Florida’s supervisors of elections are calling for changes after Florida’s recent presidential primary.
They say a problem in the state’s driver’s license computer system led to thousands of voters being turned away at the polls.
The voters thought they had been registered Republicans or Democrats, and there for able to vote in Florida’s closed primaries.
However, many learned on election day that their political party affiliation had changed.
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Ion Sancho, Leon County supervisor of elections, says the problem came from a driver’s license system that also updated a person’s voting record whenever they updated their driver’s license in person.
The problem is a box on the form next to party affiliation was sometimes left unchecked, inadvertently changing the party affiliation for voters.
“A screw-up or a glitch, in this instance, is not just merely a mistake,” Sancho said. “You're potentially depriving someone of a constitutional right, and that's simply not proper, and we need to make sure that if there are errors, there's a way to correct these errors so that the voter is not the one that's penalized.”
The elections supervisors want to change it so that every time you update your driver’s license, you get a receipt detailing all the changes made to the records, including voting status.
They want this change made in time for the August primary, will voters will choose party nominees for positions from local races all the way to the U.S. Senate.
State Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, is in favor of the change. He also wants to see the computer system fixed in time for the next election.
“It takes one extra step to make sure we ask that question, so when we come back to this point say, in 2018 for the gubernatorial, this problem won't happen,” Williams said. “And especially, it should be fixed by 2020 when we have the next presidential preference primary.”