House panel gets an earful on how to fix 2012 voting problems

Ten Florida election supervisors testified before a House subcommittee Tuesday and largely repeated themes they emphasized to a Senate panel Monday. They want shorter ballots, a return to a maximum of 14 days of early voting and more flexibility in picking early voting sites.

The supervisors testified before the House Ethics & Elections Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton. They also said they want a return to early voting on the Sunday right before an election (which was eliminated when the Legislature rewrote the election code in 2011).

But a recurring theme was the unprecedented length of the 2012 ballot, with 11 proposed constitutional amendments, several of them published in full on orders of lawmakers. "They (voters) just said, 'This ballot is too long,'" said Escambia County Supervisor of Elections David Stafford. "It's written in language that a lawyer can't understand."

Lee County's Sharon Harrington said the Legislature has imposed too many restrictions on early voting sites. Miami-Dade's Penelope Townsley stressed the need for more early voting sites, a return to up to 14 days of early voting and limiting all ballot questions to a 75-word summary, the same as citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives.

Seminole County's Mike Ertel struck an upbeat tone, noting that some states don't allow early voting: "Don't let your friends in other states try to shame you into thinking that you haven't done enough for the voters."

One member of the House committee is Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, sponsor of the 2011 law that lawmakers are now trying to fix. "You don't have to restore my confidence. It's already there," Baxley said during the five-hour hearing.

-- Steve Bousquet

Florida election system to get tweaked?

TALLAHASSEE — More than two months after Florida's election system drew national scorn for its long lines and tardy vote tabulation, state lawmakers said Monday they supported reforms in hopes to avoid a repeat performance.

During five hours of Senate hearings, lawmakers voiced measured support for a series of proposed changes, including expanding the number of early voting days from eight to up to 14 days, giving local elections offices more flexibility in choosing early polling sites and limiting the length of ballot amendment summaries to 75 words.

The recommendations were made by Florida election supervisors, who blamed long lines in some of the bigger counties on a ballot overstuffed with 11 proposed amendments that were passed by state lawmakers. Ten supervisors, including Penelope Townsley of Miami-Dade and Susan Bucher of Palm Beach, urged lawmakers to make the changes.

Although senators spent much of the hearing avoiding a discussion of the role they played in reducing the number of early voting days and passing the verbose amendments, they did acknowledge they were open to change.

"The Senate has gotten the message on the length of the ballot," said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine. "I was probably part of the problem as far as the language that appears on the ballot. If 75 words is the way to go, we should do that. And going from eight to 14 days of early voting? I don't have a problem with that."

Three out of four $$ this election cycle went to no-limits committee accounts

Florida’s sputtering economy did not stop interest groups and donors from spending $306 million this election cycle on state political campaigns, according to final election year tallies released Friday.

The number is lower than the $550 million reported in the 2010 election cycle and does not include the massive amount of federal cash spent in the presidential race. But it points to a new trend: more dollars are going to campaign committees rather than individual candidates.

Three out of every four dollars were unlimited checks to political committees, while the rest went into the campaign accounts of individuals, which are capped at $500 a check.

The shift is a sign that Florida’s $500 limit is outdated and dysfunctional — and ripe for reform, said Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, which did the analysis of the campaign finance data released by the Florida Division of Elections.

“Candidate accounts have become nearly irrelevant,’’ said Krassner. The current system allows corporations to write unlimited checks to political committees with loose affiliations to candidates but require them to give no more than $1000 to individual candidates for both the primary and general election. The result is, he said, “the public cannot easy follow the money.’’

House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, who has called for an overhaul of the state’s campaign finance reforms said Friday the numbers prove his point that the political committees – known as Committees of Continuous Existence, or CCEs – have gotten out of hand. Story here.

Top accounts:

MTV in the Clear on Voting Fraud

TALLAHASSEE -- If there were any questions that those running MTV's Rock the Vote were perpetuating fraud in registering voters, they were answered Thursday.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that it had found no evidence of criminal activity from the Rock the Vote website. It had been alerted to the potential of fraud on Oct. 8 by the Florida Department of State's Division of Elections.

But upon interviewing those involved in 20 registration cases the state had flagged as suspicious, the FDLE determined that the information on the Rock the Vote web site was accurate and the people shown as registering on it had initiated the activity.

