Florida Must Provide List of Felons

Florida must release a list of suspected felons it wants purged from voter registration rolls so the names can be checked to avoid errors that wrongly disenfranchised voters in the state’s disputed 2000 election, a state judge ruled Thursday.

CNN, ABC and other news and civil rights groups sued to get copies of the list to check its accuracy before November’s presidential election.

A similar purge list used in 2000 contained hundreds and possibly thousands of errors, barring some eligible Florida voters from the state’s presidential balloting. Republican George W. Bush gained the White House after winning Florida by 537 votes after a recount battle.

“This is good news for voters because now these records will be open and available for public inspection to help protect the right of every eligible voter in Florida,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, one of the plaintiffs.

In 2000, many of the barred voters were blacks, who generally vote Democratic.

Florida permanently bars convicted felons from voting unless they have undergone an administrative process to have their civil rights restored after serving their sentences.

In May, the state Department of Elections identified 47,763 people who may not be eligible to vote because of felony convictions and urged county election supervisors to verify the lists and purge the voter registration rolls accordingly.