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join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. this summer, attorney general eric holder wrote to florida governor rick scott, expressing concerns about new election laws the state has enacted, saying the measures may limit voter participation in the state. next, a panel debates state election laws and the potential impact they could have on voting rights. this was part of a political campaign ethics conference held at st. thomas university law school in miami gardens come of florida. gardens, florida. >> as was stated, our intention is to open a conversation for questions from the floor. we invite you to participate by first weestions, but

are going to try to work our way sortsh a preset agenda of on the panel. panels a distinguished this morning. i am really excited to be the moderator. the people on this panel, i think, have thought long and and, both in the trenches in the academy, about voting rights and access to the ballot. in roberto martinez, we have a and someoneattorney who has served on the transition state-wide elected officials. in charles zelden, we have a

scholar who has written at least two books on hugely important supreme court cases. one on bush v. gore. at novaes these issues southeastern in the history department. in robert hernandez, we have someone who has worked in the executive department of state government and who, perhaps more than anyone on the panel, has thought about these issues in service with respect to ethics and elections here in the state of florida. and dan gelber who has been both a federal prosecutor, a state of elected official, has again thought about these issues and on lots of levels -- most

recently, at least in my member of thea voting rights commission which held an important hearing here in south florida this year. i think we have a wonderful mix of viewpoints and perspectives, both institutionally situated to have a very fruitful conversation. i am going to start with a sketch of what we would like to talk about with respect to issues around voting rights. the first is an issue that comes thes most recently out of 11th circuit. decision inrecent arcia v. florida secretary of state with respect to the legality of the 2012 purging of

the voter rolls for purposes of purging noncitizens from the rolls. was decidedsion under the national voter registration act, and it was -- the actionhe violated the national voter registration act. i would like to invite our panelists to speak about efforts to maintain the legitimacy of the electoral rolls with respect to citizen participation and issues of access, particularly in light of recent supreme court decisions around the voting rights act. i am going to start with mr. martinez on my left and invite other panelists to speak about

the tension between access and the protection of the integrity of the voting process in the debate and controversy. mr. martinez. >> thank you, by the way. i am not sure i am the right person to begin the topic. we all have an interest in making sure those who have the interest of vote, vote. we also have an interest in making sure that vote is cast by people who are entitled to vote. with regards to the purging of understand, that process has been stopped here in florida and for good reason. apparently the roles that were being used, there was a question of their accuracy. i don't know how much more i can tell you. i thought you were going to talk about the voter id requirement in wisconsin.

>> we will get there. [laughter] >> i would like to add, the secretary of state has simply delayed the institution of the voter purge until the homeland security database is more accurate, according to the secretary of state's memorandum. if anyone wants to address that question and the tensions that rise -- >> thank you. bob was brought here to class the place up. i was brought here to go the other way. purge, a lot of these things really implicate the issue that i think is probably -- it is not new to florida but it is pronounced in florida. florida is a state that is always in play. when you have -- nobody wonders

what is going to happen in new york on november 5. but they wonder what is going to happen in florida. elections,ve close it tends to me much more important. the fault lines are displayed more proudly to the world. we obviously saw that in 2000. it happens with all of these issues. is, whether efforts to promote integrity are simply being used to try to change the outcome of elections. appearingorried about too partisan. frankly, florida is a state where the apparatus of elections is run by the legislature, which is republican. it may be different in states where democrats run the legislature. here in florida, most of the efforts to deliver integrity to the process, whether it is a purge, voter id, most of those

generally are intended more to suppress the vote then to ensure integrity. things like early voting constraints and purging really aren't a lot of people running to the polls with fake ids to vote. there aren't a lot of felons desperately trying to vote. there aren't people out of status. happens, it happens incredibly infrequently and usually by accident. almost all the problems of voting from an integrity point of view are in the absentee area. you don't hear about other cases really. an idea whose only purpose was to suppress the voter population that the governor believed might not be necessarily favorable. most of the election laws to come out of the legislature have an ulterior and mischievous purpose.

