Does an amendment to new Florida election bill violate provisions of Voting Rights Act?

Here’s a copy of the SB 600 amendment letter sent to the members of the Florida Senator regarding Sen. Latvala’s effort to restrict election assistance to disabled voters, which very well may violate several provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

It’s signed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Common Cause Florida, Rock the Vote, and the National Congress of Black Women.

Sen. Latvala’s amendment to the pending legislation is available here.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Florida’s Contribution Cap for Minors

Here’s the ACLU’s press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 7, 2012
CONTACT: ACLU of Florida Media Office, (786) 363-2737, media@aclufl.org

TAMPA – As a result of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida (ACLU) on behalf of Julie Towbin, a 17-year-old resident of Boca Raton, a federal judge today enjoined enforcement of Florida’s law putting a lower cap on political contributions for minors. In her 36-page opinion, United States District Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, states that the law limits minors’ Constitutionally-protected right of Free Speech.

Florida law (statute 106.08(1)(b)(2)) limits donations made by minors to state and local candidates to $100 per candidate per election while adults may contribute up to $500 per candidate per election. Today’s preliminary injunction prevents the state from enforcing the unfair limit set on minors. The ACLU brought the lawsuit on behalf of Towbin in January 2012, asking the Court to declare the law unconstitutional.

“This isn’t just a victory for minors, it’s a victory for the First Amendment,” stated Towbin. “The law violated my constitutional right to engage in political speech and participate in our political process. Today’s ruling means my voice is no longer worth one-fifth of someone else’s.”

Towbin is a recent high school graduate who, in addition to earning money from a job as cashier in a restaurant, earned more than $7,000 as a Congressional House Page in 2011. She keeps her funds in a bank account in her name. She is registered to vote and plans to cast her first ballot in the November 2012 elections, by which point she will be 18.

In September 2011, Towbin wanted to attend a fundraising dinner for the Palm Beach County Democratic Executive Committee, of which she is a member. But she was told that purchasing a regular $150 ticket to the dinner may be a violation of the $100 limit on contributions by minors. She did not attend the dinner.

Because of her concerns about violating the law by making contributions to local candidates in 2012, Towbin wrote the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, the Palm Beach County State Attorney, the State Attorney General and the Florida Elections Commission which is responsible for hearing potential violations and issuing penalties such as criminal referrals for prosecution and fines. Receiving no assurances that making contributions over $100 would not result in legal penalties, Towbin has not made any such campaign contributions. Because of the injunction, she may now do so without fear of civil or criminal penalties.

“This law put an unconstitutional limit on some citizens’ ability to engage in political activities based solely on their age,” stated Randall C. Marshall, Legal Director of the ACLU of Florida. “Our laws should encourage everyone regardless of age — and especially young people — to participate in the political process. Instead, this law took away speech and political participation rights to young citizens.”

The Florida law enjoined today applies only to Florida state and local candidates. Federal election rules contain no similar restriction. Even though she is a minor, Towbin may contribute up to $2,500, the same amount allowed for adults, to candidates for federal office such as President or Congress.

“The Constitution does not allow the state to treat speech differently based on who is doing the speaking,” said James K. Green, cooperating attorney in the case. “If the state has a need to limit contributions to a set amount – in this case $500 – the amount needs to be the same for everyone without exception.”

The judge’s order granting preliminary injunction is available here: http://aclufl.org/pdfs/2012-08-07-ACLUTowbinOrderPI.pdf

The judge’s 36-page opinion is available here: http://aclufl.org/pdfs/2012-08-07-ACLUTowbinOpinion.pdf

A copy of the complaint filed by the ACLU of Florida on January 26, 2012 is available here: http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/2012-01-26-TwobinComplaint.pdf

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Governor Scott Sued Again: Florida’s Unlawful Dual Election System

As I’ve written before, the state of Florida is operating under a dual electoral system.

This is clearly unconstitutional, and yet the state conducted its 2012 Presidential Preference Primary under two sets of electoral laws.

Now enter the ACLU, State Senator Arthenia Joyner, and the National Council of La Raza, who on June 29th filed this petition with the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings. The case is to be heard by an Administrative Law Judge.

