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New voter ID card raising concerns in Lee County

Posted at 7:06 PM, Mar 04, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-04 19:06:40-05

LEE COUNTY, Fla.- You may have tossed your voter registration card and not even know it. A Lee County man says he almost did claiming dozens of others have.

"This looks like it's from Geico," Paul Barns said. "it doesn't look like a voter ID card."

The new design is printed as part of a bulletin-style cardstock publication in red, white, and blue. The voter ID portion is found on the top right hand corner and is printed in black and white. Barns says the design is an issue.

"it's unacceptable. There's no coloring, there's no border, there's no outline," Barns said. "There's no way to determine this is your voter ID card when you look at the rest of the bulletin."

Barns says there are other ways the Supervisor of Elections could have pointed out the new voter card. He suggesting, the department in charge could have put it on the front of the page with bigger and bolder font.

"An arrow pointing it out would have been helpful," he said. "It should have been well thought out, well executed, and clearly stated 'this is your voter ID card'."

Barns says  he expects some people to be disappointed on election day.

"They're not going to be able to vote because they're going to be in the wrong polls, with the wrong voter ID card, and they're going to be turned away in droves. All it takes is one vote to lose an election."

FOX 4 took Barns' concerns to the Lee County Supervisor of Elections office. A spokesperson with the office tells FOX 4 the issue is on their radar.

"I even had somebody on Twitter today comment on it," the spokesperson said. "We take all voters concerns in consideration and we will keep this in mind for the next round of cards that get mailed out."

The spokeswoman says the voter ID card is considered a tool with useful information that can be found online and is not required to have in hand to vote.

"it's not something that’s used for identification," She said. "We would hope people their mail carefully but if for some reason it is tossed, it's replaceable."

Replacements can be requested online, over the phone or in person at the Lee County Supervisor of Elections office.