Florida Must Release List of Ineligible Voters
Thu Jul 1, 2004 06:10 PM ET
By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida must release a list of suspected felons it wants purged from voter registration rolls so the names can be checked to avoid errors that wrongly disenfranchised voters in the state's disputed 2000 election, a state judge ruled on Thursday.

CNN, ABC and other news and civil rights groups sued to get copies of the list in order to check its accuracy before November's presidential election.

A similar purge list used in 2000 contained hundreds and possibly thousands of errors, barring some eligible Florida voters from the state's presidential balloting. Republican George W. Bush gained the White House after winning Florida by 537 votes after a recount battle.

"This is good news for voters because now these records will be open and available for public inspection to help protect the right of every eligible voter in Florida," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, one of the plaintiffs.

In 2000, many of the barred voters were blacks, who skew Democratic, and who charged they were deliberately disenfranchised to influence the outcome. The errors also enabled some ineligible voters such as felons to obtain ballots.

Florida permanently bars convicted felons from voting unless they have undergone an administrative process to have their civil rights restored after serving their sentences.

In May, the state Department of Elections identified 47,763 people who may not be eligible to vote because of felony convictions and urged county election supervisors to verify the lists and purge the voter registration rolls accordingly.

News organizations wanted to review the new list to check for errors and sued when the state refused to release copies.

Election officials cited a 2001 law that made copies of the list available only to candidates, political parties and government officials. The law allowed others to view it but prohibited them from receiving copies or even copying down notes from the list.

State Circuit Judge Nikki Clark ruled on Thursday the 2001 law was unconstitutional because it did not articulate any "public necessity" to limit access.

Clark also said the right to inspect the list without the right to copy it was "valueless." She ordered election supervisors to make the list public immediately.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood said she would comply, and acknowledged some on the list might not be felons.

"We caution all those who view this information that this is a list of potential matches, not a final list," Hood said in a prepared statement.

The purge list was compiled from state criminal records and other databases. Some errors in 2000 involved people with identical or similar names and those charged with felonies but convicted only of misdemeanors and therefore still eligible to vote.