process takes a couple of minutes, but in Florida, hundreds of thousands of people haven’t registered. That would change under a new Democratic bill, which says anyone who is eligible to vote and has a driver’s license would be automatically registered.

Florida: Election supervisors want up to 14 early voting days | Tampa Bay Times

Hoping to avert future voting meltdowns, Florida election supervisors will urge the Legislature to restore up to 14 days of early voting and expand voting locations. They also want lawmakers to limit legislatively backed constitutional amendments to 75 words on the ballot, a requirement for citizen amendments. Lawmakers’ insistence on publishing the full text of several ballot questions, totaling more than 3,000 words, contributed to the longest ballot in Florida history and was a big factor in bottlenecks at the polls last fall.

Florida: Florida’s ballot problem | Herald Tribune

When Gov. Rick Scott recently listed ways he thinks Florida could reduce voting difficulties and long polling lines, he drew the most attention for a change of course in suggesting that more early voting might help. But another idea Scott raised may have more far-reaching implications for public policy in Florida, and might even be more difficult to accomplish than the politically volatile suggestion about early voting. The 2012 ballot was several pages in many places, most notably in Miami where voters had to wade through 12 pages because of a number of local issues. It was lengthened by legislators, who put 11 constitutional amendment questions on it, some of them written out in full. “In Miami-Dade County, the ballot read like the book of Leviticus – though not as interesting,” said Senate President Don Gaetz. In short, “it was just too long,” Scott said late last year on CNN.

Florida: Lawmakers file bills to reinstate early voting Sunday before Election Day | Bradenton Herald

In response to the long lines that plagued South Florida polls, two Miami lawmakers have filed legislation to reinstate early voting the Sunday before Election Day. The proposals by Republican Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla and Democratic Sen. Gwen Margolis follow a recommendation from a Miami-Dade advisory group examining what went wrong in the November presidential election. The group made additional suggestions Monday, including allowing voters to return absentee ballots in person at their polling places on Election Day, and setting a goal for how long the average voter should wait in line at the polls.

Florida: ‘Obvious’ Voting Problem, The Long Ballot, May Have No Easy Fix | WLRN

When Gov. Rick Scott recently listed ways he thinks Florida could reduce voting difficulties and long polling lines, he drew the most attention for a change of course in suggesting that more early voting might help. The 2012 ballot was several pages in many places, most notably in Miami where voters had to wade through 12 pages because of a number of local issues. It was lengthened by legislators, who put 11 constitutional amendment questions on it, some of them written out in full. “In Miami-Dade County, the ballot read like the book of Leviticus – though not as interesting,” said Senate President Don Gaetz. In short, “it was just too long,” Scott said late last year on CNN.

Florida: A Growing Stack Of Early Voting Bills | WLRN

Republican  State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla of Miami was an early and enthusiastic supporter of cutting back Florida’s early voting period from 14 to 8 days in 2011. He called it a “voter friendly” bill that would save money. “Generally, early voting in Miami-Dade County has not been very efficient, ” Diaz de la Portilla said at the time. “What you see more often than not is that there is a trickle of two or three people a day at a very high cost to keep those public libraries and polls open. … We felt it was an efficiency measure.” But now that Floridians have made it painfully clear they prefer the inefficient trickle to the lengthy waits in long lines they endured on election day, de la Portilla has filed a bill to restore some of the early voting time that he voted to take away two years ago.

Florida: St. Lucie County Election Supervisor Responds To Report | WPTV

After a chaotic election experience that led to cries of incompetence, St. Lucie County’s longtime elections supervisor talked about what went wrong in November, and what she plans to do to make things right in the future.  Gertrude Walker says this past election was full of new experiences. “We never had a multi-ballot election, that was another twist,” Walker said Monday. But it was old equipment Walker claimed was at the heart of many of the problems her office faced on Election Day.