Judge rejects challenge to provisional-ballot law

By Dara Kam

Special to The Palm Beach Post

Thursday, September 23, 2004

TALLAHASSEE — A Leon County judge rejected a challenge to the state's provisional ballots Wednesday, ignoring lawyers' arguments that some voters will be so confused by precinct changes caused by hurricanes and redistricting that they won't know where to vote in November.

Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith Jr. also refused to certify the suit as a class action on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, and the union representing state and municipal workers.

Attorneys for the unions said they plan to ask the District Court of Appeal to send the case directly to the Florida Supreme Court so a final decision can be issued before the Nov. 2 presidential election on whether voters must cast provisional ballots in their own precincts as state law requires.
 Florida lawmakers created provisional ballots after the botched 2000 presidential election, during which thousands of voters complained they were turned away from the polls after being erroneously purged from the voting rolls.

A provisional ballot allows a voter who is not on the precinct list to cast a ballot anyway. The county canvassing board later examines the ballots and determines if the voter was eligible to vote in that precinct. If not, the ballot is rejected and the votes on it remain uncounted.

"It's not rocket science, your honor, figuring out where to go to vote," said Jon Glogau, an attorney in the Florida Attorney General's Office representing Secretary of State Glenda Hood. "We all have to do it."

Opponents of the current law want Floridians to be able to cast provisional ballots in any precinct and have the canvassing boards later count only the votes in the races in which that voter was eligible to cast a ballot.

"We cannot return to the year 2000 where thousands and thousands of voters came to the polls, cast their ballots, only to have them thrown away," Alma Gonzalez, an attorney for the union representing state and municipal workers in Tallahassee, said at a news conference after Smith's ruling.

Damage to polling places after the recent spate of hurricanes caused some elections officials to move voting sites and create "super" precincts by combing up to 11 precincts, creating confusion for many Floridians, some of whom were displaced themselves by the storms, Gonzalez said.

"We should not be adding insult to injury by telling them because they are displaced they should suffer more and have their ballots thrown away," Gonzalez said.