Florida: Elections chief, in St. Lucie, says recount deadlines may be too tight for counties to meet | Palm Beach Post

Emerging from three hours with the elections supervisor of St. Lucie County on Thursday— the only county that missed the deadline for filing final election results — Secretary of State Ken Detzner said he was concerned that current deadlines may not give counties enough time to complete recounts. Detzner said he has asked his staff to research the length of time other states give their election officials to conduct recounts. St. Lucie County missed the deadline by 8 seconds, Walker said. “Clearly when there is a recount, there needs to be a reasonable amount of time,” Detzner said, acknowledging that election workers in St. Lucie worked through the night to meet the deadline and that election laws need to reflect what is humanly possible.

Florida: Elections chief defends voting laws as he begins listening tour | Tampa Bay Times

Hillsborough County election officials articulated some of the same points as voter rights advocates when asked Monday how to solve long lines and improve the democratic process at Florida’s polls. Return early voting to 14 days, from eight during this year’s general election, they advised. Don’t tamp down voter registration by placing additional restrictions on third-party groups. And don’t limit early voting sites to libraries and government buildings. The response from Department of State interim general counsel Gary Holland, on at least that last point: “Talk to the Legislature.”

Florida: Top elections officials tackle voting issues | Fox29

Scrutiny and potential change could soon be coming to the elections process in the state of Florida. The Secretary of State will tour several counties in the coming days where voting problems were present. This, as top elections officials met in Orange County Wednesday to figure out what may have gone wrong and how to improve the election process going forward. Long early voting lines and long election ballots for voters are to of the top challenges that elections supervisors from across the state were discussing in Orlando. “We’ve brought suggestions to the legislature that have been ignored,” said Susan Bucher, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach County.

Florida: State lawmakers not convinced their law’s to blame for election hardships | Palm Beach Post

Four weeks after the presidential election, Florida lawmakers were told Tuesday of a host of culprits that contributed to the long voting waits, inadequate equipment and lengthy delay in ascertaining President Obama’s victory in the state. The media, select county elections supervisors, stingy county commissions and possibly the legislature itself played a role in the problems, according to testimony from Secretary of State Ken Detzner, Pasco County Elections Supervisor Brian Corley and Ron Labasky, the veteran general counsel of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections.

Florida: State will investigate voting problems in 5 counties | Tampa Bay Times

Florida lawmakers on Tuesday began scrutinizing all that went wrong at the polls last month, and Gov. Rick Scott’s elections team made plans to investigate five counties that “underperformed.” Secretary of State Ken Detzner said he and voting experts will make “fact-finding” trips next week to Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Lee counties and report findings to the governor. Lines of voters in Miami-Dade were up to seven hours long, Palm Beach had to fix thousands of misprinted absentee ballots and St. Lucie was the only county that failed to count all ballots by a state deadline. The other two counties struggled with long lines, too. “Long lines are unacceptable,” Detzner testified.

Florida: State Rep. Gayle Harrell Calls St. Lucie County Elections ‘A Disaster’ | Sunshine State News

An election inspection team ordered by Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner is on the ground in Fort Pierce as the city mayor’s contest has spawned the second lawsuit that questions the general election results in St. Lucie County. The three-day audit by the state Division of Elections, spurred by state Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, adds to a scene already dominated by U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Palm Beach Gardens, disputing problems encountered during early voting by the county supervisor of elections office and further adds to Florida’s history of voting problems that have earned national scorn since 2000.

Florida: State to Address Delays as It Confirms Obama Victory | NYTimes.com

President Obama was re-elected Tuesday. Mitt Romney’s campaign conceded defeat in Florida on Thursday. And a few indefatigable politicians are already planning on making pit stops in Iowa. But in Florida, time stood still — until Saturday. After days of counting absentee ballots, the official results are in, at last: To the surprise of no one, Mr. Obama narrowly beat out his Republican rival 50 percent to 49.1 percent, a difference of about 74,000 votes. The state is consumed by finger-pointing and finger-wagging as election officials, lawmakers and voters try to make sense of what went wrong on Election Day and during early voting. A record number of Florida voters — 8.4 million, or 70 percent of those registered — cast ballots. Of those, 2.1 million people voted early, and 2.4 million sent absentee ballots.

Florida: Rick Scott asks Secretary of State to talk reform with county election officials | jacksonville.com

Gov. Rick Scott has asked Secretary of State Ken Detzner to begin meeting with county election officials to discuss potential election reforms. The meeting comes on the heels of last week’s election, which saw up to six hour lines in some areas, and Florida not finishing its statewide vote count for days after the Nov. 6 election day. “We need to make improvements in our election process,” Scott said in a release. “If even one Floridian has lost confidence in our voting process, we need to do whatever we can to make sure that confidence is restored.”

