About This Report
In the weeks after the 2000 election debacle in Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush asked the Collins Center for Public Policy to oversee a task force assembled to analyze the state’s elections system and recommend improvements. In March 2001, the task force produced a report with 35 recommendations. This report, "Revitalizing Democracy in Florida," examines how the state and county supervisors of elections responded.
Executive Summary
Florida's elections process is far more reliable today than 10 years ago, when the presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore exposed significant flaws.
Since then, the state has spent more than $130 million in federal funds to improve election laws and voting systems.
As a result, Florida is better positioned to run a smooth vote, or to fix problems if they occur.
Among the most significant changes:
- All counties use optical scan voting machines. In 2000, Florida's voters faced a hodge-podge of hardware, including the infamous punch-card machines.
- The optical scan machines leave a paper trail that voters and elections officials can review at the polling place if necessary. The state outlawed lever machines, true paper ballots, punch-card voting systems and touch-screen computers that leave no paper trail.
- All ballots are now tabulated at the precinct. In many counties that used touch-screen technology, the votes were moved from the precinct and downloaded at a central location.
- A statewide voter registration system helps weed out duplicate voters, which was a problem in 2000.
- New voter information cards, replacing the voter identification card. The state did away with the term "identification" because voters were using the cards in place of drivers licenses and passports when asked for identification.
- A uniform ballot design. During the 2000 election, Palm Beach County used a flawed "butterfly ballot" that confused voters, many of whom punched the card for the wrong candidate.
- A uniform methodology for recounts.
The state is also focused on developing better-prepared voters.
The Florida Board of Education is taking an active role in teaching students about the democratic process. Beginning with the 2011-2012 school year, the reading portion of the language arts curriculum within the Sunshine State Standards, which are a set of benchmarks students must meet at each grade level, will include civics education content. The year after that, all middle school students will be required to successfully complete at least a one-semester civics education course.
However, not all recommendations were adopted, and not all goals were achieved.
Attracting younger and more tech savvy poll workers is proving difficult in many counties. Some say the hours are long and the pay too low. And some poll workers who have served for years are resistant to adapting to the new technology.
And the Legislature has not adopted a recommendation that local supervisors of election run as candidates without party affiliation, using standards currently in state law for the election of judges.
But overall, the majority of the recommendations became a reality.
State elections officials and local elections supervisors, aided by an infusion of state and federal money, enacted a majority of the 35 recommendations.
"Before 2000, elections were the unnoticed stepchild that nobody paid any attention to," said Ben Wilcox, former executive director of Common Cause, a voting rights group.
Since then, elections systems have been updated and standardized across the state. Poll worker training has also improved. "They've pretty much gotten it right in Florida at this point," Wilcox said. "The question now is whether they will continue to do so."