this is connected to the issue of voter id. in some sense, there clearly are documented cases of -- even in the 2012 voter purge, there were documented cases of noncitizens on voting rolls. at least 85 people were ultimately removed from a rather large number of 180,000. i guess the question that i have for the panel is, does it matter -- and if i take mr. gelber's comments to heart, he seems to suggest it doesn't, but does it matter that the secretary of state is putting a hold on moving forward to find a better database. to the extend that there were problems with the 2012 effort to

protect the integrity of the voting rolls, what is based upon the mechanism used, the use of andrecords was a bit noisy allowed for the inclusion of too to your does it go back point about what you take to be the intent behind the attempt to clean up voting? somewhatk this is equivalent to being shocked there is gambling in this establishment. we have known for a long time that the databases we have used for voter rolls have been filled with -- to discover, there are flaws here and we need to hold back, is also coming a little late. we knew this back in 2000. we knew this in 2004, 2006. this is an ongoing problem across the nation of voter roll

databases that simply, we don't know, we don't have enough good data. we have problems in which there are errors and mistakes in the databases we are using to check the voters. the end result, you start with hundreds of thousands and in the end, you come down to 85 people. of 7 million0, out potential voters in florida. the problem isn't new. while the decision to hold back was the right one, why were we in the situation to begin with in 2014? why weren't we fixing this, or holding off earlier? >> i am not an expert, but obviously the way in which this whole thing was implemented was

rather clumsy. it certainly gave the appearance. interest in our best to make sure that we don't have people on the rolls that are not entitled to vote. if we have somebody on the roles here but also on the roles in another state, obviously we don't want that. if a person is not qualified to be on the rolls in the first place, we don't want that person voting. there is a legitimate interest in making sure the people entitled to vote are the ones voting. the processhrows into question. i don't think we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. i know it looked bad. i am glad it stopped. it didn't look good for the republican party and the governor. the way in which it was implemented may have been clumsy but that doesn't mean we don't have a legitimate interest in making sure there is integrity in the voting rolls. >> there is a question about

whether or not the state ought to have access to its own database. that is to say, to the extent that the state is relying on a ,atabase of homeland security in preparing for this panel i thought, isn't it interesting that homeland security would say, hey, the database isn't quite ready. partisanship that might be influenced, might influence both homeland security's efforts to get a database to the state that can in fact be used, does it make the argument that the state and government ought to have a database or ought to be able to make recourse to a database that is not perhaps vulnerable to the machinations of the opposite party? floridaat idea except

has been trying to get its own database for the last 20 years. it has been flawed. bmv database is flawed. various other databases. sometimes it is by choice. in 2000, the decision was, make connections that involve the same first name, last name, middle name and date of birth but it doesn't matter what the order is. they knew there would be a lot of false positives. they said, we will go with false positives. they purge to that. this has been an ongoing problem. the databases that we ourselves have in florida aren't very good. when they turn to homeland security, it is because they are looking for a better database. doing it forare political reasons or it is hard for them to get a database, it

undermines the process as a whole. registration, until we have a national registration process, we are going to run into these problems. it is going to be difficult to purge the list. to clean outate the voting list on a regular basis, but if you do it in a way that legitimate voters are be,ed when they shouldn't that question of legitimacy of the electoral process. >> i agree with bob that we shouldn't have people who aren't authorized to vote voting. but i think you confused who is the baby and who is the bathwater. people whove 80 probably shouldn't be on the list and they may or not be voting, you prepared to purge tens of thousands of others that are legal residents, that is the problem. list, realizing

ots of citizens of our state were going to be purged to get up couple of people who probably shouldn't be on the list. i think this is clear as day, that those lists tend to implicate certain types of voters. they don't have a problem doing it. that is the problem with the voter purge. it takes citizens who should be -- a veteran was the face of it. i can vote right now because somebody with my name is also on that list. you shouldn't do a purge unless you can protect actual voters. >> let me just chime in here for one second. there might that