More prominent cases of potential fraud await, however. Still outstanding, FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger says, are five separate cases against Strategic Allied Consulting, the private firm based in Arizona that had been hired by the Republican Party of Florida. Also open is the case of the mysterious letters with a Seattle, Wash. post mark that were sent to voters telling them that their registration status was in doubt.

Miami lawmakers file dueling elections bills as advisory group proposes local fixes

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.

Advisory group members were pleased to learn about Diaz de la Portilla’s legislation, filed Monday, which also would increase the number of early-voting hours per day to 14 from 12.

Margolis’ legislation, which the group also touched on, is far more expansive: It calls for 14 days of early voting — instead of the current eight — and it would allow for more early-voting sites.

“There’s so much pressure to get this done,” Margolis said, who filed her bill in late November. “I can’t believe anyone would be against this.”

In 2011, Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed a law sponsored by Diaz de la Portilla’s committee and approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature that reduced the number of early voting days to eight from 14, and eliminated early voting the Sunday before Election Day — a day that predominantly Democratic African-American churches had used to drive “souls to the polls.”

More here.

The rise and fall of Congressman David Rivera

For a decade, David Rivera was a political force to be reckoned with, the consummate operative who had a cat-like ability to survive any scrape — even as investigations swirled around him.

This November, the congressman’s ninth life expired.

Voted out of office as the FBI and IRS pressed on with probes into his personal and campaign finances, Rivera officially becomes a private citizen Thursday. Rivera could be charged soon, sources familiar with the investigation say.

Despite the ongoing investigations, Rivera has steadfastly denied he’s under any scrutiny and is already planning a comeback.

Rivera lived and breathed politics since and before his one term in Congress and four in the state Legislature. He was involved in every type of race: obscure party posts, local commission elections, contests for Florida House speaker, presidential races in the state and the winning campaigns of his close friend, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

But Rivera’s penchant for playing the political game proved to be his downfall as well. Rivera often embroiled himself in needless schemes and some ultimately backfired, say friends, foes and former peers.

“At the end of the day, David’s cleverness was a liability. But until now, it was an asset,” said J.C. Planas, a fellow Miami Republican who served and clashed at times with Rivera from 2002-2010 in the Florida House.

Those who were even closer to Rivera, including Rubio backers, have anonymously described his schemes as bordering on “pathological” and “Nixonian.”

When asked about the comparison to former President Nixon, Rivera said by email “Don’t even know what that means.” He then added a “hee hee” laughter message that went on to reference a famous Nixon 1962 press conference after he lost a California governor’s race.

“But I do know this, you won’t have David Rivera to kick around anymore,” Rivera said.

It’s a vintage Rivera response: funny, edgy and laden with political depth. It also shines a light on Rivera's mercurial nature, which has long concerned some Rubio backers. They’re relieved that Rivera’s political career could be over because it lowers the chances that Rubio — a vice-presidential shortlister in 2012 who won’t rule out a future White House bid — would get caught in the crossfire of a future controversy.

The two still own a Tallahassee home, which a bank started to foreclose in 2010 just as Rubio was running for Senate.

Rivera declined to comment for this article. In the past, he would simply laugh when told he was too crafty for his own good.

While in office, Rivera filed false financial reports by listing a phony company that paid him phantom income, records show. He took a gambling-company payout in secret when he didn’t need to. And former campaign vendors say he was involved in a bizarre election scheme involving stacks of untraceable cash to help attack Democrat Joe Garcia, who ultimately beat him Nov. 6.

The FBI is investigating the latter two cases. The state ethics commission rapped him for 11 instances of non-disclosure in October. And he avoided a 52-count state criminal indictment for his use of campaign and public money when he was a state legislator.

Throughout, Rivera’s explanations often changed when it came to specifics. But his general response was the same: Denial of wrongdoing.

More here

Christian-persecuting, Abortion-forcing China loves the Christmas-time business

Happy birthday, Jesus!

Love, China.

For a country that persecutes Christians, China sure profits from Christmas.

So China’s “one-child” policy has led to forced abortions? Well, those nativity sets celebrating a child the state wanted to kill two millennia ago are under $20 at your local store.

“Made in China” is everywhere on the shelves. But it’s nowhere in our political discourse right now.

