Voter Protection Victories
In 2008, the Voter Protection Program team worked tirelessly in states across the country to support our local partners on the ground working to increase voter registration and participation among traditionally disenfranchised populations. Key successes are highlighted below by state:
Colorado
- Voter registration lists, also called voter rolls, are the gateway to voting. Purges, if done properly, are an important way to ensure that voter rolls are dependable, accurate, and up-to-date. Far too frequently however, eligible, registered citizens show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists. States maintain voter rolls in an inconsistent and unaccountable manner. Officials strike voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation. Within days of a NY Times expose about purges, Advancement Project successfully sued, Colorado Secretary of State, Mike Coffman, challenging illegal purges and cancellation practices that removed up to 30,000 voters from Colorado’s rolls.
Florida
- While acknowledging the potential for statewide voter registration databases to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the registration process and lists, Advancement Project opposes using these matching criteria for determining voters’ eligibility. Advancement Project and its partners successfully blocked enforcement of Florida ‘no match, no vote’ law for much of the registration cycle. When Secretary of State Kurt Browning started to enforce the law in September 2008, Advancement Project and its allies waged a successful advocacy campaign to persuade county supervisors of elections to permit voters to correct their no-match status at the polls on Election Day. As a result, approximately thirty county supervisors departed from the Secretary’s guidance and permitted Election Day corrections.
- In an effort to deter voter registration groups and individuals from assisting Floridians in registering to vote, the state legislature passed a punishing and complicated tiered regime of deadlines and fines: $50 fines for each form turned in more than 10 days after collection; $250 for each form turned in past a registration deadline; and $500 for each lost form. Advancement Project and its allies blocked enforcement of this Florida statute for the 2008 registration cycle.
Michigan
- The National Voter Registration Act’s (NVRA) primary purpose is to expand the voter registration process and enhance democratic participation. The law also prevents improper purges. Fifteen years after enactment of the NVRA, however, many states still fail to adhere to the NVRA when conducting purges of their voter rolls. Advancement Project and its partners forced Michigan to disclose the names of approximately 230,000 people slated for purging after the November 2008 elections, as a result of a questionable purge program implemented between July and August 2006; obtained a federal court ruling that the state’s practice of immediately canceling approximately 70,000 voters per year, without notice, after such voters receive driver’s licenses in other states, is unlawful; and secured a federal court injunction requiring the state to restore 5,500 wrongfully purged persons to the rolls and prohibiting the state from continuing its unlawful practice of canceling voters whose original voter identification cards are returned as undeliverable.
Missouri
- The provisional voting process is fraught with confusion, errors, and misinformation. In particular, the misinterpretation and misapplication of the ‘wrong precinct’ rule results in the disenfranchisement of voters. Advancement Project persuaded the Secretary of State to distribute an instruction to all local election authorities explaining that provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct, but correct polling place, must be counted, and persuaded the Secretary of State to produce 30,000 Poll Worker Palm Cards with these instructions that were provided to every poll worker in the state of Missouri.
- In a measure that would have disenfranchised up to 240,000 Missourians, the Missouri legislature considered legislation that would have placed a constitutional amendment before voters to require state-issued Photo ID from voters at the polls before they could cast a ballot. Advancement Project and its partners successfully blocked passage of this bill during both the 2008 legislative session.
- As in many other states, people who commit serious crimes are denied the right to vote in Missouri while they are serving their sentences or are on probation or parole. But their right to vote should be automatically restored when they are no longer under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. The City of St. Louis, however, required persons with felony convictions to take extra steps not required under law before processing their voter registration applications, leaving many eligible voters off the rolls. Under threat of litigation just days before the 2008 general election, Advancement Project and the ACLU successfully negotiated for the placement of all such eligible voters on the voter rolls.
- Long lines at the polls create barriers to access. On Election Day, Advancement Project, which coordinated Election Day monitoring and advocacy, identified 27 polling sites in St. Louis County that were experiencing significant multi-hour delays and would not be able to process all voters before the polls closed. One site was experiencing seven-hour delays. Advancement Project successfully negotiated with the County for an Election Day order to enable voters at those locations to cast ballots by means other than a privacy booth, which significantly reduced voter lines at those locations.
Nevada
- Homeownership is not, and should not, be a prerequisite to voter registration or voting. The fact that people who are homeless have no permanent residence should not be used to disenfranchise them. Advancement Project advocated with the Secretary of State on behalf of homeless voters and voters whose homes were foreclosed to protect their right to vote.
Ohio
- The right to vote was at risk because of attempts by partisan operatives to block certain voters prior to and on Election Day through the use of voter caging and voter challenges. After discovering that 600,000 voters were at risk, Advancement Project successfully advocated for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to prevent voter caging. Subsequent to Advancement Project’s advocacy, the Secretary issued a directive that effectively prohibited the use of notices sent to voters that were returned as undeliverable as evidence to challenge voters’ eligibility and ensured hearings for challenged voters.
- The recurring need to reform provisional balloting implementation was documented in Advancement Project’s report, Provisional Voting: Fail-Safe Voting or Trapdoor to Disenfranchisement. As a result of the report, which documented misuse and overuse of provisional ballots, and other advocacy, the Secretary of State issued a directive to prevent the rejection of provisional ballots cast in the ‘wrong precinct’ due to poll worker error.
Pennsylvania
- Given the unprecedented numbers of voters registering all over the state, and the high turnout expected in the November election, Advancement Project advocated for the proper administration of emergency ballots. As a result of Advancement Project’s advocacy, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State issued a directive providing for uniform administration and mandatory use of emergency ballots, including ordering that emergency ballots be clearly distinguished from provisional ballots and be counted as regular ballots, not subject to provisional ballot procedures.
- Database matching can be unreliable due to mistakes such as typos or transposed fields. Advancement Project persuaded the Department of State to order county election officials to add pending voter applicants, who were eligible to vote, but whose personal data could not be matched to a record in the social security or state driver’s license database, to the voter rolls.
- Voter suppression and intimidation are carried out in an effort to deprive certain Americans, especially those most marginalized, of a voice in our democracy. In an effort to thwart voter suppression in Pennsylvania, Advancement Project filed an amicus brief to help defeat a lawsuit filed by the Republican Party, which was brought for the purpose of suppressing the vote of low income and minority voters.
Virginia
- To assess, and help ensure, Virginia’s readiness for the November general election, Advancement Project obtained public records and other public information on the precinct level allocation of voting machines (or, in the case of jurisdictions that use optical scan machines, voting privacy booths) and poll workers. Advancement Project sounded the alarm on Virginia’s inadequate, inequitable, and racially discriminatory allocation of polling place resources by filing a lawsuit against the Governor and state and local election officials on behalf of the Virginia NAACP. As a result of Advancement Project’s End of the Line? report documenting inadequate preparation for Election Day, local registrars re-allocated resources to reduce disparities and misallocation, leading to a more efficient Election Day in Virginia.