Florida: It’s not the 2000 recount, but voting snafus and disputes still plague Florida | NBC

Florida’s struggle to quickly report a winner of the 2012 presidential election has again made it the target of criticism that brought to mind the 2000 recount. The presidency doesn’t hang in the ballot, as it did 12 years ago during the recount between George W. Bush and Al Gore, but that hasn’t saved the Sunshine State from scrutiny. NBC’s Chuck Todd discusses how Florida may be used as a model for the rest of the country to show how changes in demographics, particularly an influx of Hispanic voters in key counties, affected the outcome of the election. On Thursday in Florida, absentee ballots are still being counted in three populous counties. (Under state law, counties have until Saturday to report their total vote, including absentee ballots.)

Florida: Florida elections officials to oversee duplication of flawed Palm Beach County absentee ballots | Palm Beach Post

Underscoring the deep concern surrounding Palm Beach County’s latest election snafu, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner is sending two observers here on Monday as workers begin an unprecedented process of duplicating an estimated 27,000 absentee ballots. In a letter to Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher late Friday, Detzner said he is sending two deputies to “observe and examine the registration and election processes and the condition, custody and operation of voting systems and equipment.” The deputies, he wrote, are empowered to “supervise the preparation of the voting equipment and procedures for the election.” Both will report their findings to him and file a written report with Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Sharon Bock. State law allows the secretary of state to take such action “as he sees fit.” But the law also allows candidates, party leaders and others to request that observers be sent in. A spokesman for Detzner said, “This was the secretary’s decision.”

Florida: Judge says voter purge can go on | MiamiHerald.com

A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale ruled Thursday that Florida’s purge of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls can go on. U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch said federal law does not prohibit the state from removing voters who were never lawfully eligible to register in the first place. Florida has identified 198 voters as potential noncitizens — among an estimated 11.4 million registered voters — and sent the names to independent county elections supervisors for their review. A coalition of liberal-leaning voting-rights groups had asked the court to halt the purge, arguing in a hearing Monday that federal law prohibits purging the voter rolls 90 days before an election. Attorneys for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner countered that the state could purge noncitizens at any time because they should have never been on the voter rolls. “We’re very pleased another federal court has ruled that Florida’s efforts to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls are lawful and in the best interest of Florida voters,” Detzner said in a statement Thursday. “Ensuring ineligible voters can’t cast a ballot is a fundamental aspect of conducting fair elections.”

Florida: Elections supervisors wonder how to deal with GOP voter registrations | Tampa Bay Times

With less than a week before the deadline to register to vote in the November election, Republican state leaders who had made voter fraud a top issue are offering little insight into how they are handling the increasing numbers of suspicious registration forms being found throughout Florida. Last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement began a review of Strategic Allied Consulting after the company turned in more than 100 botched voter registration forms in Palm Beach County on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida. Subsequently, 10 other counties — Bay, Charlotte, Duval, Escambia, Lee, Okaloosa, Pasco, Miami-Dade, Santa Rosa and Walton — have reported similar issues with registration forms linked to that firm. On Monday, a top elections official announced that the FDLE was investigating a second group, the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, for turning in three questionable registration forms in Miami-Dade County. The two cases, so far at least, are hardly equal in magnitude.

Uncategorized: Florida elections supervisors wonder how to deal with GOP voter registrations | Tampa Bay Times

With less than a week before the deadline to register to vote in the November election, Republican state leaders who had made voter fraud a top issue are offering little insight into how they are handling the increasing numbers of suspicious registration forms being found throughout Florida. Last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement began a review of Strategic Allied Consulting after the company turned in more than 100 botched voter registration forms in Palm Beach County on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida. Subsequently, 10 other counties — Bay, Charlotte, Duval, Escambia, Lee, Okaloosa, Pasco, Miami-Dade, Santa Rosa and Walton — have reported similar issues with registration forms linked to that firm. On Monday, a top elections official announced that the FDLE was investigating a second group, the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, for turning in three questionable registration forms in Miami-Dade County. The two cases, so far at least, are hardly equal in magnitude.

