Gov signs elections law fix, reversing GOP changes and ending early primary

Gov. Rick Scott has finished the fix of the flawed election law that relegated Florida to a late-night joke in 2012 by signing an elections clean-up bill passed on the final day of the legislative session.

The measure, signed by Scott late Monday before he left for a trade mission to Chile, reverses several provisions implemented in 2011 by GOP lawmakers in anticipation of the 2012 presidential election.

Those changes, criticized by Democrats as an attempt to suppress votes for President Barack Obama, limited the early voting that the president’s campaign capitalized on in 2008. The 2011 law also prevented early voting on the Sunday before Election Day and prohibited voters, particularly students, from changing their voting address at the polls.

League of Women Voters of Florida President Deirdre Macnab hailed the reforms, saying “it will go a long way in repairing the damage done by the 2011 voter suppression bill.”

Marco Rubio gets Florida Legislature to eliminate early primary in 2016

@MarcACaputo and @MikeVanSickler

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio persuaded state lawmakers to make a last-minute change eliminating Florida’s early presidential primary – a race in which the Republican could be on the ballot.

Rubio’s main concern was shared by lawmakers and operatives from both parties: Ensuring that Florida’s 2016 primary vote counts. The measure, barely discussed, was tucked in an election-reform bill that passed the Legislature by wide margins Friday.

Right now, the Sunshine State’s early primary violates Democratic and Republican national party rules, which penalizes the state by severely devaluing the vote of its delegation to nominate each party’s presidential candidate.

Florida Republicans, for instance, would only have 12 delegates instead of 99 if the state kept its early primary in January or early February.

“We would go from being the third-largest delegation to being the smallest,” said Todd Reid, state director for Rubio.

Asked about Rubio’s potential bid for president in 2016, Reid said the changes had nothing to do with the senator’s political future and noted that Democrats support the changes as much, if not more, than Republicans.

Miami-Dade's election chief might be only one targeted in future for "non-compliance."

@MarcACaputo

***Update: Full story is here

The bipartisan election bill passed the Florida House on the first day of the legislative session has yet to pass the Florida Legislature on the last day -- in great part due to a dispute over a plan to punish some election supervisors deemed "non-compliant."

The Senate inserted the language at the urging of Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a critic of the way Miami-Dade election supervisor Penelope Townsley handled her job last fall.

The provision allows a Secretary of State to impose penalties, including a partial loss of pay, for failing to follow election rules or competently manage an election. After three years of being deemed "noncompliant" an election supervisor can be recommended for removal from office by the governor.

But the House, and the state's election supervisors, don't like the language in part because the state can punish incompetent election supervisors now and nearly all election supervisors are elected and accountable to the voters.

So the House plans to strip out the measure Friday. But they might give the Senate a compromise proposal that would punish appointed election supervisors. There's only one of the 67 in the state: Townsley.

"We think it’s a little bit punitive. It’s one thing if you’re an appointed election supervisor. I think you may see some language in the House that reflects that," said House Speaker Will Weatherford.

"But as far as an elected supervisor and having the ability to punish them from the Secretary of State’s Office, I don’t think the Florida House likes that position," he said. "I would imagine that would probably come out of the bill."

Meantime, Diaz de la Portilla said he's working on proposing a Miami-Dade county charter change to make the post an elected position.

Weatherford's feeling about the language is shared by Senate President Don Gaetz. He predicted the bill would probably pass. So did Weatherford.

"On the very first day of session, we passed out a bipartisan elections bill," Weatherford said. "Our hope is that on the last day of session, we are able to pass out a bipartisan elections bill."

Miami-Dade prosecutor to Latvala: I'm 'disappointed' election bill's fraud-fighting was weakened

@MarcACaputo

A letter from Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle to Sen. Jack Latvala:

I know that you have great concern that our elections be free of any cloud of voter fraud. All of us in Miami-Dade County feel that the integrity of our election process is of paramount importance. The potential of absentee ballot fraud effecting an election has brought together the citizens of this community, as signified by the 23 recommendations of the Miami-Dade Grand Jury, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners (BCC) and our Supervisor of Elections. The Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners passed resolution R-118-13 urging the Florida Legislature to enact the recommendations of the Grand Jury report in an effort to combat absentee ballot fraud. Reinstating the previous statutory requirement that a witness signature appear on each absentee ballot will provide a means of ensuring that every absentee ballot cast is an honest vote.

