Law Risks Voiding Legitimate Ballots
Commentary
This editorial appeared in the St. Petersburg Times Oct. 3, 2008.
When a reporter asked Gov. Charlie Crist about the controversial "no match-no vote" law that Secretary of State Kurt Browning started enforcing mere weeks before the registration deadline, Crist responded, "You have to be who you are, in order to vote . . . . I don't want election fraud. I want people who are voting to be who they purport to be."
Every Floridian should wholeheartedly agree. The problem is the law doesn't do what the governor says it does.
The law doesn't guarantee voters are who they say they are. It actually prevents ballots from being counted even after voters produce irrefutable proof of identity—like military identification or U.S. passports. Provisional ballots will also be thrown out if voters don't give officials a copy of their driver's license within two days after the election—even though they already showed their license at the polls.