A problem that marred the 2000 ballot is back:

One of the most intriguing mysteries of the whole Election 2000 debacle is this: How many Florida voters improperly lost their voting rights because of a statewide effort to scrub felons from voter rolls? This question was at the heart of a post-election lawsuit filed against the Department of State and others. The lead plaintiff, the NAACP, brought the class-action suit because more than half of those on the scrub list were black.

The good news is, all of those lawsuits are now settled. The private company contracted to perform the purge, Atlanta-based ChoicePoint (which in 2001 merged with the original contractor, West Palm Beach’s Database Technologies, or DBT) has agreed to more closely scrutinize the names on the lists it sent out before November 2000 and identify those voters who should never have been removed in the first place. The supervisors of elections who wrongfully removed these voters from the rolls will then reinstate them.

The bad news? This unknown number of nonfelons (dozens? hundreds? thousands?) won’t be back on the rolls in time to vote Tuesday. Some of them might already have been reinstated, and those who show up at the polls can cast a provisional ballot. But the original wrong — the improper removal of their franchise — has yet to be righted. New Times Broward-Palm Beach