‘It always takes a fight just to vote in this state’
Residents, experts discuss concerns at voting rights hearing
Too many obstacles stand in the way of honest, fair elections in Florida — at least in the view of a multiple election experts, political activists and everyday citizens who detailed a litany of concerns at a hearing Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale.
“If we are serious about people participating in democracy, we should be very keen about making sure people have access to it,” said state Rep. Shevrin Jones, DWest Park. “We need to make sure we protect our elections, and that includes making sure there are no foreign individuals who play and meddle in our elections.”
Corey Shearer of Sunrise, regional director of the Democratic Black Caucus of Florida, said Florida voters are “being drowned out by a predator in the political waters” of Florida. The predator: voter suppression.
Among the concerns: the way voters are removed from the voter rolls, problems that prevent mail ballots from being counted, and the implementation of Amendment 4, the voter-approved constitutional amendment to automatically restore voting rights to most ex-felons.
“It is so much and so egregious,” said Don Mizell, a lawyer and member of the Florida Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which held the hearing. “It’s so far beyond the pale. It’s unbelievable.”
Mizell, a lawyer and music and entertainment producer who lives in Fort Lauderdale, is the nephew of Dr. Von D. Mizell, the first black surgeon in South Florida, founder of the Broward chapter of the NAACP, and leader of the wade-ins that led to the desegregation of Fort Lauderdale beaches.
Though he said the testimony was discouraging, “I’m actually optimistic in the long run.”
Mizell said in an interview that his objective is to get a comprehensive look at anything that impedes voter participation and hopes that he can help develop solutions.
“It always takes a fight just to vote in this state,” said Carolyn Thompson, Florida voter protection advocate for the Advancement Project, a community organizing and civil rights organization.
Mail ballots
Mail ballots, which are increasingly popular, sometimes don’t get counted because signatures don’t match, or they don’t make it to the elections office by the deadline because of the vagaries of the Postal Service.
Micah W. Kubic, executive director of the American Civil liberties Union in Florida, said the rules are too restrictive. He said signature-matching requirements cause the rejection of higher shares of ballots from minority and young voters than from older and white voters.
Shearer faulted the strict deadline for getting mail ballots back to elections offices: 7 p.m. on Election Day, unlike some other states that use the date ballots are postmarked.
He said small things can have a big effect. For several years, Broward’s mail ballots have gone to Opa-locka for sorting, something that can add days to travel time, which means people miss the deadline.
Voter rolls
Voters who miss a few elections and notices in the mail can unexpectedly learn they’ve been taken off the voter rolls, said Wayne Brody, voter protection chairman for the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party.
He said people who miss elections get mail from the supervisor of elections. If they don’t respond, they’re moved to inactive
status. People on inactive status can get back on the active list if they vote soon or contact the election office. If they don’t vote in two additional general elections, he said, then they’re removed.
Because of Florida’s early deadline to register to vote — 29 days before an election — if someone discovers they’re not registered to vote on the first day of early voting, it’s too late to get re-registered in time to vote in that election.
Brody said it’s wrong to use mail, “which does not play a significant role in the lives of many people, particularly young people,” for something as serious as removing people from the voting rolls.
He and Kubic said Florida should implement a different voter registration system, allowing people to register as late as Election Day if they wish.
Ex-felon voting
Several witnesses objected to the Florida election law that limits the impact of the voter-approved constitutional amendment that restores voting rights to most ex-felons who’ve served their sentences. The Legislature and governor implemented requirements that former felons also must pay a range of financial penalties before they can register.
Kubic said the amendment was “expressly designed to undo this century and half of explicit and implicit racial discrimination.” Limiting the ability of ex-felons to register to vote disproportionately affects black voters, he said.
Susan Pynchon of Florida Fair Elections Coalition criticized the way Broward County designed its 2018 ballot under former Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes.
Broward County placed federal races in the lower left-hand corner of the ballot, underneath ballot instructions in English, Spanish and Creole.
Tucked away in the bottom left, many people apparently missed the Senate race. In other counties, instructions were printed across the top of the page. The Senate contest was at the top and impossible to miss.
“Is it disparaging to say Broward County could be the poster child for voter disenfranchisement?” Pynchon asked.
Tuesday’s hearing in Fort Lauderdale is the first in a series. Nadine Smith, chairwoman of the Florida Advisory Committee, said the group would send its findings to the full commission, which may then issue a report. Smith said the process could take about 12 months.
The 20 people who testified on organized panels of witnesses and during the public comment periods were on the left side of the political spectrum, though one person identified himself as a Republican election lawyer.
The audience consisted largely of liberal activists, Democrats, and civic activists such as a contingent from the Broward chapter of the League of Women Voters.
Also attending: three candidates who have declared their candidacies for Broward supervisor of elections in 2020: Ruth Carter-Lynch, Mitch Ceasar and Tim Lonergan, as well as another possible candidate, David Brown.
Elizabeth Bercaw, who said she has been watching Broward elections and whose business card describes her as an “integrative nutrition health coach” that advances “the sexy healthy lifestyle” spoke during during both public comment periods at the hearing.
Bercaw said she doesn’t trust ballot counting machines and software.
She said all ballots in every election should be counted by hand instead of using tabulating machines. Bercaw rejected the notions that hand counting would be both expensive and time consuming.
She also asserted that “Broward County elections have been hacked.” Members of Congress briefed on the issue by the FBI were told that Broward wasn’t one of the two Florida counties that had their voter registration systems hacked by the Russians in 2016.
Steve Vancore, spokesman for Broward Supervisor of Elections Peter Antonacci, said by email that the well-publicized phishing attacks were aimed at voter registration rolls. Vancore said the voter tabulation machines are “not susceptible to Internet hacking attempts as they are not connected to the Internet.”