More than 50,000 Dead People on Florida Voters List
Published May 18th, 2012
By: Yaremi Farinas
State leaders have been battling for years to repair Florida's elections reputation, damaged during the 2000 presidential election.
This week, they were confronted more problems to clean up.
There are questions about whether 182,000 registered voters are actually US citizens and the names of more than 50,000 dead people were discovered on Florida's voter rolls.
Now state leaders are asking county election supervisors to straighten out the list.
Now state leaders are asking county election supervisors to straighten out the list.
We spoke to Chris Cate who is the communications director of the Department of State.
He told us there were 139 dead people registered in Alachua county who were still on the voters list.
So why weren't these names removed?
"If someone had passed away in another state, so the state of Florida didn't have that information in vital statistics, they couldn't send that information down to us and we would have know way of knowing that person was deceased," said Pam Carpenter who is the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections.
Carpeneter said that's one reason she believes more than 50,000 dead people were on the Florida voters list and were never removed.
"The state received it's information from the Bureau of Vital Statistics here in Florida, so everyone who passed away in Florida was identified," said Carpenter.
Let's say a Florida voter died in California, then the Florida county would have no way of knowing the voter passed away.
Carpenter said now that the Department of State has access to social security files.
"Allows them to identity people who are on the Florida voter rolls, but who have passed away in another state," said Carpenter.
This is what started this cleanup.
Chris Cate of the Department of State says Marion county had 1,208 people on the list and Alachua county was much lower with 139. Levy county had 96, Dixie county 38 and Gilchrist county only had 10 dead people on the Florida voters list.
He told us Palm Beach took the top spot with 6,621 dead people on the list.
Out of the 50,000 names, only seven names remain on the Florida voters list.
We asked Carpenter what are the chances of a deceased person having their identity stolen if they are still on the list.
She said it's difficult for someone to pretend to be a dead person because of the steps they take.
"When they go to vote they have to present picture and signature id in the polling place. They have to sign in the poll register and we compare that signature to the signature on file here in the office for that voter," said Carpenter.
