Florida Elections Overhaul May Violate Voting Rights Act
SB2086 Aimed at Voter Suppression, Advancement Project Vows Legal Battle
May 3, 2011
Raul Arroyo-Mendoza, (202) 728-9557
mediadesk@advancementproject.org
(May 3, 2011) – As the Florida Senate prepares to approve sweeping changes to the state’s election code this week, Advancement Project, a leading voter protection organization, said the legislation may violate the Voting Rights Act and urged legislators to take steps to rewrite this ill-conceived legislation.
“Florida’s elections overhaul legislation make it harder to register voters, harder to cast a ballot and harder to have a ballot counted,” said Edward Hailes, General Counsel and Managing Director of Advancement Project. “We should be taking steps to improve access to vote, not make it more difficult.” Advancement Project has pledged to fight the legislation, including pursuing legal challenges to protect voters’ rights.
Among other things, the bills would not allow voters to update their addresses at the polls and would place severe restrictions on voter registration groups. The bills will also disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color, women, the working poor, and young voters.
“Florida’s proposals are retrogressive, they deprive eligible citizens of the right to vote, and they produce discriminatory results for voters of color,” said Denise Lieberman, Advancement Project Senior Attorney. “This violates the Voting Rights Act. The Justice Department should not allow the proposals in current form to go through.”
Any changes to Florida law relating to voting must be cleared through the Justice Department before they can go into effect because of a history of discriminatory voting practices in some Florida counties. “These bills recall Florida’s sad history of discrimination against voters of color,” Hailes added. “Any changes to our election laws should take us forward, not backward.”
According to Advancement Project, the Florida bills are part of a coordinated effort by conservatives to pass repressive voting legislation in states across the country; the effort includes onerous photo ID proposals in addition to the proposals at issue in Florida. In an April 27 editorial, The New York Times agreed, saying that Advancement Project “correctly describes” the national push as “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”
“This legislation is about voter suppression, plain and simple,” said Carolyn Thompson, Advancement Project’s Florida Voter Protection Advocate, who is working with election officials, legislators and community partners to fight the measures. “We intend to fight this legislation on behalf of the voters of Florida.”
Under the bills, voters who move would no longer be able to update their registrations at the polls and would be made to cast provisional ballots that would not count because Florida does not count provisional ballots cast in the wrong location. This could result in significant disenfranchisement, as more than half of provisional ballots cast in 2008 were not counted. SB2086 could result in twice as many provisional ballots in some jurisdictions. Provisions reducing early voting, which are not in the current version of the legislation but may be added as an amendment during anticipated Floor debate this week, could double the wait times at the polls. Election jurisdictions are already burdened with long lines at early voting sites even under the existing 13 days (seven-hour wait times in Dade County; five-hour wait times in Broward). The bill also limits the ability of election-day monitors to document problems and provide assistance to voters at the polls.
Moreover, the legislation will sharply depress voter registration by placing unreasonable burdens and threat of fines on voter registration groups, who are the primary source of voter registration in poor and urban communities. Historically, efforts to curtail voter registration have been aimed at suppressing minority voters. HB1355 was approved in record time following a contentious debate in the House on April 21, and SB2086 passed out of committee and is headed for a floor vote this week.
To read Advancement Project's report, What’s Wrong With This Picture? New Photo ID Proposals Part of a National Push to Turn Back the Clock on Voting Rights, please click here.
Filed under Legislation, Provisional Ballots, Voter Registration, Voter Protection, Florida