Enacting the statutory changes recommended by the Grand Jury, the Miami-Dade BCC and the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections will allow your community and all of Florida to improve the public’s perception of how our elections are conducted. I am disappointed to note that the current version of the elections reform bill no longer contains a provision requiring a witness for an absentee voter’s signature. I strongly urge you to amend the bill to reinstate this provision to s. 101.65, Florida Statutes. Your vote for the addition of a witness signature to each absentee ballot will throw a chill into the hearts of those manipulators who feel that they, not the people, should decide who will sit in public office.

Please, join me and our entire Board of County Commissioners and our Supervisor of Elections in voting for clean local elections.

Voting groups blast Senate bill's 'assistance' provision

Local and national voting rights groups voiced opposition Monday to an elections bill that's awaiting a final vote in the Senate on Wednesday. The groups zeroed in on a provision in the bill (HB 7013) that changes the law for voters who need assistance at the polls. Under the change, sponsored by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, a person seeking to assist a voter at the polls must already know the person, and no one may assist more than 10 voters in an election.

"These restrictions on assistors will make it harder to vote, particularly for many of Florida's Latino and Hispanic residents," the groups said in advance of a conference call with Florida reporters.  

The organizations included Florida New Majority, the Advancement Project, Service Employees International Union Local 1199, Florida Immigrant Coalition and Florida Conference of the NAACP. They said the Senate bill
would disenfranchise voters who can't read English. Advocates cited Section 208 of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provides that a person who needs assistance as a result of blindness, disability, or the inability to read or write can receive assistance "from the person of his or her choice," provided it's not an agent or officer of
the voter’s employer or union.

The House has not yet voted on the controversial provision limiting voter assistance at the polls. House
Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, said Monday that House leaders have concerns about various provisions of the Senate bill, but he did not cite specifics.

Latvala, in Senate floor debate last week, said the ability of people to help voters cast ballots is being abused in Florida. "It's become kind of a political tool in many areas to have folks who stay at precincts all day offering their services to go in and help people vote, and in many cases in an intimidating fashion," Latvala said.

Gihan Perera of Florida New Majority called Latvala's description "false." People who are actively trying to influence people's vote choices must stay a safe distance from the polling precinct, Perera said.

Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, who unsuccessfully sought to remove the provision from the Senate bill, said one reason for historically long lines at the polls in Miami-Dade last fall was that too few volunteers were available to assist Haitian voters who only speak Creole.

-- Steve Bousquet

Florida Senate Republicans crack down on foreign-language interpreters for voting

@MarcACaputo

Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old North Miami voter who became a symbol of Florida’s elections woes, could again find it tough to cast a ballot now that the Republican-controlled state Senate voted Tuesday to keep a crack down on foreign-language interpreters at the polls.

The Senate maintained the last-minute measure on what appeared to be a party-line voice vote while debating a bill designed to reverse the effects of an election law that helped create long lines and suppress the vote in 2012.

On Election Day at Victor’s polling station, there weren’t enough interpreters for the Creole-speaking native of Haiti and hundreds like her. Turnout was heavy. And lines lasted for hours — partly due to a slew of proposed state Constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by the Florida Legislature.

“My mom is a victim of this problem, if they’re going to change something it should be to make voting easier. Just make it easy,” said Victor’s godson, Mathieu Pierre-Louis, whom she raised as her own child.

Group warns that Senate bill could draw a voting rights act lawsuit

Gihan Perera, executive director of the Florida New Majority, warned that the Senate elections bill (SB 600) which now includes a provision that limits people assisting voters at the polls violates the provisions of the federal voting rights act and  is likely to draw a legal challenge. 

"Section II of the Voting Rights Act says any voter who can’t read or write has a choice of who gets to help them,'' Perera said. "This, we believe, clearly contradicts that section of the federal Voting Rights Act."

State law currently requires that anyone who assists a voting in the polling place sign an affidavit. Those protections shield voters from fraudsters, Perera said. "We are currently in compliance. This would put Florida out of compliance.''

