The fate of about 1.4 million people will be at stake in November as Florida voters decide whether most convicted felons should have the right to vote. With the election less than four months away, supporters are organizing a statewide campaign to win voter approval of Amendment 4, which got on the ballot after an…
Florida elections officials were wrong to block on-campus early voting sites in Gainesville and Tallahassee, lawyers for the League of Women Voters of Florida told a federal judge Monday.
But attorneys representing the state argued there was no indication that college students — or anyone else — would have voting rights abridged due to an advisory opinion under scrutiny in the federal lawsuit filed this year by the League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker gave no indication how he would rule after hearing nearly three hours of arguments Monday in the case, which involves the state’s position about early voting locations at the University of Florida and Florida State University.
Amid ongoing concern of new interference in Florida’s elections, tensions persist between counties and Gov. Rick Scott’s administration over how to use federal election security money. The feds created a $380 million program for states to fortify their voting systems against the threat of cyber attacks. Florida, a battleground state where Russians tried and failed to penetrate systems in 2016, remains an obvious target. Now, the latest: Florida’s Division of Elections has told counties that the state’s $19 million share of new federal voting security money cannot be spent to reimburse counties for expenses already made. Some counties acted on their own because the state applied for the money later than other states did.
Florida’s election supervisors are feeling the squeeze of a short deadline to submit an application for $19 million in federal cybersecurity funding. The applications are due to the Department of State by next Wednesday. Leon County’s supervisor Mark Earley remembers the 2004 rush to buy electronic voting machines – which have mostly been phased out. He says this time around the scenario is different. Earley believes threats to cybersecurity are “very real.” But, he sees some similarities in the way spending is being rushed along. “The rush to spend the money back then caused some poor decisions,” Earley said. “We are somewhat faced with a rush to spend the money currently.” And, Earley says, if the money isn’t fully spent by the general election, it’s not clear if it will be available going forward.
A federal judge has set a hearing for this month in a case by university students seeking to overturn the state’s ban on early voting at public college campuses. Mark Walker, now chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, will consider their motion for a “preliminary injunction to prevent Secretary of State Ken Detzner from enforcing” the ban. That’s at 9 a.m. July 16, dockets accessed Thursday show. The hearing will be held in the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Tallahassee. A reply to a motion to dismiss also is due this Friday, dockets show.
Florida election supervisors should take advantage of help from the Department of Homeland Security to make systems more secure, Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson wrote in a letter Monday. “County election boards should not be expected to stand alone against a hostile foreign government,” the lawmakers said in recommending “a wide range of services” from DHS to strengthen security. “We encourage you in the strongest terms to take advantage of those resources, and to let us know about your experience with DHS and FBI.”
County elections officials and Gov. Rick Scott’s administration are at odds again, this time over new state requirements on how millions of dollars in cyber-security money can be spent across the state. Florida was awarded $19.2 million from the feds in March, and most of the money is to help counties fortify their voting equipment against the ever-present threat of cyber-attacks from Russia and elsewhere, as they plan primary and general elections. First, counties accused the state of slow-walking an application for federal help. Scott had to personally intervene in May and direct Secretary of State Ken Detzner to seek the money.
With arguments at a federal appeals court little more than a month away, attorneys for nine felons filed a 72-page brief Thursday urging the judges to find that Florida’s system of restoring felons’ voting rights is unconstitutional. The brief asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker that struck down the system. Arguments are scheduled July 25 at the appeals court in Atlanta. The restoration of felon rights has long been a controversial legal and political issue in Florida, and Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi changed the system after they took office in 2011 to effectively make restoration harder. Scott, Bondi, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis serve as the state’s clemency board and make decisions about restoration.
Two Florida counties are asking a court to throw an amendment off the November ballot that asks voters around the state to overrule decisions made by their local voters on which of their officials should be elected. In separate lawsuits filed this month in Leon County Circuit Court, Broward and Volusia counties are asking the court to invalidate Amendment 10, the proposal placed on the November ballot by the Republican-controlled Constitution Revision Commission. The two counties argue that the proposal unconstitutionally misleads voters because it fails to explain that if approved, voters in Broward and Volusia counties would be stripped of their right to govern themselves.
