ACLU fights ruling that invalidates many voter registration requests

Civil rights groups Tuesday called on Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood to reverse a ruling that will leave perhaps hundreds of would-be voters ineligible for the upcoming presidential election. The voters failed to check a citizenship box on their voter registration applications, an oversight advocates say should not preclude legal voters from going to the polls next month. Hood maintains that the failure to fully fill out the registration form means the applications are flawed -- and the would-be voters cannot vote. Yet this latest Florida election dust-up is not so clear cut. While several major counties, including Broward, are following Hood's directive, others -- like Miami-Dade -- are not. The dispute has once again shed light on the inconsistencies among the 67 election offices in a state that helped swing the 2000 election to George W. Bush by the slimmest of margins. In this atmosphere, where advocates say every vote must count, even seemingly small disputes become important. The difference in the way Florida counties are handling Hood's directive ''raises substantial equal protection issues,'' wrote Randall Marshall, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, in a letter to Hood and Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes. [more