Tallahassee, Florida 32314-6683

850-339-5462

johnhedrick13@yahoo.com

March 12, 2008

Dear Governor Crist,

The undersigned organizations wish to bring to your attention problems in the election process which are under your control. We desire an immediate meeting with you to discuss and at least begin resolving these matters. These problems include:

1) the Florida Department of State (DOS), contrary to law, not posting results of any petition drives after February 1st, notwithstanding there were hundreds of thousands of petitions still to be counted as of that date (imagine not posting final election results); before that DOS quit posting updates on the site on a daily basis as of January 10, 2008.

2) Florida is virtually the only state where the deadline date for turning in petitions is the same date as the certification of those same petitions for ballot position. This is, in short, a prescription for a train wreck.

3) For over 7 months, DOS did not reveal problems they were having with their database in counting initiative petitions.

4) DOS and certain Supervisor of Elections offices turned a blind eye to organizations bringing in hundreds of thousands of petitions at the last minute, although those measures stood no chance to make the ballot for 2008 and were intended only to block other valid petitions from being counted in a timely manner for the same ballot.

5) People's petitions were denied equal treatment. For example, depending upon where in the state you lived, a valid petition submitted as late as February 1, 2008 would count, while others were not counted even if the petition had been submitted by January 2.

6) People's petitions were denied, for example, just because the signers reversed their first and last names or month and day of birth, according to the custom of their culture.

7) Rescission petitions were being double-counted, once at the local level and then again when submitted to DOS.

In light of your comments on other current election matters, we know you believe in basic fundamental fairness and upholding democratic traditions. Florida already has too many black eyes in the elections department with years of mounting criticism over our procedures. We should swiftly investigate and take corrective actions when a fair and impartial review of the petitions submitted by Florida Hometown Democracy has been denied.

The below organizations favor Florida Hometown Democracy and are aware of your position on it. Should you desire to have conversation about it, we would be open to doing so in hopes of convincing you to change your mind, however, we would rather concentrate our attention on the areas of the elections law and procedures where we believe we will end up having basic agreement with you.

We ask that the requested meeting be on either a Monday or Friday, because a number of people would be coming from out of town, but if that would not work with your schedule, we would meet with you whenever it could occur.

We will call immediately upon submission of this letter to schedule the meeting but feel free to call us as well. Thank you in advance for your anticipated favorable consideration of these matters. We look forward to seeing you shortly.

Sincerely,

Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club,

By Betsy Roberts, Chair

Floridians for a Sustainable Population

By Joyce Tarnow, President

Commissioner Bob Rackleff

Leon County

Commissioner Howard Kessler

Wakulla County

Panhandle Citizens Coalition,

By John Hedrick, Chair

Concerned Citizens of Wakulla County

By Karla Brandt, Board Member

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