ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. -- Escambia and Okaloosa counties say some voters are getting voter registration applications in the mail. But those applications are not coming from their offices.
A national non-profit organization is sending them out to people across the country.
More than 200,000 voter registration forms are being sent by the "Voter Participation Center" (VPC) in Florida.
Sorry, we couldn't load this embedded content
Escambia County's Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender says the applications are legit. He said the voter registration forms are the same ones administered from his office.
But some of these mailers were addressed to people who were deceased, those ineligible to vote and even pets.
"We wanted to let people know that 1) They may receive this. 2) It's not coming from our office," said Bender.
The Voter Participation Center says their mailers have helped 6.8 million people register to vote over two decades. The 501-c buys commercial data to get people's addresses, ages and other information.
"Then we compare that to the public voter file and remove the names of people who are already registered to vote," VPC CEO Tom Lopach said. "Then we will send mail into addresses and neighborhoods that are largely people of color, or we'll send mail to people who are on the national change of address database or we'll send mail to folks that look like they've just turned 18 years old."
Bender said Monday, five people called his office saying they got the mailer. But they were already registered to vote. The callers were worried about their registration status.
"It's just about voter confusion, questioning why we're sending them something," said Bender. "'I thought I was already registered. There's nobody here by that name at this address.'"
Lopach says their office compares its data to the state's and sends notices to those who they believe are eligible to vote, but not registered yet.
"We compare our lists to seven different databases of deceased individuals to remove anyone who is unfortunately passed away but remains on the public voter file," said Lopach. "And if someone has passed away recently, we may miss somebody but it's a rather rare exception."
Bender said in previous elections the VPC had discrepancies in who were sent mailers.
"There may be some inaccurate information or information that's not up-to-date," said Bender. "And so then please reach out to our office to check your own voter status, or if it is someone that is deceased, is a minor, again, even history of it being a pet previously, it's not our office that has this database."
Lopach acknowledged previous errors.
"In the event of pets, some people sign their pets up for magazines or what have you and then junk mail will arrive in a pet's name," said Lopach. "Now, if a pet has a common pet name, like Rover or Fido, we compare our list to 3,000 common pet names and we remove those."
Bender encourages anyone who has questions to reach out to his office.
"For those that are not registered, definitely encourage them to fill out the application and send it to us," Bender said. "We will receive it, process it. But if you do have some other type of question or you think that you're already registered, please give us a call."
"The work that we do is to help ensure that all eligible Americans have the chance to vote," Lopach said. "And at the end of the day, whether somebody registers through us or goes straight to the county, what matters most is increasing voter participation in our elections to ensure that all voices are heard."
Folks in Escambia County can check their voter status at escambiavotes.com. You can register to vote or download a registration form there.
No comments:
Post a Comment