Gillum lays claim to 100K new Florida voters, but numbers don't add up

TALLAHASSEE — Andrew Gillum has a math drawback.

The previous Tallahassee mayor’s Forward Florida Motion, a voter registration group based after the Democrat’s failed 2018 bid for Florida governor, stated earlier this month that greater than 100,000 new individuals have been added to state voter rolls between April and the top of October due to its efforts.

The group hailed the determine as a milestone in a state that President Donald Trump gained by fewer than 113,000 votes just three years in the past.

However the Florida Division of Elections tells a special story.

Outdoors groups like Gillum’s added fewer than 27,000 voters to the rolls between January and the top of September, in line with state knowledge. And the overwhelming majority of the roughly half-million voters who've registered within the state this yr did so at their native motorcar office.

Gillum, with great fanfare, launched his voter registration effort in April as a option to take down Trump in Florida. But as he goals for bragging rights, the query remains whether or not, after seven months, the trouble has worked.

Joshua Karp, a spokesperson for both Gillum and Forward Florida Motion, stated the organization just isn't making an attempt to inflate its numbers. He attributed the discrepancy between the group’s rely and the state’s to the best way the group tracks its progress.

With the 2020 presidential election stepping into full swing, Democrats and Republicans are racing to win benefit within the battleground state of Florida, where campaigns may be gained or misplaced on the narrowest of margins — and where Democrats have been on the dropping end of statewide races going back to the 1990s.

Democrats admit they've themselves accountable. The get together’s registration efforts in the state have slipped, allowing useful would-be voters to stay house throughout crucial elections.

And the race to round up potential voters is being run throughout the country. In Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams narrowly lost her 2018 bid for governor to Brian Kemp after Kemp, then secretary of state, purged tons of of hundreds of individuals from voter rolls. Now Abrams is shifting to limit another Kemp purge by contacting more than 300,000 Georgians who might be booted from voter rolls as early as subsequent month.

Gillum's Forward Florida Motion considers anybody who crammed out an software — whether for the primary time or simply to update their tackle — as a “new” voter. The rationale is that failures to replace tackle modifications might result in votes not getting counted.

Gillum stated it’s a “distinction and not using a distinction” as a result of the aim is to ensure individuals vote.

“This is not just about including numbers to the rolls,” Gillum informed POLITICO. “This is about getting these people located so once we goal them on the turnout aspect that we're principally producing a voter.”

That viewpoint isn’t shared by some specialists who monitor voter registration

“A brand new voter is somebody who has not been registered before,” stated Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who often analyzes the state’s voter file and testified as an professional witness in a lawsuit challenging Florida's limits on felon voting rights.

Forward Florida Action is basing its totals on a state database monitoring voter purposes — not all of which might be accepted and transformed to voter registrations.

Efforts by two groups allied with the Gillum effort to date have taken credit for much fewer than 100,000 purposes. The Florida Democratic Get together turned in some 15,000 purposes between April, when Gillum’s group launched, and the top of October. Gillum’s political committee donated $100,000 to the social gathering to assist with the voter registration push.

Another group allied with Gillum’s effort, New Florida Majority, has turned in fewer than 25,000 voter purposes.

When Gillum first introduced his voter registration efforts he stated his objective was to to register and “re-engage” one million voters to defeat Trump in the nation’s largest swing state.

A part of the plan was to succeed in out to an estimated 4 million residents who're eligible however not registered to vote. Gillum also has vowed to interact with people who voted in 2012 when President Barack Obama was on the ballot however who sat out the 2016 contest.

Gillum arrange a new nonprofit, Ahead Florida Action, to coordinate his voter registration marketing campaign and shifted $500,000 from his political committee to help pay for it.

As an alternative of instantly registering voters, Forward Florida Action has distributed $1 million amongst 22 groups, including the Florida Democratic Social gathering, to do the actual work of signing up voters. Such teams can faucet into their established grassroots and progressive organizations to assist meet their objectives, based on Ahead Florida Action.

Karp declined to disclose Forward Florida Motion’s donors and expenses and wouldn't determine the teams receiving money for the voter registration drive.

UF’s Smith stated he has been skeptical of voter registration numbers thrown out by numerous teams in the final several years.

“There's very little accountability for most of the teams doing voter registration drives,” Smith stated. “There's a lot of credit-claiming and very little accountability.”

Article initially revealed on POLITICO Magazine

Src: Gillum lays claim to 100K new Florida voters, but numbers don't add up
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