Florida - Still Supressing Votes

Law puts thousands of Florida voter IDs in question

Florida's controversial 'no-match' law has already called into question thousands of new voter registrations.

TALLAHASSEE -- About 3,200 new voters are in the cross-hairs of Florida's new and controversial ''no-match'' law, which could force them to cast provisional ballots on Election Day if officials can't confirm their identities.

The law, designed to prevent potential election fraud and remove joke names from voter rolls -- ''Ricco Suave'' and ''Joe Blow'' among them -- requires local elections officials to mail letters to anyone whose registration information doesn't match the state's driver's license or Social Security databases.

Only those who registered after Sept. 8 are affected. Since then, 71,000 new Florida voters have registered through Monday, according to Florida's elections division.

Miami-Dade County has now issued about 1,200 no-match letters, Election Supervisor Lester Sola said. Broward County sent out about 84 as of last week, said the election office's public services director, Mary Cooney.

The numbers are changing as new voters are added to the voter rolls through the Oct. 6 registration deadline.

Those who are flagged as a no-match, must provide either a driver's license or Social Security card to their county elections office at least 24 hours before Election Day. Otherwise, they'll have to cast a provisional ballot and bring their documentation to the elections office within two days to make their vote count.

Opponents worry that the law poses needless challenges to voters. The databases that elections officials use can have typographical errors that could call someone's registration into question, and the no-match notice could get lost in the mail, said Mary G. Wilson, national president for the League of Women voters.

''You know what happens: You're out of town, or you get busy and you put your mail aside and don't open it right away. So you may have no idea that there wasn't a match,'' she said.