Below is their joint press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 2, 2012 4:30 PM

CONTACT: ACLU, Sen. Arthenia Joyner, and National Council of La Raza Media Office,(786) 363-2720 or media@aclufl.org

ACLU, Sen. Arthenia Joyner, National Council of La Raza, File Legal Challenge over Florida’s Illegal Dual System of Elections

MIAMI – July 2 – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida, along with State Senator Arthenia Joyner, and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) filed an administrative petition against Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner challenging his implementation of a dual election system involving restrictive changes in election procedures adopted by the Florida Legislature in 2011. Along with the ACLU of Florida, petitioners are represented by the Brennan Center for Justice and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Currently, the State of Florida is operating an unlawful dual system of elections in violation of the state “Uniformity Statute.”  Sixty-two Florida counties are enforcing restrictive 2011 changes to the Florida election code. However, the previous law still applies in the five counties that are “covered” under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) while the state awaits a federal court decision on whether the 2011 changes violate Section 5.

“Gov. Scott’s insistence that the state go forward with two different sets of voting laws and procedures in different counties not only violates Florida law requiring uniform elections throughout the state, it is a recipe for chaos and another embarrassment for our state,” said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida.  “The Governor’s insistence that the state can push the Voting Rights Act aside and not wait for approval from either the Department of Justice or the federal courts, is the clearest indication yet of his agenda to trample on the voting rights of the people of Florida.”

In 2011, the Florida legislature passed a law, referred to by many as the “Voter Suppression Act,” which included changes that make it more difficult for individuals to register to vote, reduce the number of days of early voting, specifically ban early voting on the Sunday prior to Election Day, and increase the odds that Florida voters will be required to cast provisional ballots. In the 2008 Presidential Election less than half of provisional ballots cast in Florida were counted. As required by Section 5 of the VRA, Florida must submit any changes to elections laws to the federal government for “preclearance” to ensure that they do not violate the voting rights of minorities in the five covered counties.  While many provisions of the 2011 law have received Section 5 preclearance, the restrictive portions have not.

Contrary to past practice and state law, and even though the restrictive portions of the 2011 law are not in effect in the five covered counties, Florida ordered elections officials to go forward with implementing the 2011 restrictive changes in the remaining 62 of the State’s 67 counties, while the five counties triggering the VRA review continue operating under the pre-2011 elections code. This has created a confusing and non-uniform election system across Florida.

“The petitioners are asking simply that Florida abide by state law which requires that the same voting rules apply throughout the State,” said Robert Kengle, co-director of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Voting Rights Project.  “The State is failing to apply the state Uniformity Statute in the same way it applied it in the past.”

This administrative challenge is one of several ongoing legal challenges to recent elections changes in Florida. Besides the ongoing preclearance review of the Voter Suppression Act now pending before a three judge federal panel in Washington DC, on May 31^st of this year, a federal court in Tallahassee blocked enforcement of key provisions of the 2011 law’s restrictions on civic groups who conduct voter registration drives. In the last month, three different lawsuits, including one filed by the ACLU of Florida and the Lawyers’ Committee and one filed by the United States Justice Department, challenged the state’s “voter purge,” which disproportionately targets minorities and requires United States citizens to re-prove their citizenship or have their names purged from the voter rolls.

“Florida has repeatedly passed laws, and taken administrative actions, that make it harder for eligible citizens to vote,” said Diana Kasdan, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. “These restrictions, and others across the country, represent the most significant cutback in voting rights in decades. Rather than erecting senseless barriers to voting, we should make our voting system work for all Americans by modernizing voter registration.”

The petition was filed on Friday, June 29^th, with the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings and will be heard and decided by an Administrative Law Judge to be assigned by the Division. The Washington D.C. office of the Bryan Cave Law firm and Mark Herron of Messer Caparello & Self of Tallahassee are also providing pro bono legal counsel in the case.

A copy of the petition with attached exhibits is available here: http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/2012-06-29-UniformityPetition.pdf

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Florida Secretary of State flags 180,000 “potential noncitizens”

Suffice to say, if it wasn’t Mother’s Day, I’d have a lot more to say about the numbers… as reported here, here, here, and here.