Florida: Revised try at purging noncitizen voters draws legal fire | www.palmbeachpost.com

Two Miami-Dade County voters and Hispanic voting groups have asked a federal judge to halt Gov. Rick Scott’s revised to purge voter rolls of non-citizens, saying it comes too close to the Nov. 6 election and remains problematic. Lawyers for Karla Vanessa Arcia and Melande Antoine and a variety of voting-rights groups including the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, filed the request in a federal court in Miami Wednesday night. The groups reached a settlement with Scott’s administration last week and dropped three other portions of their complaint but now are asking Judge William Zloch to stop the effort. Secretary of State Ken Detzner last month revamped the effort, the subject of multiple lawsuits, and switched to using the federal Department of Homeland Security Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or “SAVE,” database to vet a list of potential noncitizens. The list had been created by matching state driver’s licenses and voter registration records. Detzner said the federal database will result in a less problematic list than one sent to elections supervisors in April. State and local officials abandoned the purge this spring after it was discovered that many of the flagged 2,626 voters were naturalized citizens — including Arcia and Antoine — and, therefore, eligible to vote.

Voting Blogs: The Nearly Non-Citizen Purges | Brennan Center for Justice

This week, Florida partially settled one of three lawsuits challenging its attempted purge of non-citizens form its voter rolls. The state has promised to send corrective letters to thousands of voters who received unfounded notices of removal and to restore to the rolls any who were wrongly removed. Across the country, Colorado recently conceded it lacks adequate procedures or time to fairly pursue a similar purge effort before Election Day and will not do so. This is good news for the thousands of eligible citizens who otherwise would have been swept up further in these purges. It also reveals a dramatically different story than the tall tale Secretaries of State Gessler and Detzner were selling to the public just a few months ago. Last year Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler declared a virtual state of emergency — possibly 11,000 non-citizens on the Colorado voter rolls. Soon after, Secretary of State Ken Detzner in Florida upped the ante by claiming he had a list of 180,000 potential non-citizens. That got attention. Numbers like that indicate a massive problem. But the numbers weren’t quite right. Not even close. The final count? According to Colorado it appears that up to 141non-citizens could be on its voter rolls. That’s .004 percent of its 3.5 million registered voters. Florida now reports that its numbers could be as high as … 207. That’s .002 percent of its 11.5 million registered voters. Error-ridden and inaccurate voter rolls are a problem, and any ineligible voter on the rolls should be removed. But playing fast and loose with numbers is not the way to do it.

Florida: State Agrees to Let Citizens Mistakenly Purged From Rolls to Vote | NYTimes.com

In a partial victory for voter rights and immigrant groups, Florida residents who were mistakenly removed from the voter rolls this year because the state classified them as noncitizens will be returned to the rolls and allowed to vote in November. The Florida Department of State, which initiated the review of noncitizens on the voter rolls, also agreed Wednesday to inform the 2,625 people on the list who are eligible to vote that their voting rights had been fully restored. Still unresolved is whether Florida broke a federal law preventing voter purges within 90 days of an election. The agreement stems from a lawsuit brought by several groups that said the so-called voter purge was discriminatory because it singled out mostly immigrants. “There will be no purging before the election,” said Katherine Culliton-González, director of voter protection for the Advancement Project, one of the civil rights groups that sued the state. “American citizens won’t be purged, and naturalized citizens won’t be purged. For us, it’s a great victory.”

Florida: Voter Roll screening yields few non-citizens | KEYC

Florida’s attempt to screen voter rolls for non-U.S. citizens is yielding a smaller number than state officials had anticipated. The Florida Department of State announced Wednesday that it used a federal immigration database to verify 207 voters are not citizens. Earlier this year, state officials under Republican Gov. Rick Scott had said they suspected more than 2,600 voters were ineligible and had asked election supervisors to purge those on the list. State officials, however, said the screening process was still a success because it yielded some ineligible voters. Florida’s announcement came the same day that it reached an agreement with voting groups that had challenged the purge, alleging it was discriminatory because they said it mostly targeted Hispanics. The groups that work with immigrants, Haitian-Americans and Puerto Ricans had filed suit in Miami and they are dropping most of their claims “This settlement represents a historic milestone for voting rights in Florida,” said Advancement Project Co-Director Judith Browne Dianis. “It will ensure that naturalized citizens, the majority of whom are Latino, black and Asian, have the same opportunities as all Americans to participate in our political process and exercise the most fundamental right in our democracy – the right to vote.”

Colorado: Voter Purges Net Few Noncitizens, So Far | Minnesota Public Radio News

States using a federal immigration database to purge noncitizens from voter lists are starting to get results, which so far include few illegal voters. In Florida, which was first to gain access to the database after fighting the federal government in court, an initial run of roughly 2,600 names has turned up “several” violators, according to a spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “We are seeing that there are definitely noncitizens on the voter rolls, but we’re still very early in this review process,” says Chris Cate. A much larger list of suspected noncitizens soon will be fed through the database, Cate says. The list will be an updated version culled from cross-checking voter rolls and driver’s license data, a method that produced about 180,000 names last year. Colorado, which along with Florida was initially denied access to the database, says that an automated check of more than 1,400 names has flagged 177 people as possible noncitizens. Colorado has asked the Department of Homeland Security, which maintains the database, to assign a person to verify their status. “For the moment, we have no confirmed noncitizens, but I would expect that most of those people would come back as noncitizens,” says Andrew Cole, a spokesman for Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.

