State joins effort to clean up voter rolls
More than a year after it was authorized by the Legislature, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday gave the state’s 67 elections supervisors their number one priority for 2020 by joining a multi-state compact to share voter roll information.
DeSantis said Florida would become the 29th state to join the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which makes it easier to track voter registrations across state lines, clean up voter polls of deceased voters and — possibly most importantly — reach out via mail to every eligible but unregistered voter in Florida.
DeSantis estimated that between 4 million to 5 million Floridians aren’t registered to vote.
Earlier this year, Division of Elections director Maria Matthews alluded to the unregistered voter outreach provision in ERIC as the “stick” in a “carrot and stick” in talking about whether to join the compact.
That description was criticized by some supervisors, and some critics held it up as the reason the DeSantis administration was slow in joining the partnership.
Supervisors “bristled at the idea that reaching out to unregistered voters should be viewed as some sort of punishment,” Politico reported in May.
On Wednesday, the governor made it clear the state would only be making the mass voter outreach because it was an ERIC requirement. He said he was skeptical Florida would get a huge response in voter registration.
“People spend big money trying to get voters registered,” DeSantis said at the Orange County elections office in Orlando. “If it was just as easy to send them a postcard in the mail and fill it out, well, that would make it much easier. And typically you’ve [actually] got to do more outreach than that.”
He said joining with other states “makes the most sense” for keeping voter rolls clean, “especially given the fact that we have a lot of people moving into the state.”
Joining ERIC, which was started in seven states in 2012 but has grown to include 28 states and Washington, D.C., will allow supervisors to match duplicate registrations for people who have moved to Florida but remain registered in another state.
The vast majority of people with dual registrations aren’t breaking the law or committing fraud, DeSantis noted. But it does create confusion when attempting to keep voter rolls accurate.
“If you move from Michigan, no one calls their supervisor and says, ‘Hey, I’m leaving, take me off the rolls.’ They just move,” he said. “And so most of the people who are registered in two places don’t ever intend to and will not vote in both places.”
ERIC would also help better identify voters who have died, using their Social Security records.
“Obviously when people pass away, we wish them all the best in the world that lies ahead, but we don’t want them still involved in politics,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis, who was joined by Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee and Florida State Association
than a day for the results to show clean or dirty water.
Beaches with polluted water are closed to swimmers on Tuesday or Wednesday. They reopen when the water is deemed clean again.
But that leaves swimmers open
Four Palm Beach County beaches were closed to swimming last week, and the advisories were lifted Aug. 15. Another advisory went into effect Tuesday night in Lake Worth Beach at Kreusler Park.
There’s no telling exactly when bacteria levels spiked over the weekend, or how many people swam in the contaminated water.
Miami-Dade beaches have had similar issues. After advisories for two beaches were lifted Aug. 13, six more beaches were flagged Wednesday afternoon, just one week later. The beaches are: Surfside 93rd Street, North Shore weekend to exposure.
73rd Street, Collins Park 21st Street, South Beach (Collins Avenue and South Pointe Drive), Virginia Beach and Crandon North and Crandon South.
In Broward County, tests show polluted water for a number of beaches, including Northeast 16th Street in Pompano and Pompano Beach Pier. But Broward’s health department hasn’t issued any advisories.
According to the state health department’s Healthy Beaches Program, beaches that show poor water quality samples can be retested to avoid issuing an advisory until new results come in. That means those possibly contaminated waters remain open to swimmers.
It’s typical to see high bacteria levels at the beach during the rainy season, experts say. Heavy rain overwhelms sewers and untreated wastewater overflows into waterways that eventually contaminate the ocean water.
That’s why it’s more common to see advisories during the summer. Environmental Protection Agency data for the past 10 years shows it’s often the same beaches that are deemed unsafe for swimming.
In Palm Beach County, those are DuBois Park and Phil Foster Park. Both have closed to swimmers more than 20 times in the past 10 years. Palm Beach County issued 87 beach advisories during that time, with the most in 2017 at 28 advisories.
Broward County issued only 27 advisories in the past 10 years. It didn’t issue any in 2009, 2011 and between 2014 and 2017. Last year, Broward’s health department issued four advisories.
Miami-Dade issued 73 advisories in the past decade. The largest number of advisories were issued in 2008, at 19. Data shows the worst offender is Crandon Park North in Key Biscayne.
People who come into contact with contaminated water can experience gastrointestinal illness, respiratory disease, ear and eye infections and skin rashes.