For now, I’ve compiled a couple of my recent tweets on the purging by the Florida Secretary of State of “potential noncitizens”…

In next round of purges by Florida Secretary of State, it could be you bit.ly/Jo4ueB @ACLUFL @ProjectVote @BrennanCenter @votesafe

Of “potential noncitizens” in CDs in Miami-Dade, 17% in Wilson, 26% in Ros-Lehtinen, 4% in DWS, 25% in Diaz-Balart, 29% in Rivera #sayfie

In Miami-Dade, Florida Secretary of State flags 1,599 names as “potential noncitizens.” Will Congress take a look at possible vote purge?

Oh, you want raw numbers of potential noncitizens? 267 in @RepWilson, 414 @RosLehtinen, 57 in @DWStweets, 406 in @MarioDB, 455 in @RepRivera

Did Voters in Corrine Brown & Mario Diaz-Balart’s Majority-Minority CDs Oppose Fair Districts?

Nope.

Despite their continued, self-serving opposition to the 2010 Fair Districts Florida ballot measure, Amendment 6, a majority of voters in both Congresswoman Corrine Brown’s African-American majority-minority district, CD3, and Mario Diaz-Balart’s majority-minority Hispanic district, CD21, supported congressional redistricting reform, with 57% and 62% approval, respectively.

More on the lawsuit, which Brown and Diaz-Balart have appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, can be found here.

11 Florida Lawmakers Receive Subpoenas in HB1355 Election Law Case

Steve Bousquet, the long-time St. Petersburg Times Tallahassee reporter, has a must read column on the 11 Republican state lawmakers who have been issued subpoenas in a federal lawsuit involving four provisions of Florida’s controversial election law, HB1355. The lawsuit deals with the question of whether the US Justice Department should “preclear” the changes for five Florida counties, as required under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

According to Bosquet, “The lawmakers, most of whom supported the legislation, are ordered to produce by Dec. 14 ‘all documents’ related to the four major election law changes at issue in the case.”

The most interesting comment in the story, I think, is from Representative Jimmy Patronis, a Republican from Panama City,who chaired the House Government Operations Subcommittee, which first considered HB1355.

Patronis, who supported HB1355, admitted to Bousquet that Bay County Supervisor of Elections, Mark Andersen, had urged him not curtail the number of early voting days, saying that Andersen, “told me how much the constituents love early voting.” Of course, these also happen to be Patronis’ constituents. But Patronis obviously had broader Republican Party interests in mind–and not his own constituents’–when he curtailed convenience voting in Florida.

[Incidentally, Bousquet gets it wrong when he says HB1355 keeps the total number of early voting hours at 96. It doesn't. Under the new law, Supervisors of Elections need only offer a minimum of six hours of early voting a day over the shortened eight day early in-person voting period, for a total of 48 hours, as Politifact Florida points out].

Anyway, the subpoenas from the GOP 11 should produce some interesting reading.

More Alleged #HB1355 Voter Registration Violations in Florida

The Orlando Sentinel reports.

“Florida teachers no longer are the only ones accused of violating the state’s controversial new voting laws.  According to documents released today by the Florida Department of State (see below), administration officials have opened a total of six cases against individuals suspected of running afoul of new rules that give voter groups just 48 hours to submit paperwork to the state. (The old deadline was 10 days.)”

 

The new registration rules and 48 hour deadline for third parties conducting voter registration has not received preclearance from the US Justice Department, and is being reviewed by a DC federal court.

 

Will Florida’s Dual Election System Breathe Life into Bush v. Gore?

Last week, the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, denied a complaint by Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning  challenging sections of the Voting Rights Act.  The Florida Secretary of State was seeking an expedited hearing on whether HB1355, Florida’s controversial legislation overhauling voting rights and election administration in the state, complied with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires federal preclearance for five Florida counties (Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, and Monroe).  Secretary of State Browning is requesting that the federal district court approve portions of the new law–specifically third party voter registration, out-of-­county address changes, petition signature verification, and early voting–rather than waiting for US Department of Justice’s preclearance.

Although on hold for the five counties awaiting US Justice Department preclearance, the Florida Division of Elections has been working with the Supervisors of Elections in the remaining 62 counties not covered by Section 5 of the VRA to implement the many new provisions under HB1355 (Chapter 2011-40) in anticipation of the January 31 Presidential Preference Primary.

