The Sunshine State held the nation hostage for six weeks after the 2000 election. Unable to collect and tabulate ballots in a timely fashion like the other 49 states, the the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately had to settle the matter. Something so foul couldn't possibly happen again. Could it?
"I don't believe that anybody's going to be ready for the onslaught of voters," Roger Weeden, an Orlando lawyer who's working with Election Protection, a national coalition of civil rights and public interest groups, told Salon.com.
On the first day of early voting on Monday in Florida, some folks waited as long as six hours to cast their ballots. By Thursday the wait was still more than two hours. At first blush, the state appears grossly unprepared.
Making matters worse is the state's new "no match, no vote" law requires voters to present an ID with a Social Security or driver's license number that matches federally mandated databases. If your papers are not in order, you must fill out a provisional ballot or fix the mistake. And rumors are that the law is even more restrictive than authorities are letting on.
