Gov. Rick Scott laid out a challenge to state supervisors of elections to restart his effort to find noncitizens from among the lists of registered voters now that the federal government will make a long-sought database available to Florida.
The supervisors, busy Monday with the final day of registration for the Aug. 14 election, said they will address the review on Tuesday.
Appearing on CNN on Monday morning, Scott said he had no idea why the federal government finally agreed on Saturday to open up the Homeland Security Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program (SAVE) database, but appreciated the decision that had been blocked by the Obama administration since last fall.
He added that he cant imagine the supervisors wouldnt restart the review for noncitizens that the majority halted last month. The state, after all, has been after the database for the last 12 months.
This is very reliable data that the Department of Homeland Security is going to be giving us, Scott said.
I dont know anybody, any supervisor of elections, anybody in our state who thinks non-U.S. citizens ought to be voting in our races.
As the bickering between the federal and state governments shifted to the courts, county elections officials said the state needs to provide better proof that names submitted for voting-list removal may not be U.S. citizens
Martin County Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, said the elections officials will decide Tuesday how to proceed.
The supervisors will hold a conference call on Tuesday with their legal counsel, she said.
The state, using drivers license information, has asked county supervisors of elections to verify the citizenship of 2,625 suspected noncitizens.Another 180,000 names have been identified for further review by the state.
More than 100 names were removed before the majority of counties halted the review.
Once the agreement is signed, expected later this week, the state will first run the 2,625 names through the database, said Chris Cate, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner.
The state will then rerun the 180,000 names through the system to get state drivers licenses before putting a more updated list through the federal database, Cate said.
We want to make sure we have the most current data we have in Florida and verifying it with the federal government, Cate said.
The agreement is to make the database available to the state beyond the 2012 election cycle.
Democrats have argued that the state effort is a push to remove minorities from the list of registered voters prior to the 2012 presidential contest.
The Department of Justice has claimed the states effort to remove voters may violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act -- requiring federal preclearance before undertaking any changes in Monroe, Hillsborough, Collier, Hardee and Hendry counties, which have past experience with minority-voting problems -- and that because of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, time has run out for the review before the 2012 elections.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez had called on Florida to halt the review it had been conducting using state records. He claimed Floridas request to access the database includes inaccuracies, adding that the SAVE database requires immigration-related identifiers and documentation, which the state hasnt confirmed would be available.
Reach Jim Turner at jturner@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 215-9889.
