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On Fla. vote rolls: Dead, duplicates, ineligible felons

Florida Sun Sentinel

Thursday, October 30, 2008

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Mattie Lee Blitch has been dead 23 years but she’s still registered to vote in Palm Beach County.

Recent college graduate Brett Ackerman is registered three times in two counties.

And convicted felon Joseph Muro just signed up to vote — from a state mental institution for the criminally insane.

(snip)

That includes at least 600 dead people, 32,000 voters registered more than once and a growing number of convicted felons — now more than 33,000 — who by law should not be allowed to cast ballots.

Political analysts say the potential for widespread fraud in the names of dead or duplicate voters is low, although dead voters did play a role in the 1997 Miami mayor’s race. Ineligible felons, however, could influence a close election in a state that decided the 2000 presidential race by 537 votes.

An untold number of Florida’s 1.8 million non-citizens are on the voting rolls. Non-citizens are not permitted to vote, but Florida has no way of checking citizenship. Florida “does not have access to any federal database, if any exists, with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for the Department of Homeland Security,” said Jennifer Krell Davis, spokeswoman for the state Elections Division.

How much of an effect Florida’s problematic registrations will play in the election remains to be seen. Once non-citizens and ineligible felons are added to the rolls, elections officials have no way of preventing them from voting.