Wronged Voters Still Need a Right

Florida Dragging It's Feet on Restoring the Voting Rights of People Wrongly Purged FOUR Years Ago

• More than 50% of those on the 2000 list were Black
  

As Al Gore and George W. Bush campaigned for president, James Bors received what he called a "really nasty letter" telling him he could not vote in the 2000 election. Four years later, the design engineer believes it is still true. "I didn't realize I could vote," Bors, 40, said from his home in Pasco County. Public records show state officials in Tallahassee knew for almost a year that Bors and nearly 1,000 other voters were wrongly put on the Secretary of State's 1999 and 2000 purge lists. It was not until Aug. 12 that Secretary of State Glenda Hood sent county election supervisors those names, following a month of mediation with civil rights groups. Local election officials say they are running out of time to return those people to the rolls before next week's primary, raising the concern they'll be blocked from another election. "I would be hard-pressed to get it done that fast," said Bill Cowles, Orange County elections supervisor. He said his staff has not finished reviewing 1,004 other voters identified for removal in 1999 and 2000 and now thought to be wrong. Restoring rights, "like everything else, will fall into work in progress, along with poll worker training, early voting, absentee voting ..." Cowles said. [more ]