The Clay County Supervisor of Electionswants voters to know a mailer from the nonprofit Voter Participation Center (VCP) did not originate in his office.
Chris Chambles said that’s an important distinction because VPC’s information is sometimes out of date or just plain wrong:
“We have had mailings sent to new registered voters, existing registered voters, deceased registered voters, pets, and finally children under the age of 18,” said Chambless.
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He worries those kinds of mistakes could make skittish voters steer clear of the election process altogether.
“I have people that remove themselves daily from the voter rolls for no other reason than they find out that their personal information’s publicly available,” Chambless told WJCT News.
But Voter Participation Center CEO Jessica Barba Brown said mistakes are inevitable — given the scope of its nonpartisan effort.
“What we do is work with commercial data and vendors to cobble together a list, essentially, of people we believe are going to be eligible but not registered. Here in Florida, just in this mailing alone, we’re sending 1.4 million pieces of mail. And so when you are sending mail at that quantity, there are going to be some errors.”
Brown said the mailings include voter registration forms as well as phone numbers for every county elections supervisor. There’s also a disclaimer telling recipients to disregard the notice if it was sent to them in error.
Contact reporter Cyd Hoskinson at choskinson@wjct.org, 904-358-6351 and on Twitter at @cydwjctnews.
