Winners and losers
Many concerns about Florida's voting process could have been avoided if the state's head election official were an impartial outsider. The state still has time to improve its credibility.
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle 02 October 2004

Former president Jimmy Carter created a stir last week with a opinion piece in the Washington Post. It warned that Florida's voting system was gravely biased toward the Republican leadership.
Carter was only summarizing complaints that have flowed from the state ever since the 2000 elections. For many watchdogs, the greatest concern is Glenda Hood, Florida's top election official. A former Republican mayor and an elector for George W. Bush in 2000, Hood hardly fits the profile of a nonpartisan public servant. That was what Florida, eye of the electoral chaos four years ago, desperately needed to regain voter trust.

Depressingly, Hood has only confirmed some observers' fears with a series of acts that appear to favor her party and Gov. Jeb Bush. She tried to ban manual recounts that might compensate should Florida's electronic voting machines fail. She hastily ordered Ralph Nader's name to be printed on ballots — even before Florida's Supreme Court ruled it could appear there. Nader earned almost 100,000 Florida votes in 2000, most of which probably would have gone to Democratic presidential contender Al Gore.

Gov. Bush should never have appointed Hood to this sensitive job. Weeks before the election, and months after Hood has shown her skills as a GOP water-carrier, it's futile to demand she step down. Nevertheless, Florida urgently needs to do what it can to rebuild voter trust. Blacks especially feel reason to worry about the fate of their votes. Earlier this year, Florida compiled a roster of 47,000 felons to be purged from voting registries. The state was forced to the list when it was revealed that the roster included 22,000 blacks — typically Democratic voters — and only 61 Latinos, who make up about 17 percent of the population and typically vote GOP.

More recently, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert reported on the Florida State Police's probe of elderly black voters. Officials say they are exploring allegations of absentee ballot misuse in the March mayoral race. But the state's Department of Law Enforcement pronounced the case closed more than five months ago — leading black leaders to wonder why senior citizens are now being questioned in their homes by armed lawmen.

All this is before the polls have even opened. Of the potential malfunctions that might occur once votes are in, Florida's handling of provisional votes may be most worrisome. After the 2000 election, the federal Help America Vote Act instituted provisional votes so citizens could vote even if their names didn't appear on registration rolls. The idea was that the votes then could be counted once registration was verified. Florida, however, has issued the country's strictest interpretation of this law: Provisional votes there are worthless if they are due to user error. Thus, a voter who doesn't know her precinct was changed due to hurricane damage still can vote. But the ballot might be discarded if she cast it from the wrong place.

State officials, including Hood, must now decide the fine points of how this policy is carried out. It's also up to them to face other fraught questions, like complaints of voter intimidation. Unfortunately, Florida lacks a neutral and credible election chief to guide the way. Even so, Glenda Hood can reduce the risk of electoral chaos. She should promptly open important administrative decisions to the public. She should set up a notice and comment period for new decisions. And she should encourage — not merely allow — observers at every step of the vote collection and vote counting process.