Secretary of State Ken Detzner is asking a federal court to let the state courts decide a dispute over whether early voting sites should be allowed on state university or college campuses. In May, the Florida League of Women Voters filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, alleging the constitutional rights of students at the University of Florida and Florida State University were being violated by a 2014 interpretation of a state law by Detzner’s agency that found early-voting sites were not specifically authorized on university campuses. The lawsuit alleged the state was placing “an unjustifiable burden on the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of eligible Florida voters” and that Detzner’s policy “disproportionately” impacted the state’s younger voters.
Gov. Rick Scott’s administration fired back in federal court Friday, seeking to undercut a League of Women Voters lawsuit over early voting on college campuses. The League last month sued Scott’s chief elections official, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, whose office in 2014 interpreted state law to exclude state university buildings from a list of sites available for early voting. Florida allows early voting at elections offices, city halls, libraries, fairgrounds, civic centers, courthouses, county commission buildings, stadiums, convention centers, government-owned senior centers and government-owned community centers. But buildings on state college and university campuses? No. Democrats tried to include them as early voting sites, but Republicans blocked the proposal.
Well, that was fast. It took Gov. Rick Scott’s administration two months to formally apply for $19.2 million in election security money. It took the feds one day to approve the request. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Monday released a letter it sent to Sen. Marco Rubio that said the EAC “has reviewed Florida’s disbursement request and approved the request in one working day. We expect funds will be in Florida’s account this week.” … The money will be divided among the state and all 67 counties to improve security procedures to help detect threats to voting systems, such as the attempted phishing emails in at least five counties in 2016 that a federal agency said was the work of Russian hackers.
Following a meeting with U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, who has called elections supervisors “overconfident”, Florida election officials say they have security in place to prevent foreign actors from tampering with this year’s election. In 2016, suspected Russian hackers got into a Tallahassee company. It provides support to the majority of the state’s elections supervisors. At least five suspicious emails were intercepted before they were opened in county supervisor’s offices. Mark Early was one of the supervisors meeting with U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, “We don’t think we want a repeat of 2016 where there was information out there that could have been helpful to us, but we can’t get our hands on that data to make good decisions on how to handle any threats we may not know about, so we are doing our best,” said the 32-year veteran elections official. Supervisor told Rubio they were prepared.
On a muggy 90-degree day in 2013, Virginia Atkins traveled to Florida’s state capitol building in Tallahassee to ask Gov. Rick Scott for her voting rights back. Dressed conservatively in a black blouse, blue dress with a palm tree print and thick, horn-rimmed glasses, the 44-year-old waited nearly three hours before a clerk called her number: 36. Atkins, accompanied by her adult daughter, approached the podium and timidly greeted the governor. “It’s been 10 years since these charges,” she began, referring to a 2001 conviction for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. “I’ve served my time. I’m working. I’m a grandmamma. I’m going to be a grandmamma to twins.” Atkins smiled and touched her daughter’s belly. “I work every day,” she continued. “I’m active in the community. I stay out of trouble.” She paused and bit her lower lip, seeming to swallow her tears. Scott asked why she did it. “I was protecting my daughter at the time,” Atkins said, explaining an incident involving a woman spitting on and slapping her 13-year-old daughter, Kashandra Nixon.
Florida formally asked the federal government Wednesday for $19 million in election security money, one week after Gov. Rick Scott directed the state’s top election official to request it and two months after the feds announced the money was available. Secretary of State Ken Detzner signed the letter that went to Washington. The Department of State released a three-page letter that made Florida the 17th state to apply for its share of a $380 million pot of money included in a spending bill that President Donald J. Trump signed two months ago.
Gov. Rick Scott and Florida’s three elected Cabinet members Friday mounted a new legal defense of the state’s 150-year-old system for restoring the voting rights of convicted felons. In a filing with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the four Republican state officials said U.S. District Judge Mark Walker repeatedly “erred” and abused the court’s discretion when he struck down the system as unconstitutional in March. Walker had ordered the state to create a new clemency system for felons within 30 days, but on the night before the deadline, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit stayed Walker’s order, which criticized the existing system for being arbitrary and for giving the governor too much power over every case.