Editorials: Florida election laws threaten the vote in a key swing state | The Washington Post

In 2011, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed into law a measure that imposed more than 75 restrictions on Florida voters, ostensibly to combat voter fraud. These included requirements that make it more difficult for third-party organizations to register voters, limits on early voting and a plan to purge voter rolls of non-citizens. As with many of the voter limitations imposed by Republican state governments since they won election in 2010, these measures are likely to favor Republican candidates — and Florida is the ultimate swing state. Thankfully, a federal judge in Florida has issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which would interfere with the ability of organizations like the League of Women Voters to register voters in time for the election.

Florida: Scott appears to threaten Monroe County supervisor of elections | The News-Press

Gov. Rick Scott issued a statement Tuesday that some read as a veiled threat to the Monroe County supervisor of elections, escalating a conflict over early-voting days in the run-up to the November elections. Harry Sawyer, the Republican supervisor in Monroe, said Monday he didn’t support an effort by Secretary of State Ken Detzner to get federal approval for Monroe and four other counties to reduce the number of early-voting days from as many as 14 to eight. Because of a history of racial or language discrimination, those counties must get “preclearance” from the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court for any changes to voting policies. The Legislature in 2011 passed a law that included reducing the number of early-voting days statewide, but a three-judge federal court last week rejected that change in the preclearance counties. The panel, however, said it could likely approve a reduction in the number of voting days if all five counties agreed to keep offices open for 12 hours on each of the eight days, which would maintain the same number of hours for voting.

Florida: Rick Scott, Democrats fight over Florida early voting | MiamiHerald.com

The fight over early voting is escalating in Florida as Gov. Rick Scott seeks agreement among counties for eight days and Democrats demand 12 days. At issue is whether all 67 counties will operate under one early voting schedule, or five counties — including Monroe — will offer more days than all the others. Days after a federal court ruled that eight days of early voting could depress African-American turnout, Scott’s chief elections advisor tried to get five counties to agree to eight days of early voting anyway — for 12 hours a day. Court approval is critical. Because of past evidence of discrimination, election law changes need clearance from the federal government or federal courts before they taking effect in Monroe, Hillsborough, Collier, Hardee and Hendry counties. Because the judges rejected the shorter early voting schedule in those counties last week, the counties must provide up to 14 days of early voting under the old law.

Florida: Secretary of State Detzner says Florida voter purge to resume soon | RealClearPolitics

The state’s top election official said Tuesday that he expects Florida’s efforts to purge non-citizens from voter registration rolls to soon resume and be completed before the Nov. 6 general election. Florida is on the verge of getting access to an immigration database from the federal Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of State Ken Detzner said shortly after polls opened for the state’s primary election. Republican Gov. Rick Scott began the push to rid Florida’s voting rolls of illegally registered non-citizens, but Homeland Security initially declined to help. Federal officials, however, said they’d make the database available after a federal judge refused to halt the purge, but both sides are still working on the details of a final agreement. “We are making some progress, just recently, the last few days in actually getting access to the database,” Detzner said.

Florida: DoJ seeks Florida voter-purge records | TBO.com

The U.S. Department of Justice is demanding that Hillsborough turn over voter-purge records, pulling the county into a growing legal fracas over Gov. Rick Scott’s push to clean out the state’s voter registry. The county received a subpoena Wednesday for documents dating to Jan. 1 relating to any efforts at identifying voters as potential noncitizens. The subpoena stems from a lawsuit filed June 12 in Tallahassee by the federal government against Florida and Secretary of State Ken Detzner over state efforts to scrub voter rolls. Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Earl Lennard said he would comply with the subpoena. Like supervisors across the state, Lennard halted efforts to purge voters when the tools to cross-reference citizenship and voter registration — a Department of Homeland Security database and motor vehicle records — proved unreliable, he said.

Florida: Top elections official steps down | The News-Press

A top official involved in Florida’s contentious push to identify and remove potentially ineligible voters is stepping down just two weeks before the Aug. 14 primary. Division of Elections Director Gisela Salas is leaving her job this week to take a position closer to her home in Ocala, Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Monday in an email to county election supervisors. Salas, who earns $90,000 a year, was hired in May 2011 to oversee the office that does everything from approve certain types of election machines to issuing opinions on how to interpret election law. But Salas was also deeply involved in the effort by the state to identify non-U.S. citizens on the voter rolls.

