Concerns raised after nonprofit sends dead woman, cat voter registration cards

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — More than a half-a-million voter registration cards are hitting mailboxes across Florida this month but there’s a problem.

Some of them may be addressed to people who’ve died and, in some cases, addressed to family pets.

A Seminole County woman said her dead cat, named Gracey, got a voter registration card in the mail.

Meanwhile, a Lake County woman who died more than two decades ago, also got one.

Charlene Forth said for decades, her husband’s deceased grandmother has received no mail at her address.

On Wednesday, an envelope addressed to the grandmother that read “Government documents enclosed, do not discard,” caused her quite a bit of concern.

Inside, she found a voter registration card with some information filled out for Carrie Mae Forth.

Charlene Forth believes that Carrie Mae Forth was a voter.

“She was kind of a spitfire and she would hold her own and I don’t know what she would make of this, because she would know it wasn’t right,” Charlene Forth said.

Voter Participation Center, the nonprofit that works to register voters, sent the card.

The nonprofit’s outreach is geared at unmarried women, African-Americans and Latinos.

The nonprofit said the piece of mail was a mistake and that the information was gathered from a database they use to find underrepresented eligible voters.

“There is no way they could get her name off any list. It had to come from death records or cemetery records,” said Charlene Forth.

The Voter Participation Center said it was an oversight in their database and that the system thought Gracey the cat may be an unregistered voter and that the cat’s name was likely linked to a mailing list.

“Those that are not common that sound like they could be an individual, sometimes those actually are not caught,” said a worker at the Voter Participation Center.

When Charlene Forth called the number on the mailer, she said she reached a person who could not explain who funds the nonprofit or why.

Election supervisor Mile Ertel said when one of his voters told him their dead cat got a voter registration application, he immediately responded.

“The cat doesn’t have a Social Security number or a driver’s license, so the cat’s not going to register to vote,” said Ertel. “The issue that I have is when it is something looking a lot like an official piece of mail from your local election office. That’s where it gives people concern.”

The Voter Participation Center maintains the letters are clearly labeled and that he nonprofit’s goal is to help people register to vote.

The Seminole County Supervisor of Elections has set up a website to help voters determine legitimate mailings from others.

Cox Media Group