At a Town Hall meeting on Thursday night, Orlando residents participated in an over two-hour long discussion on how recent changes to Florida’s elections laws will affect their voting rights and exchanged views on the state’s zero tolerance policies and its impact.
Rep. Geraldine Thompson (District 39), who hosted Town Hall 2011 said, while the community is a proactive one, the program was developed to engage residents on a number of critical issues central for moving forward. Particularly, there are concerns over how the new voting law will hinder her constitutents, she said. The town hall also addressed the new requirements related to restoration of rights of convicted felons and the lack of jobs throughout Orange County which currently has an unemployment rate of more than 15 percent among minority communities.
Orange County Supervisor of Elections (OCSE), Bill Cowles, addressed the major changes to Florida’s Voting Law: a reduction in the number of early voting days; a provision barring voters from changing their addresses at polling stations on election day and new rules undermining the ability of groups to register voters. He fielded several questions as these pertained to absentee voting and ballots, photo IDs and signature of record, among others.
Cowles conceded that the changes in Florida’s elections law presented challenges but said, the OCSE is there to help and encouraged groups and organizations to work together.
“It is going to be difficult,” he said. “Our office is accessible and willing to work with groups that want to have voter registration drives…..I don’t have a simple answer, other than to say I am here to help.” He urged that all groups and organizations share with each other the creative ways they are undertaking to ensure that voters are registered and ready for the upcoming elections, including the presidential in 2012.
President of the League of Women Voters of Florida, Deirdre Macnab, also expressed her concern with the many bills that have been passed nationally, including in Florida, to roll back voters’ rights. One creative way that the League has responded to this challenge is through the “Be Ready to Vote” campaign recently launched, she said.
Macnab blasted the changes that had been made to Florida Elections Law and rejected they had been undertaken because of voter fraud, as GOP lawmakers have suggested.
“The legislators in Tallahasse say, the reason they had to pass these laws is because of voter fraud. They have not been able to explain to us what voter fraud has to do with the fact that 30 percent of Florida voters voted early in 2008 and they pretty much cut those days in half,” she declared to loud applause. “How does that connect with Voter Fraud? How does taking away the Sunday before election day, which has been historically one of the highest days of minority voters’ turnout, how does that connect to voter fraud?What does voter fraud have to do with the League registering voters for 72 years, without a single problem?”
Macnab also said that the League had decided to suspend their voter registration efforts, a decision that had not been taken lightly. But she assurred that, “we are not going down without a fight,” and pointed out that the matter is before the courts in Washington. She said that the “Be Ready to Vote” campaign is to make voting as accessible and convenient as possible by utilizing cutting edge Smartphone technology.
“We need you to be ready, we need your neighbors to be ready, and we need every Floridian to be ready,” the fiery League president declared, to thunderous applause.
The Town Hall meeting, moderated by the versatile Monica May of Star 94.5, who multi-tasked by taking notes on a flip chart throughout, also dealt with other issues such as the restoration of rights of convicted felons and Zero Tolerance and its impact, both topics generating heated discussion.
As one attendee noted, one thing remains clear, 2012 will represent challenges for all voters, but moreso for minorities, low-income people and Florida’s itinerant populations.
