In a state of 20 million people, an almost a quarter of eligible Floridians aren't registered to vote. That’s an estimated 4.6 million people not voting, roughly equal to the entire population of Louisiana.
A new non-partisan national estimates Florida is also home to one million “problematic” voter registrations: people who have either moved and remained registered in more than one place, people who have died, or those who have changed their name.
The study comes from the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. It’s a consortium of 20 states and Washington, D.C., that share voter registration data, DMV registrations, and more to track disparities in voter rolls across states, and help clean voting rolls of duplicate or deceased registrants.
Lee County Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle, along with Jennifer Edwards, the Supervisor of Elections in Collier County, join the show to discuss efforts to increase voter registration in Southwest Florida, how this kind of information can help guide those efforts, and how Collier County reacted to attempts by the Russian government to hack into Collier County’s computer system.
Plus, participation in the ERIC study requires states to conduct outreach efforts to get more eligible voters enrolled, which is where political parties or other third party “get out the vote” groups come into play. One of those is “The Hispanic Vote” in southwest Florida. Rafael Lopez joins the show to talk about outreach efforts to Hispanic voters of all parties.
