Brennan Center for Justice

Florida currently has the Electronic Registration at DMVs and Portability components of Voter Registration Modernization in place. Florida also has pre-registration, as well as electronic pollbooks in at least one county.

Registered voters who have moved within the state should be able to cast a ballot that counts on Election Day even if they had not previously updated their registration information before showing up at the polls.  Legislation passed in 2011 unraveled one aspect of Florida’s portable registration system, so that now voters who have moved to a new county, and who had not updated their address before showing up at the polls, may only cast a provisional ballot.  Under rules currently in place, the state has announced that these “inter-county” provisional ballots will be counted unless there is evidence of fraud.  However, Florida does maintain permanent registration for all other voters who have moved within the same Florida county.  These voters can go to their new polling place (corresponding to their current address) to cast a regular ballot that will count; once there, they can fill out a change of address form.  For more on portable registration in Florida, please see our Brennan Center report on permanent registration.

The excerpt below was adapted from an appendix to the 2010 report Voter Registration in a Digital Age.

Overview
Our information about Florida is somewhat more limited than in the case of other states examined here, as we were not able to interview state election officials. That being said, we confirmed with officials in Leon County that voter registration at Florida’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) has been fully automated since 2006. The agency supplies a large proportion of all voter registrations in the state, accounting for nearly a third in 2007-08, and nearly two-thirds in 2005-06.

Outcomes
Election officials in Leon County, home to Tallahassee, have found that the automated system works smoothly and conveniently, though in a few instances they have failed to receive a person’s registration data. When the possibility of this arises, they can confirm that a person attempted to register by examining her printed receipt from the DHSMV or by contacting the agency directly to inquire whether her file has been marked for voter registration. If they find that a registration attempt occurred, they will add the person to the rolls or validate her provisional ballot.

How Paperless Registration Works in Florida
As in Delaware, a visitor to the DHSMV applies for or updates a driver’s license or identification card by going through an interview, during which a DHSMV employee asks if she would like to register to vote. If so, the employee asks several questions to confirm the visitor’s eligibility to register, and records her response electronically.

The visitor’s registration data and digitized signature are electronically transmitted to county election officials that night through the statewide voter registration system. County officials verify her address, check for duplicates, and assign a precinct. The statewide voter registration system then runs matching checks against motor vehicle or Social Security records, as with any registration.  Previously, DHSMV employees would print pre-populated registration forms for interested visitors, which they collected and mailed after obtaining signatures