This week:

TALLAHASSEE ·

The head of Florida's elections division resigned Monday amid reports he was
feeling political heat over a push to purge thousands of suspected felons from
the state's voter rolls. Ed Kast, who has worked for the state elections
division for more than a decade, said only that he was resigning to "pursue
other opportunities."

But Kast has told a handful of associates that he was uncomfortable with
growing pressure to trim felons from voter rolls in time for the fall election,
friends say. "I've known him for 20 years, and I believe he has acted because
under the circumstances it's the only thing he could do," said Leon County
Election Supervisor Ion Sancho, past president of the Florida State Association
of Supervisors of Elections. "Ed had made a number of comments that the nature
and timing of this felons list was not something he was responsible for. I
think he felt in good conscience he could no longer be involved in the
operations." Hours earlier, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson joined a lawsuit to force
state election officials to reveal the names of 47,000 suspected felons who
could be dropped from voting lists, saying he wanted to be sure mistakes in
2000 are not repeated. "This year, Ohio and Florida are looked upon as the two
states that could decide the presidential election and we just can't go through
this again," the Florida Democrat said. In the 2000 election, which President
Bush won after taking Florida by 537 votes over Al Gore, there were accusations
that thousands were wrongly disenfranchised when the state purged the voter
roles of suspected felons. Even a former state Republican Party executive
called Kast's resignation "very strange." "The timing is very suspicious,"
said Geoffrey Becker, now a GOP consultant. "I know there's a lot of concern
about getting out the message that voting is OK this time." Kast's sudden
resignation was the No. 1 topic for county election supervisors from around the
state who gathered Monday in Key West for a five-day meeting, a conference
where Kast is scheduled to appear. Kast, 53, told The Associated Press he
wasn't resigning because of any problems at the agency. He said he simply
wanted to pursue other interests after working at the Department of State since
1994. "I just thought that this was the time to do it," Kast said. "I'm not
getting any younger." Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who accepted Kast's
resignation, did not return messages. Hood named Dawn Roberts, the agency's
attorney and a former legislative election specialist, to replace Kast. Groups
who have criticized the felon purge efforts seized on the announcement within
minutes. "It's a sign of serious disarray and instability," said Sharon
Lettman, state director for People For the American Way Foundation. Bob
Mahlburg can be reached at bmahlburgorlandosentinel.com or 850-222-5564.

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