The people who run Florida’s elections used to fret about having enough poll workers and voting machines. Now they talk about incident response teams and threat detectors. They buy expensive sensors that can detect malicious intruders bent on creating havoc. They field sales pitches from election vendors selling cyber-insurance. It may be a matter of time before elections workers have to pass a Level 2 criminal background check — just to be on the safe side. Absentee ballots are important, but so are “hacktivists,” computer hackers on a social or political mission. “A cyber attack is like a hurricane,” said Klint Walker, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security cyber expert. “It’s always brewing out there.”
Sixteen states have formally applied for federal money to improve their election security in advance of the 2018 vote. Florida is not yet one of them. The state’s chief elections officer, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, says: “We’ve been working on it daily.” The state hasn’t specifically said why up until this week it hasn’t sought the money. Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday ordered Detzner to seek Florida’s $19 million share of a $380 million fund, part of a spending bill that President Donald J. Trump signed in March. Scott also directed Detzner to hire five cyber-security experts.
Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday ordered his top elections official to take advantage of $19 million of federal money for cybersecurity in time for this year’s elections. Scott’s decree reverses the decision made by Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who said Tuesday he wanted to move slowly and preserve the money for long-term election needs. The governor’s announcement comes after news media coverage of Detzner’s position, which the secretary of state outlined to reporters during the spring conference of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections in Fort Lauderdale. “We’re going to follow the governor’s directive. I think it’s well pointed, and we’re going to move aggressively based on his direction to submit a budget to the EAC and to try to draw down those dollars as soon as possible,” Detzner said Wedneday in an interview after the governor’s announcement.
Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday overruled his chief elections official and ordered him to seek $19.2 million in federal money to help counties defend their voting systems against possible cyberattacks in the 2018 election. Scott’s intervention came hours after the Herald/Times quoted the official, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, as saying the federal money would not be available before November because accepting it requires approval by the Legislature — even though that step is a formality that could be done at a brief meeting. “The answer is no,” Detzner said earlier this week when asked if the aid money could be used to improve election systems this year. “We don’t have the authority to spend that money without legislative approval.” That was unwelcome news for county elections officials, who are desperate for money.
Florida doesn’t plan to tap its $19.2 million allocation from the federal government to enhance election cybersecurity in time for this year’s primary election in August or general election in November. A total of $380 million was allocated for the states to improve election security and technology. The money was contained in the massive federal budget deal passed in March. Florida’s top election official, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, said Tuesday the state wouldn’t be spending the money for this year’s elections. “The answer is no,” he said during a break at the spring conference of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections in Fort Lauderdale.
A new lawsuit accuses Gov. Rick Scott’s administration of making it more difficult for young people to vote by preventing early voting at public buildings on state university campuses. The election-year complaint filed Tuesday by the League of Women Voters seeks to strike down a four-year-old interpretation of Florida’s early voting laws by Scott’s chief elections officer, Secretary of State Ken Detzner. Detzner’s office issued an opinion in 2014 that the Legislature’s expansion of early voting sites to include “government-owned community centers” does not include the student union building on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. The city of Gainesville asked if the Reitz Student Union building on the UF campus could serve as an early voting site in 2014. The state said no.
Supervisors of elections throughout Florida are preparing for the upcoming election season, with the secruity of the voting process being a top priority. After the 2016 elections, such elements as voter registration rolls and machines were designated as “critical infrastructure.” That means more funding from the Department of Homeland Security has poured into local elections offices to help protect them. Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer said that money has allowed local elections officials like himself to check the security of registration information and the machines voters will use to cast their ballots.
Seven years after Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet voted to end the state policy that automatically restored the civil rights of nonviolent offenders after they complete their sentences, a price tag has emerged. Florida lost an estimated $385 million a year in economic impact, spent millions on court and prison costs, had 3,500 more offenders return to prison, and lost the opportunity to create about 3,800 new jobs. Those are just some of the conclusions of a new economic research report prepared by the Republican-leaning Washington Economics Group of Coral Gables for proponents of Amendment 4, the proposal on the November ballot that asks voters to allow the automatic restoration of civil rights for eligible felons who have served their sentences.