have been serious issues in 2000 but we are in 2014. what i focus on is, where are we in 2014? although we are still talking about a purge list, i challenge anybody in here to tell me there is massive purging going on of people who should be voting that aren't allowed to vote because of a bad list. there are lists, there are still problems and they have decided, we are not going to go ahead and do this right now until we have confidence in the list that we have, that people who should not be voting are not going to be voting. about talk all we want 2000 but in 2014, that is not happening. i think that is what we need to focus on. -- are we going to make sure there is a legitimate public interest in making sure that people who should not be voting do not vote. it dilutes everybody else's vote. having said that, we want to make sure that nobody, like the

veteran dan is talking about, is put in that situation. based on everything i know, that is not happening in 2014. >> i think part of the topic of the panel is common ground. can we all agree that we should have a list that is accurate, that needs to be carefully reviewed? is that basically what we are saying? can democrats and republicans agree that we need to have a list that is accurate? it seems to me that is pretty basic. gelbern, if i take mr. seriously, mr. gelber seems to suggest that a list that is accurate is irrelevant in light the attemptt behind to clean up voter lists. that is in some sense the crocs of the -- the crux of the problem. >> why would the governor pushed a purge when he knows the list

contains tens of thousands of people who shouldn't be on it? the governor is a smart guy. he has smart people working around him. he realizes that list isn't capable of really purging people who shouldn't be voting. it is going to include loads of other people. >> does that show that every subsequent attempt becomes suspect? >> suppose we have an enlightened governor, governor gelber. [laughter] suppose that he wants an enlightened republican chief of staff so he hires me. we go about cleaning the list in the right way. i think we all agree that we would want a list that is accurate. >> we all agree that people who shouldn't be voting shouldn't be voting but that is the easy part of this. the part heart -- the hard part

is, if you don't have a list that works, what do you do? just like in the court system, you say we will let 10 guilty go free instead of convicting one innocent. what is the vinegar -- the ratio of voters? 1000 citizens so we can find that one guy who isn't a citizen? until you have an academic debate -- our governor has acted with a bad list. he didn't act with a good list. he did it anyway. there is a history of it in this state. i am sure we will talk about the history of voter suppression in this discussion. i think that is the point. >> i want to pivot to that. in light of the supreme court's decision during the last term in shelby county, in which the supreme court invalidated the

formula, the coverage formula that triggered clearance under the voting rights act, the court seemed to suggest that history at peace onrever be certain political jurisdictions. certain jurisdictions immediately began to move to or move forward with the implementation of voter id laws. the supreme court in 2008 affirmed the state's interest in protecting the legitimacy of the ballot by use of voter id laws. after crawford, iner shelby, with the doj

litigation in texas and north carolina and other places with respect to voter id laws. the conversation that we have just had on wednesday, a district court in wisconsin has thrown out a wisconsin voter id law. it comes back to this question evidence that justifies the state's interest in protecting the integrity of the ballot and the effectiveness of voter id in protecting against the harm identified by the state? again, a project that was affirmed. now, post-shelby, we have got some work to do in lots of places. in light of the wisconsin decision, which seems to look, wecrawford --

are going to take seriously the impact that voter id laws have on some groups within the state, to make the assessment of whether or not these laws --late the voting rights act again, there probably is lots of common ground on this panel with respect to what ought to count as evidence. what counts as sufficient evidence? i will start with you, mr. martinez. >> again, i am not an expert in this area. i think in the shelby case, what the court said is, come back with a different formula. they invited congress to come back with a different formula. i don't know whether the obama administration has proposed one. the wisconsin decision, which a friend brought to my attention, that decision was rendered

recently. -- wisconsin passed a law requiring photo identification in order to be able to vote. if you didn't have one, the state would give it to you for free. was thatcourt held getting that free photo id if you didn't have one imposed an unjustified burden on those people who didn't have photo id and therefore found it unconstitutional. the court also held that the class of people who would be impacted were mostly poor people, including those categories of african americans and latinos. it had a discriminatory impact. frankly, i find the scope of that ruling rather expansive. the court went out of its way to find that the state did not have

