The raw numbers tell a troubling story.
Palm Beach County reported Wednesday that 325,488 Democrats and 264,441 Republicans were registered to vote in the county. It’s a numerical advantage for Democrats of 61,047 active voters (the numbers change daily on the county elections website).
A year ago, before the 2022 midterm elections, Palm Beach had 398,918 Democrats and 290,623 Republicans, for a Democratic advantage of 108,295. Four years ago, the Democratic advantage was 133,000 voters. Do you see a trend?
Palm Beach is purple. The Democrats’ advantage in raw numbers there has declined by nearly half in the past year, with about 74,000 fewer active Democrats, compared to about 26,000 fewer active Republicans.
What happened? Where did all those voters go?
A list maintenance primer
It turns out that the Democratic advantage in county voter registration was largely a mirage.
By law, Florida counties must periodically scrub the voter roll for accuracy. Voters are classified as active or inactive, depending on their behavior.
“We conduct maintenance on the voter registration list every year to ensure that only eligible voters are registered,” Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Wendy Link explains in a voter guide on her website.
Some people who register to vote simply do not bother to vote, and many have surely moved away, and more Republicans obviously have arrived in a highly mobile, transient state where people are constantly on the move. Others have died, been convicted of a felony or judged mentally incapacitated.
Changes to Palm Beach County’s voter roll reflect recent work known as list maintenance, as required by state law. Voters are listed as inactive if they did not vote in either or the two last general elections, did not update their registration records, and did not return a postage-paid final notice from the elections office within 30 days (or the notice was returned as undeliverable).
Active vs. inactive
About 154,000 Palm Beach voters were shifted recently from active or inactive. That’s about 15% of a pool of a million registered voters — a shocking level of political disengagement at a time when our democracy faces the most grave threats in our nation’s history.
The numbers don’t lie: Democratic voters in Palm Beach are about three times as likely to be moved to inactive status as Republicans, and local party officials can’t explain why.
“I’m flabbergasted,” said Mindy Koch, the county Democratic Party chairwoman.
Statewide, the GOP advantage in voter registration has been expanding steadily in recent years, and reached more than 626,000 in the latest available statistics.
As we have reported, Florida Democrats cannot be competitive in future statewide elections unless they maintain a commanding lead in Palm Beach, the No. 3 county. The trend is not encouraging.
Recent changes in the Palm Beach numbers was significant enough that Supervisor Wendy Link sent a “heads up” email to local elected officials.
In an email sent on Nov. 6, Link wrote in part: “I wanted to give you a heads up on our ‘Active Registered Voters’ numbers that will appear on our website. We have just completed our list maintenance and updated the numbers of active voters, so you will notice a significant drop in Active Registered Voters … As you know, inactive voters are still eligible to vote, so long as they show the statutorily required information, primarily related to confirming their address.”
They can and should vote
One of the most comprehensive explanations of list maintenance is on the website of Julie Marcus, supervisor of elections in Pinellas County. It notes that voters, after marked as inactive, skip two more general elections, they are classified as ineligible and must re-register to vote in Florida.
It’s important to remember that inactive voters can still vote. All they have to do is make contact with the elections office, such as by confirming their home address or requesting a vote-by-mail ballot in the next election. The act of signing a ballot initiative petition will restore a voter to active status as well, supervisors say.
Inactive voters can slowly disappear from democracy. But a smaller pool of active voters is positive, in one sense. It will produce higher voter turnout percentages because the denominator, or universe of active voters, will be smaller, more accurate snapshot of the electorate.
The voter roll will soon shrink in Broward, too, where Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott has mailed final notices to about 177,000 people.
List maintenance exposes voter apathy. The most obvious way to reduce the high number of inactive voters is for more people to vote. It’s a special challenge for Democrats, whose turnout percentages usually lag behind Republicans.
Don’t blame your county supervisor for these sobering numbers. Blame your neighbor who can’t be bothered to vote — and if you haven’t yet done so, call the elections office and ask for a vote-by-mail ballot. The telephone number in Palm Beach is (561) 656-6208, and in Broward it’s (954) 357-7055.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.