The people who count votes in Florida realize the eyes of the nation will be on them again as millions of people make their choices in the 2018 election. Supervisors of elections from the state’s 67 counties will meet this week at a Fort Lauderdale oceanfront resort hotel for three days of brainstorming. They’re preparing for a trouble-free midterm election in the nation’s premier battleground state, with its long history of close races and nail-biting election nights. Here are five specific issues they will deal with at their annual summer conference. The possibility of more malicious attempts, especially from Russian hackers, to disrupt Florida’s election is on every election supervisor’s mind. “It’s the No. 1 priority on every election supervisor’s preparation list,” said Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark. Supervisors will hear from a top official of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on what more should be done to protect the integrity of voting systems. The conference comes just days after President Donald J. Trump eliminated the position of national cybersecurity coordinator.
Florida’s wide-open race for governor won’t be decided for another six months, but it’s already triggered a wave of expensive television ad buys from groups taking advantage of gray areas in the state’s campaign finance laws. Campaigns are interpreting the law so liberally — and some experts think they will get away with it — that it could essentially render the laws meaningless. So far, at least $13 million has been spent on television ads in the governor’s race that includes two Republicans and four Democrats vying for the job that will be vacated by Gov. Rick Scott. Television ads are poised to play a crucial role in the race since polls continue to show a majority of the state’s voters don’t really know the Republican or Democratic candidates vying to replace him.
Faced with cyber-security threats to their voting systems, Florida election supervisors are eager to get access to some of the $19 million in federal election security money Congress sent states nearly two months ago. But they say all they’re hearing from the state is crickets. “We sure wish the money was available. It’s frustrating,” said supervisor Mark Earley in Tallahassee’s Leon County. “This is a big deal. There’s certainly room for improvement, especially in smaller counties.” Congress included $380 million in a 2018 budget bill and in March directed the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to distribute the money to states. President Donald J. Trump signed the budget bill on March 23. “The EAC is releasing this money quickly so that the grants can have an immediate impact,” the commission said on March 29. The money will help counties “immediately begin system upgrades.”
On the heels of a cyberattack that grounded city services in Atlanta, employees entrusted with protecting their agencies trained on how to thwart attacks during two courses at the University of West Florida. The UWF Center for Cybersecurity partnered with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Texas A&M Engineering Extension Services to host the courses on May 10-11 at the UWF Conference Center. Employees from the FDLE, Escambia County Board of County Commissioners, Escambia County School District, Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners and First Judicial Circuit of Florida, among others, participated in the training sessions less than two months after the ransomware attack in Atlanta. “I think the best solutions are always the collaborative ones, so that we can combine efforts to bring more cybersecurity knowledge and awareness to the community and enhance the resiliency of our region and state,” said Dr. Eman El-Sheikh, UWF Center for Cybersecurity director.
In 2004, Desmond Meade, while serving a 15-year prison sentence for a drug offense in Florida, got a break. An appeals court returned his conviction to the original trial bench, allowing him to plead guilty to a lesser charge and get out of prison in three years, most of which he had already served. But his freedom came with a price, something that didn’t quite register with him at the time: as part of his plea agreement with prosecutors, Meade agreed to give up his civil rights: the right to vote, to serve on a jury and to run for office. “At the time, when I first accepted the plea deal, I didn’t understand the consequences,” Meade says. Fourteen years and a pair of college and law degrees later, Meade, now 50, still can’t vote; his application to regain his civil rights was rejected in 2011. The reason: a new Florida law that requires felons like him to wait for seven years before they could apply for rights restoration.
The elections supervisor in Florida’s second-most populous county broke state and federal law by unlawfully destroying ballots cast in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s 2016 Democratic primary, a judge ruled Friday in a case brought by the congresswoman’s challenger who wanted to check for voting irregularities. In light of the ruling, Gov. Rick Scott’s administration — which has expressed concerns with how Broward County Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes has handled the case — told POLITICO that he’s reviewing the judge’s order and will have her office monitored. “During the upcoming election, the Department of State will send a Florida elections expert from the Division of Elections to Supervisor Snipes’ office to ensure that all laws are followed so the citizens of Broward County can have the efficient, properly run election they deserve,” Scott’s office said in a written statement.