an interest in protecting the integrity of the rolls sufficient to establish that requirement. me.urprised we have had photo id in florida for a long time. i don't believe it has been an impediment to anyone's right to vote, nor discriminatory to a particular subgroup, including hispanics which i am in that category. for wisconsin, maybe it is unique. this is part of a movement to ups, perhaps gro that is the intent behind it. as far as being a law that is unconstitutional, i think that was a reach by the district court judge. bit of context as to

why people can come to different conclusions on the same topic. republicans generally have the view of the purpose of an election, which is certainty. the purpose is that we know who won and we are clear and confident as to who won and there is no question as to who won. cleans up the electoral process, that gives us that certainty, is a burden worth paying. believed generally that legitimacy in election involves participation. anything that limits participation of all those who could vote from voting undermines the legitimacy of the outcome. even if that means the results may be a little messy on the edges. these are both legitimate positions to take. this is a perspective towards the purpose of the election. focuses on aive different answer to the question

of, what is a legitimate burden for the state to impose upon voters in the voting process? underneath this is that not so secret dirty little secret, that each little side -- that each side takes a position that will help them. the broader the electorate, the better it is for democrats. the narrower it is, the better it is for republicans. it is just always easier to do this right thing if the end result is one you want. [laughter] part of the reason why we have this difficulty is, we have a district judge in wisconsin whose perspective is on the legitimacy of elections, as access. you have a majority on the supreme court currently that believes the purpose of election is certainty. i know we are trying to find middle ground here. that is a difficult thing to

break because of differing perspectives. while we can say, yes, we agree that we should keep people who shouldn't vote from voting, what that entails on a practical possibility for ground if we understand crawford and the wisconsin as both asking a question about the rohnableness rohnableness -- reasonableness the fear that the process will lack september report fear thisness of the the process will lack broad participation so in some sense the court is saying there is simply no evidence that the i.d. law is the cause of .he burden whereas in the wisconsin

decision the court seems to suggest there is no data to the fear. >> in fact, he argues that -- he goes no great detail trying to explain why there is in fact the courtn, that might have been, you know, might have sid, well, we have no evidence. you want evidence, here is evidence at least in wisconsin are you.ukee and what how one interprets this depends the purposeerceive of the election. >> i have a little bit of a disagreement. first of all, the wisconsin that i will dispute also my friend --

>> sort of tell you that whether on the certainty side or the participation side those aren't the sides in an election when the certainty side is using sort of phoney justifications to obstructions to vote. you ask anyone in the audience in a line for eight hours in 2012 or six hours in to telly are not going you that this was to make sure earlywas certainty in voting. they will tell you this somebody did something to stop the voters to accepting obstruct that process to cloud did process because they not want robust participation. that is when is going on. to say onerful thing group likes certainty and the other likes participation. if the one group that likes certainty is saying we like will doy and the way we it is by stopping lots of people

from voting this is not a democracy. is what has been happening in florida and any one aventura down the street there were lines for 10 hours. 10 hours because of artificial obstructions to voting that had nothing to do with certainty of election. [applause] >> folks, please. >> profess are, i became a citizen in 1974 because i wanted to vote. taxes.aying i could work. but i wanted to vote. so i believe very strongly, i'm republican. i registered as a republican in 1987 after i left the office.or's i believe very strongly as a republican but as an american citizen first that people should be entitled to vote. primary priority. a certainty that people are entitled to vote. regards to the decision in wisconsin, this is the burden than the judge found. judge in found found in the

burden was that you had to take time to go to the department of getr vehicles and actually a photo i.d. and that was a hassle to use his word. the burden. by the way, the photo i.d. was free. you don't have to pay for it. he found that to be an unjustified burden. as to why this judge went to such great lengths law to bely find this unconstitutional. i did research on the judge. the gentleman. intelligentis an person but also has a point of view. as arved for 20 years democratic senator in the legislature. maybe he brought a certain experience and view to that law

that he wanted to find unconstitutional. to hold that taking time, we all have to do some effort to take time to go to the department of motor vehicle to get a photo i.d. that that was an unjustified burden and unconstitutional hassle and to the that to the level of i findendment vie lax violatin to be quite an extraordinary reach. >> and again this goes back in some sense. your statement goes back to the wisconsin decision and in some crawford that if -- groupsit matter which a voter i.d.en of law? should that matter to the extent is athe voter i.d. law law inly applicable crawford, scalia writing for justices thomas and alito and matter,that it should right? differential burdens. burdens.