However, under Florida law, the state must provide uniform standards for the proper and equitable implementation of the voter registration laws. It is the responsibility of the Florida Secretary of State, as unambiguously stated on the Florida Division of Elections website, “to ensure statewide uniformity in the interpretation of the election laws.”

But the uneven implementation of HB1355 continues, unabated.

Clearly, Florida’s dual election system is not treating all Floridians the same.  As the Brennan Center noted back in June:

• The new voter registration regulations would be in force in some counties but not others, unfairly and unlawfully creating two separate sets of rules governing voter registration in different parts of the state.
• Some counties would unfairly be left with a dramatically shorter early voting period than others, as the new law cuts the opportunity for early voting to fourteen days to eight
• Floridians who moved recently would have varying difficulty voting depending on their new county of residence, as implementation of the new law would end Florida’s longstanding policy of allowing citizens who have recently moved to easily change their registration address on Election Day and vote normally at their poll site.
  

In denying the state’s request for an expedited hearing and decision, the federal district court’s decision to wait until May to hear oral arguments has virtually assured that the January 31 PPP will be conducted with two sets of election laws, which directly conflicts with existing Florida statutes. But of course, the blame doesn’t lie at the feet of the federal district court. It lies at the feet of the Republican-controlled legislature and the Office of the Secretary of State, who has a constituency of one: Governor Scott.

Again, the Brennan Center in a letter to Secretary Browning on behalf of several voting rights advocacy groups, nails it:

Under Florida statute § 97.012 and prior advisory opinions by the Division, the Secretary of State has a duty to ensure uniformity in the application, operation, and interpretation of the state’s election laws. Applying HB 1355’s extensive changes to the voting and voter registration process only in certain counties, but not in the five counties for which preclearance is required under the federal Voting Rights Act before implementing voting changes, clearly conflicts with this legal mandate.

We therefore request that you immediately advise all Supervisors of Elections that the provisions of H.B. 1355 are unenforceable until they can be applied uniformly in all Florida counties, as state law requires.

Of course, uneven implementation of voting and election laws also violates federal law.  In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). HAVA was Congress’s effort to clean up the mess in Florida resulting from the 2000 presidential recount.  In order for Florida and other states to receive the billions of dollars appropriated to improve the electoral process, state elections officials were required to implement numerous reforms mandated under HAVA.

Among its many provisions, HAVA requires that the states  “implement in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner, a single, uniform, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list defined, maintained, and administered at the state level.” By most all accounts, Florida achieved by the January 1, 2006 federal deadline, with the Florida Voter Registration System (FVRS).  The implementation of HB1355 in 62 counties, but not the other 5, is clearly in violation of HAVA.

Bush v. Gore may be dead (or at least dormant), but Florida’s Dual Election System may breathe some new life into it.

Florida Early Voting

Professor Michael Herron (Dartmouth) and I look forward to sharing our findings on early voting in Florida in the 2008 election at the 2012 State Politics and Policy Conference to be held in Houston, TX on February 16-18, when we present our paper, “The Participatory Impact of Truncating Early Voting in Florida.” It’s pretty timely, given all the attention that Florida US Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio have given to early voting and HB1355.

Here’s our Abstract (tentative):

Over the past two decades, an increasing number of American states have made it more convenient for potential voters to cast early ballots.  Starting with Texas’ adoption of in-person early voting in 1988, 32 states now provide an extended time period prior to Election Day for voters to go to the polls.  Despite the diffusion of and praise by voting rights advocates for early voting, in 2011 the Florida legislature enacted House Bill 1355, which truncated the state’s early voting period from a total of 14 days to eight days and completely eliminated  early voting on the Sunday immediately preceding Election Day.  Critics of the legislation contend the surreptitious goal of the Republican-controlled legislature was to depress African American early voting turnout in 2012.

In this paper, we draw on an original dataset to gauge the potential participatory ramifications of HB 1355 by examining patterns of early voting in the 2008 general election.  By merging the state’s 2008 voter file, comprised of more than 11.3 million registered voters, with the state’s November 2008 early voter file, we are able to assess and study the race and ethnicity, party registration, age, gender, precinct/county registration, and vote history of each registered voter, including those who cast an early ballot, in 2008.

