An advisory group poring over Miami-Dade elections problems will hold its second meeting Friday, this time to focus on what changes to request from state lawmakers.
County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who convened the group, and his appointed elections supervisor, Penelope Townsley, already asked Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner — the state’s chief elections officer — on Wednesday to make several recommendations to Gov. Rick Scott to tweak elections laws.
But the 13-member advisory group might choose to make additional suggestions. And while the meeting with Detzner was more informal, the Miami-Dade group plans to make its requests in writing, and incorporate them into the county’s annual package of policies to lobby for in Tallahassee. County commissioners are scheduled to vote on the legislative package Tuesday.
The 2013 state legislative proposals drafted by the elections department include allowing early-voting sites in more locations — a request Miami-Dade has been making since 2006. State law currently limits the sites to elections offices, city halls and libraries.
The department also plans to ask legislators to reinstate 14 days of early voting. Scott, a Republican, signed a law passed by the GOP-led Legislature last year reducing the number of days to eight, while keeping the total number of hours offered on the books — 96 — the same.
The law also guaranteed one Sunday of early voting, but prohibited voting the Sunday before Election Day. African-American churches with large numbers of Democratic voters had traditionally used that day to bring “souls to the polls.”
About 90,000 fewer Miami-Dade voters cast early ballots in 2012 compared to 2008, according to the department.
The third request proposed by the department would limit the number of words printed on state constitutional amendments on the ballot, keeping them to the same length as county charter amendments. The county caps its ballot measures at 75 words; this year, one of the constitutional amendments took up a full page in Miami-Dade, where ballots are printed in English, Spanish and Creole. The 2012 presidential ballot ran 10 to 12 pages long, depending on the voter’s location, compared to four to six pages in 2008.
Federal law requires that ballots be available in other languages for minorities whose population meets a certain threshold.
In a letter she sent to the mayor last month, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens, recommended that the county print separate ballots in each of the three languages. “Printing all three languages creates the false impression that the ballot is excessively long,” she wrote. It is unclear how that proposal would work.
She also made other requests, including that the county support extending early voting.
Gimenez replied Thursday that most of Wilson’s recommendations “are in line with what we are proposing.”
In addition, the Miami-Dade elections department would like more time to count absentee ballots, which have become an increasingly popular voting method. State law currently allows tallying to begin 15 days prior to Election Day.
Other requests include:
• Remove political party executive committeeman and committeewoman races from the primary ballot in presidential election years, and require the parties to pay for those elections. This change would shorten the ballot, reduce the number of different ballots printed in the county, and save money.
• Do away with the term “absentee ballot” and replace it with “vote by mail.” The mayor has endorsed this change, saying absentee voting is a misnomer because Florida no longer requires that voters provide a reason — such as being ill or out of town — for voting by mail.
• Require that community development district elections be carried out only by mail. This change would shorten the ballot and reduce the number of different ballots. Community development districts are special taxing districts of 1,100 acres or more.
The advisory group will meet at 9 a.m. on the 18th floor of the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, 111 NW First St.
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