and wisconsin si said crawford didn't decide that question. it does that the sub group burden does in fact matter. does that -- does it matter? we take no account that there are groups that are going affected byentially this and that those groups that votingnected to the back sodvocates or go some statement about history? should that matter? >> in reading that long opinion i think he found i think he found this to be relevant with regards to the statutory violation of the voting rights act and found that it had a -- a discriminatory impact on people who were pore that they tended to be latly african americans and tonos. im-- and latinos. what theuite sure significance was. i'm sure african americans and go to thee able to department of motor vehicle and figure out how to get a free i.d. it is not that difficult to do.

i found it -- the comment by the frankly tortion be perhaps a little -- frankly, to be a little patronizing with views of certain sub groups. sure i find the reason for that rationale. >> i disagree, surprise. 9 0% of wisconsinians who were voting didn't have the i.d. thatarketplace shows you 200,000 or 300,000 people didn't have this already and i have i disputee d.m.v. and that factually that is an enjoyable experience. disparage anybody who work there's. thank you. the intent of the action if you implement a voter i.d. law knowing this 200,000 don't have i.d.'s and those 200,000 tend to be minority orly overwhelming democratic performing then -- and there is justification for it in that

there hasn't been a documented person whothan one accidentally vote for their spouse who passed away over eight years it goes to the intent of the action and there is any idea legitimate state justification that burden. and we don't know in florida what that does because there are lots of people who don't have vehicles, who can't afford even public transportation sometimes remotely who live on the sort of of the fringes of the economy, frankly those a right to vote also without an added obstruction. >> professor, maybe you know the answer or somebodier who knows the answer. inhad photo i.d. laws florida for quite some time. is there any evidence that that a burden on any particular sub group of voters from voting? evidence? i never heard of it. i have never seen any litigation. i never heard any of our

legislators from either side raising that topic. >> i'm going to pivot to some of the questions that we got from think theye and i are interesting questions and because they touch on some of wanted to talk i about with row spect to access respect to accessect and some of the state level the last legislative session, not the most recent, legislation but the 2013 legislation. questions go to the question of the registration process. and asked why don't we look at the process of registration the problemre begins which is again one of the post 2011 efforts that the state enacted with respect to

attempting to clean up the voter or at least process third-party voter registration subsequently halted by the federal courts. that inlike to touch on just a second. and then another which raises the question about low voter turnout. and again, i think this goes questions about long waits in line, or at least in some sense maybe implicated by respect to how citizens take it tothe exercise of the right be. so let's sort of talk about the reforms thatation were enacted in 2011. again, because they go i think to the heart of the question about protecting the

integrity of the voter roles and under -- voternd rolls and who does that and under what conditions and those are done. they weren't addressed, again, reforms.st recent if -- mr. hernandez? want to address it? >> if i can. i would like to talk about this legislative session but actually on few other things just because some of my esteemed dan especially, keeps talking about the huge long lines which is true. i think we all agree that it but there weree changes that were done and i on miami dade county. i had the fortunate privilege of on mayer jimenez council. it was mid up of elected officials, of lawyers, kendall think is one of our

panelists served with me on that. bipartisan what could we do to the issues. there were a lot of reasons tha nefarious intent. could talk about the storm of different things that happened at once to crowiate the long lines. having said that, i think we did things locally and at the state to try to fix those things so that that doesn't happen again. at the state level the andslature went ahead increased early voting and to allow flexibility in early voting. urban counties with large populations would like to have voting as possible to make sure that as many people voting if theyly so choose. some of the smaller counties the issues with to early vote hadwanting

