April 4, 2008
APPELLATE COURT RULING THAT FLORIDA’S “NO MATCH, NO VOTE” STATUTE DOES NOT VIOLATE FEDERAL STATUTES

Advancement Project is very disappointed with a ruling in a Florida voting case issued yesterday by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, but made clear its determination to press forward with the lawsuit. The ruling, in part, reversed a Florida federal trial court’s decision that blocked a Florida state law prohibiting applicants from registering to vote if the state cannot match or otherwise validate the driver’s license or Social Security number on a registration form.

In September 2007, Plaintiffs, the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, and Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Gainesville, Florida to challenge the Florida law as violating both federal statutory law and the U.S. Constitution. Plaintiffs showed that this error-laden matching process kept voters off the registration rolls for reasons unrelated to their eligibility—such as typos in their names or having a hyphenated or non-traditional spelling of a common name—and disproportionately affected African-American and Latino applicants, among other minority communities.

In December 2007, the trial court held that Florida’s law conflicts with both the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and blocked enforcement of the law. As a result of that ruling, more than 14,000 eligible voters were added to the voter rolls. Since then, many more thousands of voters have been able to register without the Florida law as a barrier.

The appellate court’s ruling represents a setback for voters in Florida; particularly voters of color who wish to register to vote and participate in the upcoming presidential elections.

The court’s ruling does not, however, end the case. The trial court must now consider whether disenfranchising thousands of eligible citizens because of typos, is consistent with the U.S. constitution.

The plaintiffs are represented in the case by Advancement Project, The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law; Project Vote; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; and Greenberg Traurig LLP.

Click here to read the court’s ruling.