Remove the voting barrier

By Alvaro F. Fernandez, Special to the Sentinel

On Election Day, Floridians may again see a mishandled election that unfairly disenfranchises eligible voters. To avoid this, I call on Secretary of State Kurt Browning to suspend enforcement of the "no match, no vote" voter verification statute. He can and should delay enforcing this burdensome and unnecessary law.

This law prevents newly-registered voters from voting by regular ballot if the state doesn't verify their drivers license or Social Security number by matching it with a state or federal database -- even when the source of the problem is a clerical error or typographical error.

County officials must notify unmatched applicants who, to be added to the voter rolls, must provide a copy of their drivers license or Social Security card. If applicants don't receive or understand that notice and appear at the polls on Election Day, they get a provisional ballot -- which won't count unless they give officials a copy of their valid identification card within 48 hours.

The requirement places unnecessary obstacles in the paths of people who are energized by the upcoming election and excited to vote for the first time -- and disenfranchises voters unless they correct clerical errors made by the government.

Before the presidential primary, 16,000 citizens were blocked from the voter rolls by the law. It disproportionately impacts voters of color who have nontraditional names, including Latino voters who use two surnames, thus increasing the likelihood of clerical errors. In 2006 and 2007, 65 percent of the unmatched applicants were either Latino or African American. Latinos comprised only 15 percent of the applicant pool, but a whopping 39 percent of them were prevented from registering. African Americans comprised only 13 percent of the applicant pool, yet 26 percent of them were kept from the rolls.

Browning says this law is necessary to prevent fraudulent voters from registering -- despite scant evidence of voter-registration fraud in Florida. And while election officials must verify voters' identities -- that is, make sure voters are who they say they are -- this law does not accomplish that purpose. Indeed, voters who verify their identities by showing poll workers their drivers licenses, U.S. passports or military identifications will have their votes go uncounted if they do not give election officials an extra copy of an ID card in the two days after the election.

Last year, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and other groups challenged the law in federal court, and the court blocked enforcement of the law for the presidential primary. That ruling was reversed on appeal, but the lawsuit continues, and there hasn't yet been a final ruling. This makes all the more puzzling Browning's announcement that he would abruptly begin enforcing the burdensome law just weeks before the registration deadline.

Browning should not put Florida's voters at risk. The Division of Elections is already overwhelmed trying to process a backlog of thousands of new applications. Forcing officials to contend with an unnecessary matching law when they're already inundated makes no sense -- especially because the law won't stop any voter fraud and will stop thousands of citizens from having their ballots counted on Election Day.

Alvaro F. Fernandez is a regional director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the voter verification law.