HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — A significant cut to the elections budget by Hillsborough County commissioners, in a presidential election year. The idea came from one commissioner who claims the county has "ghost registrations."
"I was really offended by that, I gotta tell you,” said Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer, in response to the use of the term.
Latimer is in his third term in the post and said he's never seen a commissioner try to claw back his budget before.
The motion to make the cut was put up last week by Commissioner Joshua Wostal.
In a letter to Latimer, Wostal claims more than 100,000 voters were removed from voter rolls and as such, the supervisor’s budget should be decreased to reflect the change. However, those voters weren't removed from the rolls at all, they were voters moved from active to inactive, and who are still able to vote.
"When someone is moved to inactive status, they can come in and vote, they can request a vote by mail ballot,” Latimer said. “There's no restriction on it, they're still a registered voter.”
All registered voters are either active or inactive. Inactive voters are defined as anyone who did not vote in the 2020 election and has not voted in any subsequent elections. If you get shifted from active to inactive, the only practical difference is you won't receive mailings from the elections supervisor's office, or campaign mail from candidates and parties.
Voting rights advocates All Voting is Local jumped to criticize the cut saying it "sets a dangerous precedent for elections in Florida if county officials can arbitrarily slash necessary funding whenever they want.”
"It's definitely kind of a mortal threat to elections when we see elected officials threatening the funding,” said Brad Ashwell, All Voting is Local Florida state director. “That's why we felt it was important to weigh in."
In a party-line vote, commissioners approved the motion, 4-3. Commissioner Harry Cohen voted against the motion.
"Quite frankly it's disrespectful to someone who has done their job completely above board with transparency and integrity,” Cohen said.
Wostal's office didn't return our request for an interview but he did post on social media saying, "we established the supervisor of elections has been fiscally irresponsible in his duties... [Choosing] partisan politics and fake allegations."
Wostal called the inactive registered voters "ghost registrations" in his letter to Latimer, something Latimer says is election misinformation.
"That just leans into eroding voter confidence by putting something on official letterhead from a county commissioner talking about ghost registrations. There is no such thing,” he says.
The budget cut isn't a done deal yet. A required public hearing must be held and that is set for the first commissioners meeting in April.