to incur the expense and five all dayould show up long. now as before when you start on the 10th day -- the requirement on the 10thstart day before and have it at least through the third day of the election. and now you can start on the 15th day before the election and run up to the second day before the election. we increased from eight days to 14 days. and ask interrupt another question of you directly? with respect to the 2013 what do you expect he wouldle see from the imposition onthe requirement supervisors of elections to on their web site with row spect to election -- dayect to election preparedness? that is, to say to talk about machines, to get the information out to the public well in advance of either election?or general fly mean i would think that -- i mean i would think that generally speaking it will be a good thing in reference to

demanding from the supervisors of election that there is, you accountability and there is, you know, in a public way, you know, how are we being know, for the election, for the elective process. and ourdade county supervisor of election that is high pressuring. election -- an election incident after report that was generated that basically anybody interested in, it is interesting and talks about the different reasons long lineshad the and the fixes -- reasons why we had the long loins and fixes both in termslace of the state level and things we were doing internally logistically in miami dade county. miami dade county is doing it i would hope those across the straight follow. there is a provision in the all of thet requires counties to do that. going back to when i was saying, is something that high pressured, the ballot summaries. now we have a 75 word, you know, limit on the ballot summaries. had, you know, five or six

pages of ballots that people dealing with in 2012 which seriously slowed down the lines. any you know, constitutional amendments by the legislature through joint resolution have the same that all other ballot questions have. we now increased -- there was -- definitionanded the of places that can be early voting sites. before you could only be libraries or specific county buildings or excuse me like municipal offices. now fairgrounds other county civicbuildings, other centers expanded the definition. miami date county is in the of expanding the early voting sites. in 2012, it had 20. it is between 25 and 30 depending upon if it as presidential election year or presidential year. there is a lot of things being put in place and i used early voting as an example. there is a lot of things put in the mechanicsve

of elections in florida. think the sky is falling. i don't think are being denowed the right to vote -- denied the vote, certainly not intentional. there is always going to be the issue of access versus the and mechanics and logistics of the process and you balance those two things and want to make sure that nobody is denied access. be integrity in the process and works smoothly and mechanically. i will give you another example we went to touch screen machines in florida after 2000 because we be a goodat would thing. touch screent to technology which was going to be more efficient in theory and special needsith to be able to vote such as the blind or the deaf. a few years later because people lost faith in them because they wanted the aper and what if there is recount issue and there is no paper to do the recount. the countye and spent millions upon millions of

dollardollars to go back to the andcal scan ballot machines that was a public policy decision that was made and so be it. ballothave optical scan machines. it is not a static process. always changing and obviously trying to makef it better. i think you this issue of access versus integrity in anything dealing with elections. i want to speak on -- follow up on that especially in light of our conversation on innesday and i think zeldman to professor with respect to the national voter registration. both at the state level and national level if you take seriously, the evolution from a bureaucratic the department of justice and the sit and evolution from the state to electionservisors of with the kind of discretion

and flexibility. are there problems in that, flexibility? problems?esee onlyspite the fact it was supposed to happen once, it goes right back to bush v. gore and question of equal treatment in elections. the problem with evolving power and more locally is you tend to get more and more diversity. historically that resulted in a very different voting experience depending on which county you were in. best example in 2000 was which machine you were voting on and as a result the level of spoiled ballots that were likely to come about because of those in sheens machines and a close election that matters. equal treatment of the voting process seriously, and i happen to be one of those thele who does take

procurement opinion in bush v. seriously, then while power to the localities has its advantages it also has a danger position us into a once again in which what experience you have voting is shaped by where you are and that or that cand thing be a really bad thing. having people being denied to vote in one ed to vote inowed to another or long lines in one in another.t flexibility is good. it does provide for eight to -- for greater access to the ballot but the danger is this it can be taken historically it was that sort of flexibility which historically in florida going back to the late 19th century constitution the thele who run elections in state were the county supervisors, not the state. in 2000 there was no way to do a