Contrast that with all the political talk this entire year about the ills of China.

Just after the New Year, Florida airwaves were flooded with deceptive political ads that bashed Republican Newt Gingrich for once backing a bill “supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.”

Mitt Romney, the beneficiary of the attack ads, went on to win Florida’s Jan. 31 primary a few weeks after raising the China-abortion issue at a debate.

A month later, President Obama mentioned China during a Coral Gables fundraiser where he fretted about “shipping jobs overseas.”

“I don’t want this nation to be known just for buying and consuming things,” the president said.

But Obama didn’t talk much about that by the end of the month after his election.

More here

Former Sen. Mike Bennett flip-flops on early voting as he prepares for new elections role

From the Bradenton Herald:

Manatee (County)'s newly elected supervisor of elections Wednesday called for more early voting days and more flexibility in setting up early voting sites.

Republican Mike Bennett, who will be sworn in Jan. 6 as the county's new supervisor of elections, echoed remarks made to CNN by Florida Gov. Rick Scott on how to fix the state's embarrassing election day meltdown.

During the Nov. 6 general election, Manatee voters waited up to two hours at the county's sole early voting site; in some counties, the wait was up to six hours.

In 2011, as the president pro tempore of the Florida Senate, Bennett voted to cut back on the number of early voting days. "I don't have a problem making it harder (to vote)," he was quoted as saying. "I want people in Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who walks 200 miles across the desert. This should not be easy."

But now that he's about to take over as the county's elections supervisor, Bennett said Wednesday he would like to see the number of early voting days restored from eight to 14, and more flexibility given to local officials in choosing early voting sites.

Bennett also advocated new voter registration cards with photo ID's for all Florida residents, paid for by the state.

Read more here.

Miami-Dade report: County to blame for some elections problems

The waits of up to seven hours at some Miami-Dade polls during last month’s presidential election occurred in part because the county failed to estimate how much time it would take to fill out 10- to 12-page ballots, did not open more early-voting sites and decided not draw new precincts this year as planned, a report issued Wednesday concluded.

A last-minute surge in absentee ballots that overwhelmed the elections department staff, and a 12-hour Election Day breakdown of a machine that sorts the ballots also delayed the final results tally by two days, according to the department’s after-action report.

Wednesday’s report was the first comprehensive document outlining all of the factors that contributed to troubles in Miami-Dade. State officials, local elected leaders and county administrators have been piecing it together since the Nov. 6 election.

Some of the blame lies with Florida lawmakers, who placed 11 lengthy constitutional amendments on the ballot and cut the number of early-voting days to eight from 14.

But the 53-page report, while not providing any explicit mea culpas, also places responsibility on the county’s election department, run by Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s appointed elections supervisor, Penelope Townsley.

“It was a combination of factors,” Gimenez told The Miami Herald Wednesday evening. “But I can’t put the blame on any one person or one entity. The blame can go all the way around.”

The report points to seven key factors that affected the election, which was budgeted to cost $11.3 million:

More here.

Scott proposes elections changes on CNN but still won’t touch gun policy

Gov. Rick Scott appeared on CNN’s Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien this morning, where he frustrated the morning show host by refusing to give any specifics on policy shifts he could support in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre.

It was in the final four minutes of the seven-minute long interview that the conversation shifted to Newtown. As O’Brien asked Scott to give specifics and the governor avoided providing them, the host expressed her frustration.

Scott said that he feels sympathy for the families affected by the shooting, that he had directed Florida schools to re-evaluate their security plans and that he supports the Second Amendment. But, even when prompted with specific examples, he refused to say which gun proposals me might support and repeated that that policy debate will come later.

“My approach on things like this is to, one, respect the families, mourn their losses, make sure our schools are safe and then start the conversation and then listen to the Floridians,” the governor said. 

O’Brien vented a bit, saying she wanted politicians to say what they’re going to do and take action before there is another tragedy.

“I actually think that I’ve covered enough of them that if we wait until we bump up against the next tragedy -- and there will be one, there’s no doubt about it -- so I guess I would like to hear from elected officials what are you willing to change,” she said.

The interview started out friendly enough, with Scott praising O’Brien for the care she has shown in covering the mass shooting in recent days. Then they talked for several minutes about the long lines in Florida during early voting and on election day and what Scott is doing to fix the problems.