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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/orl-nomatch1708oct17,0,1499429.storyIn Orange County: Lessons in voter rejection
Florida's 'No match, no vote' law kicked back many Orange registrations -- mostly near UCF and Rollins.
Mary Shanklin and Aaron Deslatte | Sentinel Staff Writers
October 17, 2008
Stories of rejected voter registrations have focused on fraudulent applications submitted by liberal grass-roots organizations -- and even one filed by " Mickey Mouse" in Central Florida.
But in Orange County, who are the most likely to be kept off the rolls? College students.
Newly released records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show that areas around the University of Central Florida and Rollins College are where the most voter registrations were rejected. Many had predicted that locally, minority precincts with strong voter drives would face the greatest registration problems. In fact, registration applications from college areas are being kicked out because of mismatched IDs under Florida's controversial "No match, no vote" measure. The law, which took effect Sept. 8, calls for drivers-license and Social Security numbers to match those in government databases.
Not only is students' handwriting "horrible," said Orange County Supervisor of Elections administrator Margaret Dunn, the office also has a more difficult time matching IDs when applicants have out-of-state drivers licenses and officials have to rely on matching Social Security numbers instead.
Records from the Orange County elections office don't include everyone who registered by the Oct. 6 deadline, but they indicate which groups might have trouble casting regular ballots Nov. 4.
Though 46 percent of the 846 rejected Orange County residents were Democrats, only 9 percent were Republicans, and the rest generally had no party affiliation. Those numbers generally reflect statewide data obtained by the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday showing 8,867 would-be voters whose registrations remained unresolved.
In addition, more than a third rejected in Orange County were Hispanic, which is double the proportion of Hispanic residents.
"The major problem is the name confusion because so many Hispanics use hyphenated names because that's their culture," said longtime Orange County resident Patti Sharp, operations and finance director for Democracia USA. Elections officials agreed with that assessment.
Few whites were rejected. About 17 percent of the disqualified registrations were black, and 16 percent were white in a county that is 12 percent black and 74 percent white.
'Don't want a Democrat'
Orange County resident Alberta Gross, who is black and disabled, said she got a letter from the elections office notifying her that she had left some information off her voter-registration form and that a drivers-license number was needed. She said she was never was able to register.
"I don't have a drivers license. I don't drive. I put in the last four digits of my Social Security number, and they still denied me," Gross said. "Republicans have this state, and they want to stay Republican. They don't want a Democrat, much less a black man."
Voter drives to bolster support for black presidential candidate Barack Obama led some to think that the biggest problems with the "No Match" law could come in mostly black precincts, such as Pine Hills and Parramore. But across the county, the top precincts impacted by the No Match law were at UCF and Rollins.
Linda Chapin, adviser to the UCF College Democrats and director of the Metropolitan Center for Regional Studies, said some students might not yet be aware that there's a problem with their registration. Voting early gives them time to straighten things out if there is a problem, she said.
"We want to be certain that people voting for the first time are able to get it done," Chapin said.
Residents whose registration was rejected can still vote. Elections offices are contacting them about providing IDs. If they still aren't registered by Election Day, they will get provisional ballots that are valid if they submit their IDs to elections offices within 48 hours.
Numerous voter-rights groups have objected to the No Match law since it was re-enforced Sept. 8 after a court challenge. Groups say it makes voting too difficult for adults who have moved or had name changes. The League of Women Voters this week urged Gov. Charlie Crist to allow election workers to simply check IDs at the polls, as is common in other states.
'Very, very aggressive'
Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning told the Florida Cabinet this week he has been "very, very aggressive" in defending the law, despite concerns raised by groups and some county election supervisors that it could cause problems at the polls. Browning said the law was critical to upholding integrity in the elections system -- particularly in Florida, which was under intense public scrutiny over registration drives by liberal group ACORN and others.
"We're going to make sure that when you are registered, you are who you say you are," Browning said. "And we believe this law goes a long, long way toward accomplishing that point."
The Division of Elections has received more than 376,000 voter registrations since Sept. 8 -- 56,807 of those were initially flagged for ID mismatches, and 13,339 went to county election supervisors to resolve.
Just as in Orange County, rejected voters statewide were also disproportionately minorities. Slightly more than 27 percent were listed as Hispanic, and 26.8 percent of those rejected were black.
In this summer's primary election, blacks and Hispanics each composed slightly less than 12 percent of Florida's 10.6 million registered voters.
Whites, who make up 70 percent of the total voters, made up 19.4 percent of those rejected.
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