He said the provision in the bill harm what was intended to be an improvement in Florida's botched elections system. "This is one of the worst thing for us when we're trying to go and heal the problems of the last election law. One of the few things that really worked well was to train people and to assist people in a very non-partisan and clean way."

African-American leaders push for greater changes in voter reform efforts

Representatives of several groups, including clergy, student and civil rights organizations, say election reform bills under consideration in the Legislature don't go far enough to fix an election process that was marred by long lines, confusion and controversy in the fall.

“We have a process where a 102-year-old woman is standing in line” for hours, said attorney Phelicia Stiell,  local chair of the National Congress of Black Women, referring to Desiline Victor of Miami, who waited more than three hours to cast her ballot Nov. 6.  

Stiell, Elder Terry Price of the Tallahassee Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, William Tucker of the NAACP and FAMU student Ciara Taylor of Dream Defenders, a Florida coalition of young people of color, were the speakers during a press conference Thursday morning outside the Leon County Supervisor of Elections Office, across from the state Capital.

The election process, Stiell said, is “broken.”

With the legislative session starting next week, African-American community leaders are concerned that there hasn't yet been a lot of public testimony in bill hearings. And they want to be sure their voices are heard. 

"We know what is percolating in the House and we feel positive about that," Stiell said. "We want the Senate to follow suit. …but there is still work to be done."

A bipartisan-backed measure is headed for a House floor vote in the upcoming session that allows Florida’s elections supervisors to conduct early voting from eight to 14 days for eight to 12 hours per day, for a mininum of 64 hours and a maximum of 168 hours (72 more hours than under the curent law) and it gives supervisors a greater choice of early voting sites.

Voting changes passed two years ago, which many blame for problems in the fall election, reduced the number of early voting days from 14 to eight and eliminated early voting on the Sunday before the general election.

The proposed House bill leaves Sunday voting before the general election up to the discretion of the Supervisor of Elections office in each county.

While he’s a longtime supporter of early voting, starting the practice in Tallahassee in 1994, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho said election supervisors know the needs of their communities.  “One size does not fit all,” he said. Early voting as we know it, officially began statewide in 2004.

The Sunday before the election is "is the day when our communities have traditionally marched to the polls,”  said Price, referring to a voting effort dubbed Souls to the Polls.

Stiell said election rights should be "across the board. It should not be one county has these hours and days and another does not."

"We want the Legislature to know that it's an important day to vote for a large group of people that they serve," Price said.

Among other voting issues of concern to the groups: Reinstituting voting rights for felons who have served their sentences and undoing a change that kept voters who have moved from one county to another from changing their addresses at the polls.

 

 

Does Florida need the Voting Rights Act? The experts are divided

As a skeptical U.S. Supreme Court raised doubts about a central provision of the federal Voting Rights Act on Wednesday, the law’s defenders said the 2012 election provided a vivid example for why it was needed to protect Florida from voter suppression.

“Look at the performance of our governor and Legislature in the last election,’’ says Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida whose parent organization has joined in the lawsuit to retain the law. “They are walking advertisements for why we need the Voting Rights Act.”

After the Legislature passed a sweeping elections bill in 2011, the act’s provisions required the state to get federal approval from either a federal trial court or the Justice Department before the law could take effect in Monroe, Hillsborough, Hardee, Hendry and Collier counties.

In addition to seeking the review, Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi challenged the act’s constitutionality. Former Secretary of State Kurt Browning called the provisions of the act an “arbitrary and irrational coverage formula based on data from 40 years ago that takes no account of current conditions.”

The five Florida counties have been subject to the pre-clearance requirement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act protections since 1975 because of a history of discrimination against language minorities. Monroe County, for example, failed to print ballots in Spanish even though the Spanish-speaking population was large enough to warrant its own ballot. Story here.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/27/3257775_florida-advocates-say-2012-proved.html#storylink=addthis#storylink=cpy

House committee expands early voting options in latest stop for priority bill

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.

Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-Tampa, proposed an amendment to require that the state include buildings in the Florida college system as early voting sites because it would give “greater flexibility to the supervisor of elections and greater convenience and access to students and officials of these institutions.”