TALLAHASSEE -- State elections officials will resume enforcement of a controversial state law that requires Floridians to have their identification match up with a state or federal database in order to register to vote.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning sent notice to the state's 67 supervisors of elections on Friday that the 2006 law, which has been on hold for the last year pending court rulings, would take effect again Sept. 8.

The result is that voters whose identification doesn't match with state files on Election Day will be given a provisional ballot and two days to prove their identity for their ballot to count.

Voting rights activists, who had unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the law, blasted the decision, saying it allows the state to rely on what they consider error-prone databases in the month before voter registration ends on Oct. 6.

``This 11th-hour decision is an ill-advised move to apply a policy the state has never enforced in its current form, at a time when registration activity is at its highest, said Alvaro Fernandez of the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, a plaintiff in the case along with the NAACP and the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition.

Browning acknowledged that the court case prompted the state to make changes to its voter match process during the 2008 legislative session but he said the voting rights proponents are now being sore losers.

''They just don't want to admit the system might just work'' so they are ''loose with the facts,'' he said.

For example, their claim that Florida could "disenfranchise tens of thousands'' is irresponsible, he said. "What basis do they have that its thousands? How do they know it's not millions?"

The law, passed by the Republican-led legislature in 2005, requires Floridians registering to vote to supply a drivers license number or the last four digits of their social security number. Proponents of the law say it was needed to prevent voter fraud.

Election officials try to match the would-be voter's information with state and federal databases. If there is no match, the applicant is asked to provide more information.

This year, the legislature changed the law, requiring county elections officials to scan all voter registration applications. Any that don't match will be quickly reviewed by the Bureau of Voter Registration. If there are no typographical errors or other obvious problems, counties will ask voters for more information.

Elizabeth Westfall, senior attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based Advancement Project, a civil rights group, said that when the law was in effect in 2006 and 2007, it disproportionately excluded Latino and African American voters who often had double last names that often didn't register accurately in the data files.

The civil rights groups sued the state in September 2007, won an injunction in December and the state won a reversal on appeal in June in federal district court in Atlanta. The ruling became final on July 28 and was not enforced during registration for the Aug. 26 primary.

Westfall says to enforce the law now "creates quite a bit of chaos and needless disenfranchisement."

Browning, a former Pasco County supervisor of elections, said he delayed implementation of the law until after the primary to give supervisors time to make changes to their computer systems and because registration had closed by the time the court order became final.

The year the law took effect, state election data shows that Florida Democratic Party registration began to swell. Between 2006 and 2008, Democrats increased their ranks with more than 170,000 new voters -- while the Florida Republicans lost 11,594 during the same time. Independents decreased by about 4,000 since 2006.

The biggest gain for Democrats: Hispanic voters, who accounted for a 23 percent increase since 2006. Black voters jumped seven percent for Democrats.

Voters whose information doesn't match the databases may still show up to vote on Election Day, but they will be given a provisional ballot. Their vote will then be counted only if they verify their identity by showing a valid idenification card, a social security care or a Florida driver's license to election officials within two days of casting the vote.

Charles Lichtman, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who's heading the Democrats' Election Day statewide legal team, said attorneys will be available at polling stations to fight for voters whose names don't appear on the registration rolls.

''Florida voters don't want to show up at the polls and be told you can't vote a regular ballot or you can't vote because of a crazy technicality,'' he said.

Miami Herald staff writer Marc Caputo contributed to this report.

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