Q&A of the Day – The Accuracy of Palm Beach County’s Voter Rolls
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.
Today’s Entry: Hi Brian, I am an avid listener to your morning show every day. I live in Loxahatchee. My brother who lives in the St. Louis area is very involved in researching election stuff across the country and he sent this article to me. Sounds like we have big issues! You have a big voice see if there’s anything you can do about it! Thank you.
Bottom Line: I appreciate you listening and taking the time to share your election integrity concerns with me. The article in question was posted last Friday by The Miami Independent and is entitled: Further Questions Arise Over Palm Beach County Voter Roll Integrity. When I first saw the article, which features a press release from Palm Beach County’s Republican State Committeeman Joe LaFauci, I was surprised to see the initial claim which was this: Ongoing concerns regarding Palm Beach County’s voter verification and roll maintenance practices continue to mount following the discovery of over 117,000 questionable voter registrations. Recent data analysis has revealed potential gaps in the verification process, raising questions about the integrity of the county’s election procedures. That's a particularly large number of “questionable” voter registrations.
For perspective Palm Beach County has 898,372 registered voters. The implication is that over 13% of the county's voter registrations are at least questionable. That’s a number so large one would think it would trigger concerns by the Florida Division of Elections – especially in the era which includes Florida’s Election Crimes and Security office which exists for the sole purpose of detecting and investigating potential improprieties. For that reason, if not for others, it’s likely that much of what’s been flagged is explainable. So, about that.
The four areas of concern that have been highlighted are:
- Unverified Vote-By-Mail Requests
- Incomplete and Invalid Addresses
- Slow Removal of Inactive Voters
- Unanswered Queries and Public Record Requests
I addressed these concerns directly with Supervisor Wendy Link on the show yesterday.
In response to the cited allegations Link had this to say: I think that our
voter roles are as clean or cleaner than anybody in the state. The people who you mention, they do send us a lot of information, a lot of questions, and we give them the answers. The problem is they don't like them. She pointed to the Florida Statutes on this matter (97.053) that address the first two concerns. As the statutes read:
- In the case of the incomplete and invalid address: Failure to include a distinguishing apartment, suite, lot, room, or dormitory room or other identifier on a voter registration application does not impact a voter’s eligibility to register to vote or cast a ballot, and such an omission may not serve as the basis for a challenge to a voter’s eligibility or reason to not count a ballot.
- In the case of unverified vote by mail questions: If the applicant has not provided the necessary evidence or the number has not otherwise been verified prior to the applicant presenting himself or herself to vote, the applicant shall be provided a provisional ballot. The provisional ballot shall be counted only if the number is verified by the end of the canvassing period or if the applicant presents evidence to the supervisor of elections sufficient to verify the authenticity of the applicant’s driver license number, Florida identification card number, or last four digits of the social security number no later than 5 p.m. of the second day following the election.
Now in response to this, the concern brought to me, was how can the supervisor ensure the ballots sent to the incomplete addresses are going to the correct people? As a separate statute 98.015 (12) states: Each supervisor shall maintain a list of valid residential street addresses for purposes of verifying the legal addresses of voters residing in the supervisor’s county.
This would appear to be an area under Florida law that perhaps deserves extra attention by the legislature as there effectively is a conflicting/incongruent mandate of election supervisors. It’s a valid concern that ballots sent to incomplete addresses could land in the wrong hands (at the same time there is signature verification that must take place – that does act as a bit of a safeguard if handled properly).
As for the claim of slow removal of ineligible voters. This is a claim that Link denied. State records show that year to date through September, Palm Beach County had added 38,364 voters while removing 12,563 voters. By way of comparison, only Miami Dade, the largest county in the state, had removed more voters from rolls. Palm Beach County, the fourth largest county, produced the second highest number of removals.
At the same time, it’s asserted that there are currently 44,370 inactive voters who were already inactive due to lack of voting by 12/2022 and should have already been removed per statute.
In the state’s reporting, I was able to only find four counties that had removed inactive voters this year that appeared to be based on that date: Broward, Charlotte, Holmes and Jefferson. This is an area that appears to require some additional digging and perhaps clarification with the state. To be continued...
As for the unanswered queries and public record requests. I can’t speak to the claims of others that requests have gone unaddressed. Wendy Link indicated that she does receive many requests and that she provides answers to them – including specifically those seeking answers within the press release that prompted this inquiry. What I can speak too is transparency in my requests. Link has been available and prompt in addressing the questions I’ve put in front of her including in coming on the air yesterday to directly address these allegations.
The business of election integrity from a legislative, administrative and investigative standpoint is an ongoing one as it’s a constantly moving target. I think that’s ultimately what’s illustrated in breaking down today’s Q&A.