Voter updates flawed

Re the Dec. 29 article Voters must update signatures before presidential primary: This state and its electoral process continue to be an embarrassment.

With presidential primary voting set to begin within months, this is when elections supervisors choose to send notices to hundreds of thousands of residents, requiring them to “validate” their signatures or their absentee vote won’t count.

Welcome to Florida, where laws are written to suppress, rather than encourage, voting. Since there are more registered Democrats here, the powers-that-be in Tallahassee have to design an edge to win — and give them credit, every four years, creatively and consistently before presidential election years, they do try.

Maybe, after years of delay in the court system, the Fair Districts Amendment we voted for will finally restore our right to true representation, including those who will make voting easier, not harder.

This could begin with abolishing unnecessary updates and purges and restoring voting rights to felons — as most other states do (particularly in light of punitive drug laws that have led to mass incarceration of minorities and which are now being changed nationwide).

This story was originally published January 3, 2016 at 6:53 PM with the headline "Voter updates flawed."