Despite what her critics say, Glenda Hood says she sees the 2004 election process as one of her successes.
By JONI JAMES
Published November 2, 2005
TALLAHASSEE - Glenda Hood, Florida's secretary of state, resigned Tuesday, saying it was time to return home to be with her family.
Her resignation is effective Nov. 21.
Hood indicated she had no specific professional or political plans, though she will continue to serve as a volunteer on congressional and state advisory boards.
"You never say never to anything in life," said Hood, 55, who has been mentioned as a possible lieutenant governor candidate. "But right now it's just important to me to return to my family."
Hood, an Orlando native and the city's first female mayor, commuted to Tallahassee during the week to work. Her five grandchildren, her three married children, her husband of 34 years and her 93-year-old father live in Orlando.
Gov. Jeb Bush, who appointed Hood in December 2002, said in a prepared statement that he was grateful for her service. "She was an invaluable asset to my entire administration as she brought her perspectives on local government and economic development," he said.
Hood oversaw Florida's 2004 presidential election, four years after the infamous 2000 recount. Quiet and reserved, her demeanor was a counterpoint to former Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who parlayed her starring role in the recount into a congressional seat from Sarasota in 2002. A change in the Florida Constitution in 2003 moved the secretary of state job from an elected to appointed post.
But Hood drew her own share of scrutiny, starting with a controversial but unsuccessful plan in 2003 to relocate the state library to a private university.
Her greatest criticism, however, came leading up to the 2004 election when she made decisions that Democratic activists claimed favored Republicans, starting with her position that Reform Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader belonged on the ballot.
Other voter advocates argued she made it harder for citizens to vote. In October 2004, she issued instructions to county election supervisors to invalidate hundreds of "incomplete" voter registration forms because would-be voters had not checked a box saying they were a U.S. citizen. But the would-be voters had signed an oath attesting to their citizenship.
A union-backed lawsuit opposing Hood's decision was thrown out. But a federal appeals court ruled in September the lawsuit should not have been rejected and urged the unions to refile.
Hood's decision on the voter registration came on the heels of other disclosures, including the state's second attempt to produce a comprehensive list of people who couldn't vote because they had felony convictions. Hood's version, scrapped nine days after it was made public, was discovered to have systemic problems, most notably a coding error that appeared to have prevented any felons with Hispanic surnames from being included.
Hispanics tend to vote Republican, whereas blacks, disproportionately represented in the state's prisons, tend to vote Democratic. Hood and Republican officials said the oversight was not intentional.
"She was part of a team that did not implement policies that were protective of the right to vote. They made the right to vote more perilous," said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
But Hood said Tuesday the criticism should be balanced against her successes: She considered the 2004 election process smooth just two years after a gubernatorial primary where some polls didn't open on time due to problems with touch screen equipment.
"We set a foundation for a very successful voter education campaign that got more people to the polls," Hood said. "We built confidence levels and insured the integrity of the process. That's a real positive."