Florida: Scott, Election Officials Spar Over Ineligible Voters | CBS Miami

Gov. Rick Scott and Florida’s 67 election supervisors are at odds over removing ineligible voters from registration rolls. After winning access to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database of those ineligible voters, Gov. Scott doesn’t understand why the election supervisors don’t want to get back to removing those voters from the rolls. “You know, it’s very reliable data, so I can’t imagine they’re not going to go forward and make sure,” Scott told CNN on Monday. “‘Cause I don’t know anybody – any supervisor of elections or anybody in our state – that thinks non-U.S. citizens ought to be voting in our races.” Many of the election supervisors resisted the voter database purge, so it is no surprise that supervisors are hesitant to trust the new lists. Supervisors like Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall insist on reviewing the lists first – especially given elections are less than four months away. “My worst nightmare is we get close to a presidential election, and someone challenges maybe 100,000 possible non-citizens at the polls on Election Day,” said McFall. “If that happens, we won’t get our results for weeks.”

Florida: Elections supervisors in wait and see mode over new lists | The News-Press

After winning access to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database of non-citizens living in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said he sees no reason why the state’s 67 elections supervisors shouldn’t return to removing ineligible voters from the rolls. But the supervisors, many of whom have resisted the purge, say they’re not ready to trust the new lists without reviewing them first – especially with less than four months remaining until the November election. “My worst nightmare is we get close to a presidential election, and someone challenges maybe 100,000 possible non-citizens at the polls on Election Day,” said Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall. “If that happens, we won’t get our results for weeks.”

Voting Blogs: Florida Secretary of State Voter Purge Netted 10 “Potential Noncitizens” who may have Voted | electionsmith

That’s right. 10. Out of 11.2 million voters on the official statewide rolls as of April 1, 2012. Here’s some quick analysis… Approximately 0.000088496% of the current statewide voter roll may have voted illegally once (or perhaps more) over the past decade or so. The percentage is even less when you consider the tens of MILLIONS of votes cast in local and statewide elections in Florida since 2006. Notwithstanding the hundreds of Florida citizens who have been falsely accused by the Florida Secretary of State as being “potential noncitizens” who are corrupting the integrity of our voting system, it’s great to see that Governor Scott has exposed the myth of voter fraud in Florida. Or not.

Florida: State to release larger potential noncitizen voter list | MiamiHerald.com

A month before a statewide election, Gov. Rick Scott’s top elections official will belatedly release a database of 180,000 voters whose citizenship is in question. But in an about-face from an earlier and highly controversial voter purge effort, no one faces being removed from the state’s voting rolls this time — meaning some noncitizens could cast ballots in the Aug. 14 primary. Reversing course, Secretary of State Ken Detzner agreed the list of names is a public record after talking with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office. Detzner had wanted to get a legal opinion from Bondi, but his spokesman, Chris Cate, said that in verbal discussions, it was agreed the database is public and must be released. The list, however, will not be sent to Florida’s 67 county election supervisors, who have the authority to purge noncitizens from the voter rolls. That means that no one faces being blocked from voting before the primary, even if they’re not a U.S. citizen.

Florida: List of 180,000 suspect Florida voters to be made public | Naked Politics

After weeks of declining to make it public, Gov. Rick Scott’s administration now says it will release a much larger list of more than 180,000 voters in Florida whose citizenship status is in question. Secretary of State Ken Detzner said two weeks ago that he would seek an advisory opinion from Attorney General Pam Bondi as to whether the database was public record under Florida law — a political hot potato if ever there was one. Detzner did not request the opinion, and his spokesman, Chris Cate, says: “Our conclusion is that the set of 180,000 names is a public record. We are in the process of redacting it now so that it can be provided to everyone who has made a public records request.”

Florida: Florida election law draws new legal challenge | MiamiHerald.com

A Florida election law passed by the Republican-led Legislature is drawing yet another legal challenge. The American Civil Liberties Union, State Sen. Arthenia Joyner and the National Council of La Raza say that that the Secretary of State is violating state law because five counties are following different election rules than the other 62. Last year, state legislators passed a law that curtailed early voting hours, imposed new restrictions on groups that register voters and made it harder for people to change their address on Election Day. The law was strongly opposed by Democrats and triggered a lawsuit by voter registration groups. The changes have never taken effect in five counties – including Hillsborough, Monroe and Collier – because the law it still under review by a federal court. Federal authorities must review any voting changes impacting those five counties because of past discrimination.