Florida

Looking for Voter Registration Information for Your State?

Project Vote Smart has prepared an excellent guide to voter registration rules, deadlines, and procedures in all 50 states. Click the link below, then select your state from the dropdown list:
http://www.votesmart.org/voter_registration_resources.php [1]

Also check the [Your State] Voter Registration Information link below to read a detailed profile of your state's voter registration database and state-specific voter registration policies. The report is part of the 50-state national survey titled Making the List, researched by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Additionally, we recommend getting and sharing a copy of the book Count My Vote!, a voters' self-defense guide to voter registration, election regulations, and voter ID laws in all 50 states.

By arrangement with publisher AlterNet, EDA is offering these handbooks at a 40% discount, just $6.00 plus postage.
Available here: Count My Vote [2]

Please inform voter registration and election protection organizations about this important guide.

Florida's 15th District

This is a map of Florida's 15th District in Brevard County.

Florida Attorney General Investigating ES&S-Premier Merger

Source: Miami Herald [3]
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1385770.html [3]

Voting-Machine Firm Merger Investigated

Florida's attorney general is investigating a voting-machine company merger that has voting-rights groups worried that the move will concentrate too much power over democracy in one private company.

BY MARC CAPUTO
Miami Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau, Dec. 16, 2009

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is conducting an anti-trust investigation of a voting-machine company merger that would create a near-monopoly over the levers of democracy in Florida and much of the United
States.

McCollum's office has issued at least six subpoenas covering every major voting-machine company as part of a civil investigation of Election Systems & Software's $5 million acquisition of Diebold Inc.'s elections division -- a merger that would give a private company too much power over the machines used to castvotes, voting-rights groups say.

Similar Stories:

Miami Herald, 12.16.09:
•Voting machine monopoly seen in Florida [4]

Miami Herald Op Ed, 12.17.09:
•Guard against voting-machine monopoly [5]

"Our office engaged in this issue because anti-competitive behavior can seriously harm consumers," McCollum said in a written statement. "Competitive behavior encourages the best products be available to consumers, including technology, particularly in a market as sensitive as the voting systems market."

Under the state's 1980 anti-trust law, McCollum could persuade a court to levy fines against ES&S or prevent the company from operating in Florida. By next year, the company is expected to be the exclusive provider of voting machines and services in 65 of the 67 counties in Florida, the nation's most important swing state.

That means, under the acquisition announced Sept. 2, ES&S will provide election services to 92 percent of Florida's 11.2 million voters.

More broadly, ES&S's purchase of the competitor company gives it control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's precincts, according to a federal lawsuit in Delaware filed by a rival company, Hart Intercivic. The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting its own inquiry.

McCollum's investigation came to light Wednesday after eight voting rights groups sent him a letter urging him to open an inquiry -- unaware that his office had already opened its investigation Sept. 10. The first subpoena was sent out Oct. 2.
"I'm glad to hear there's an investigation. We need action now," sad Dan McCrea, president of the Florida Voters Foundation, one of the groups that sent the letter.

"Florida counties are negotiating their contracts now to prepare for the 2010 elections," McCrea said. "They can suffer the potential damages for dealing with a monopoly now. So intervention needs to happen now."

McCollum's spokeswoman, Sandi Copes, said the office could not comment on a pending investigation.

The subpoenas show that McCollum is searching for every type of document that the voting machine companies have, from "pencil jottings" to memos to canceled checks and even electronic images of websites.

Spokesmen and lawyers for ES&S, Diebold and the other voting companies could not be reached or would not comment on the case.

Documents show that the companies that received subpoenas are: ES&S, Diebold Inc., Hart-Intercivic, Sequoia Voting Systems, Scytl and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation.

In a Sept. 23 Herald/Times story about the initial concerns of the merger, ES&S offered assurances that the acquisition "will result in better products and services for all customers and voters alike.''

But Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said monopolies are bad for voters and consumers.

"In a monopolistic situation," he said, "price goes up, quality goes down and there's almost no innovation."

Simon said a looming issue the Legislature will face next year: How to provide better voting equipment for disabled people who can only use touch-screen voting machines.

"We can't have separate but equal," said Simon, who signed Wednesday's letter along with McCrea's group and the Broward Election Reform Coalition, Common Cause, Florida Consumer Action Network, Florida Council of the Blind, Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections and Voter Action.

In the Wednesday letter, the advocates suggested that McCollum's office cooperate with other states and the federal government, join the Delaware lawsuit filed by Hart-Intercivic and collect and submit data to the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which is investigating as well.

Marc Caputo can be reached at mcaputo[at]MiamiHerald[dot]com [6]
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DCCC's Florida Race Analysis

http://www.dccc.org/races/states/fl/ [7]

Florida Voter Registration Information

Florida Voter Registration Database Report:
State Regulations and Procedures Implementing HAVA Voter Registration Requirements

Attached is the Florida Voter Registration Information as set forth in Making the List, Database Matching and Verification Processes for Voter Registration as published by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University on March 24, 2006. This document contains available information about voter regtistration current as of the date of publication.

Federal law now requires, as of January 1, 2006, that states create and maintain statewide databases to serve as the central source of voter registration information. Citizens’ ability to get on the rolls (and thus their ability to vote and have their votes counted) will now depend on the policies and procedures governing the use of these databases in the voter registration process. Evidence demonstrates that poor policy and procedure choices could result in the unwarranted disenfranchisement of millions of eligible citizens attempting to register to vote. The new statewide databases, and their role in the voter registration process, are poorly understood, but extremely consequential.

This report, issued just as the state databases begin to come online, presents the first comprehensive catalog of the widely varying state database practices governing how (and in some cases, whether) individuals seeking to register will be placed on the voter rolls.

The report covers the state’s voter registration process, from the application form up through Election Day - including the intake of registration forms, the manner in which information from the forms may be matched to other government lists, the consequences of the match process, and any opportunity to correct errors. Each variation at each step of the process has tangible consequences for voters seeking to register and vote in 2006 and beyond.

IMPORTANT: Because of the possibility that voter information may differ from database to database (abbreviations, street designations, etc.) or because of data entry errors, valid voter registration data may be rejected. Individual voters are urged to contact their county clerk or local election board to determine that they are properly registered. Many such election authorities maintain online services for this purpose, other will require a telephone call or perhaps a written inquiry to determine the voter's eligibility.

As an addendum to this state report, a fill-in form for voter registration is presented which can be completed, printed and sent to the appropriate registratrar of voters (generally the county Clerk or local election board). The proper form of submission and location is included on the registration form.

Attachment	Size
Florida_VoterReg.pdf [8]	472.2 KB

Sarasota Initiative Offers Voters Choice of Paper or Vapor

Sarasota County (Florida) Voters Will Choose Voting Technology

From the Lakeland (Florida) Ledger, Saturday, September 16, 2006

See original article in Lakeland Ledger [9]

OR: http://tinyurl.com/l4jbg [9]

SARASOTA
Voters in this Southwest Florida county [Sarasota] will be able to decide in November whether to continue using computerized voting booths or go back to paper ballots, a circuit judge ruled.

County attorneys argued a proposed ballot initiative asking voters to choose between the county's current electronic voting and the old paper system was unconstitutional. But Circuit Judge Robert B. Bennett Jr. ruled Wednesday that the initiative was legal.

Sarasota is among several Florida counties that bought paperless touch-screen voting machines after the controversy surrounding paper ballots in the 2000 election.

A group called Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections ( http://www.safevote.org [10] ) is challenging the reliability of the machines, saying electronic voting leaves no paper trail and is vulnerable to tampering.