state recount. this sort of locality allowed of abuse of the electoral process. keep a lot of people from voting who majority vote.not to allow to so, in a sort of long way around, it is probably a good that we had the degree of flexibility but the danger is he would take it too far we are few to where we were a years ago with the same problems that resulted in the crisis of 2000. >> the, first of all, the early voting issue is not an issue of legitimacy. nobody -- i mean although actually they did make the it was, nobody ever argued that people are fraudulently as opposed to election day voting. that is not even sort of an issue. the question of early voting and activities is has nothing to do with legitimacy. is no early voting fraud that happens. it is purely a question of access. the last bill and

the two bills before that and the run up before the election did one before befored in 2010 or one 2012 or -- all the legislature artificially constrain the hours and the places. they said you can only vote hours during a day which is absurd. why limit to eight hours art artificially and only eight hours over the weekend which is absurd and limited to libraries and city hall. i think they wanted to make the process harder. i don't think there is any question about that. in fact, the democrats ran will dots saying you this but who wants to be head of so caucus.you before 2012 they did the same thing. in the same ways. went from 14 to nine days. lots of black churches were souls to the polls so they got rid of the sundays. sundays none of

this is about integrity. integrity. it is about access. >> if we take the point that any identification of some number is at the very first instance arbitrary, that is why not 20 days, any identification in the instance is always arbitrary. datais the -- what is the that is required after that first move? that is, if we say look, we want to refine 15 days, what should -- what -- what would have been a legitimate presentation of evidence that the move was -- >> 30 minutes. shouldn't have to wait in line more nan 30 minutes to vote. and in dade county you couldn't you waited in line for hours. there are metrics that can be delivered. reforms and i say use that worde we

purjoratively. the university of florida had an issue there because you can't go to a university campus and vote even though on election day you can. why is that there? >> even with all of the shame come to florida over the last two major elections and it really is shame, the legislature trouble just saying we want everybody voting. and you are not even -- my point you are not even balancing legitimacy with that. it is just an issue of how many people do we think ought to be voting in the election and how turnout to we want? and i agree there are concerns if you were making the point that when you have flexibility at the end of the day if -- if jacksonville decides that two or lines are okay, then that is wrong. i don't care whether it is the it or aure that does county superintendent of elections. and thedn't be that way

state ought to make sure that people don't have to wait that long to vote and there are they can deliver prior to an election to make sure that prepared. dan, whichwith happens somewhat. here in miami date county part of what be did as part of the election advisory mayor wanted us he wants tonal but hold a supervisor of elections and the department accountable that we basically want every voter that comes to go vote to be out the door within one hour. whether that be early voting or on election day. everything that is being done logistically and mechanically to improve the electoral process system in miami date county is you are in and out the door within an hour. in reference to the issue about i believe early is good public policy and

it is something that we had in florida since 2004. it has been tweaked over time. you know, whether you want to ascribe nefarious intent to it me.ot, that is not the point is that it is not something that is at that timic. it is something that changes over time. to try to give some flexibility to the counties because the needs of a large county are different from a small county. and i will tell you, i mean, you know, i think it is good public policy but it also -- it is not a right. it is a privilege. there are 17 states that don't earlyave any type of a voting including new york, massachusetts, virginia, alabama, i mean across the state -- across the nation and you can ascribe whether it as blue state or a red state, really across the board. and so is it good public policy? yes. it in florida? yes. can we improve phone? yes. are 17 -- can we improve upon it? yes. that don't even offer it at all. joe'son't want to make

life worse, i have permission to ask one more question. and it comes back to the question of registration. why not some system of registration. why not some system of opt out registration? day that everybody turns 181 registered or at least same way asn the you might register for the elective service? selective service? why is it so difficult if we take that term seriously to register? and why so many variations? is a question are you say hag anybody who is 18 to citizen ini became a 1974 that would have been an unnecessary act on my part? i mean i think we have to have some thresholds. i mean are you saying anybody is 18 in miami you get to