Unlike many studies of early voting in the American states which rely on aggregate-level data, we are able to pinpoint not only which voters were more likely to cast early ballots—specifically their socio-demographic characteristics—but we can also describe on which day during the two-week period in 2008 that they voted.  We employ a variety of multivariate models to test the conventional wisdom that African American voters are more likely than whites to vote early, and vote on Sunday, and that older and partisan voters vote early more often (Stein 1998). In addition, using a voter’s vote history to model early voting, we challenge the growing scholarly consensus—which is based largely on survey data—that early voting merely retains engaged voters (Stein 1998; Neely and Richardson 2001; Berinsky 2005; Kousser and Mullen 2007; Burden, et al. 2011; Gronke, Galanes-Rosenbaum, and Miller 2008) rather than stimulating peripheral voters.

Will Florida Election Law #HB1355 Increase Absentee Ballot Voter Fraud?

I’ve been writing a lot over the past five months about House Bill 1355, dubbed by many as Florida’s ignominious voter suppression law. HB1355  is being challenge in federal court, and the US Justice Department has yet to grant preclearance of portions of the law which cover five Florida counties covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  Defending the law, the Florida Secretary of State is suing in Federal Court to not only uphold all sections of the law, but to strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Most of the attention that I and others have given to HB1355 has focused on three areas that the GOP-controlled legislature cracked down on in order to make it more difficult for citizens of Florida to register to vote and cast a ballot, namely:

1) Reducing the number of days for early voting from 14 days to eight days, and altogether eliminating early voting on the Sunday before the Tuesday election.

2) Requiring third-party voter registration organizations to submit voter registration applications within 48 hours of receipt instead of ten days as provided by existing law, and imposing a fine of $50 for each failure to comply with the deadline, and imposing fines up to $1,000 for failing to comply with other provisions.

3) Disallowing voters who move from one Florida county to another to make an address change at the polls on the day of an election and vote a regular ballot, except for active military voters and their family members.

(Less attention has been given to the portion of the law that reduces the shelf-life of citizen initiative petition signatures proposing constitutional amendments from four years to two years.)

Virtually no attention has been given to HB1355′s impact on absentee voting in Florida. The reason is fairly simple: the law has actually made it easier for citizens to cast an absentee ballot, and actually, increases the likelihood of voter fraud.

Absentee ballot fraud is not limited to Miami mayoral races. Just yesterday, several people in Madison County, including a candidate for school board, were arrested and charged with obtaining absentee ballots for other people without the voters’ knowledge or consent.  The candidate and her accomplices then provided an alternate address for the ballots to be mailed by the Supervisor of Elections, and allegedly then retrieved the ballots from the third party locations, brought the ballots to the voter, sometimes with the ballots already filled out, and then had the voter sign the absentee ballot signature envelope.

Tragically, HB1355 eliminates the provision that existed in 2010 when the fraud occurred, making future absentee ballot fraud more difficult to prosecute. Prior to the election code being changed by the Republican legislature in 2011, Supervisors of Elections were required to send absentee ballot to a voter’s registered address, unless the voter was absent from the county, hospitalized, or temporarily unable to occupy their residence.

But these provisions to reduce the possibility of absentee voter fraud were stricken by HB1355.  Instead of being required (with the forgoing exceptions) to send an absentee ballot “By nonforwardable, return-if-undeliverable mail to the elector’s current mailing address on file with the supervisor,” supervisors now may be asked by anyone (even over the phone) to mail an absentee ballot “to any other address the elector specifies in the request.”

HB1355 is an embarrassment, plain and simple. The Republican-controlled legislature’s intention was not to reduce voter fraud, of which there is virtually none when it comes to voter registration and early voting.  The reason lawmakers turned a blind eye to absentee ballots in the state–where there is clear evidence of voter fraud–is because registered Republicans are much more likely to use this form of convenience voting than their Democratic counterparts.  In 2008, Republicans had a 10.8% lead over Democrats voting absentee ballots by Election Day.

Partisan politics in Florida have reached a new low.