Looking forward to giving a talk at Miami-Dade College Friday morning on impact of Florida’s HB1355 on Hispanic registration & early voting

Press Release available here:

Miami Dade College to Host Symposium on Hispanic Influence in the 2012 Presidential Election

Miami, May 2, 2012 – Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Center for Latin American and Caribbean Initiatives (CLACI) and the University of Florida (UF) Association of Hispanic Alumni (AHA) will present a symposium on the significant role and influence of Hispanics in the 2012 Presidential Election. The symposium will take place on Friday, May 11, from 8:30 to noon at MDC’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

The role of the Hispanic electorate is rising in the U.S. Latinos are the fastest growing minority in the nation and their vote may go from being influential to being decisive in the next presidential election. The panel will disaggregate the Hispanic vote and look at the different Hispanic communities across the nation, their electoral preferences and their potential role in defining key races in important states. Panelists will also discuss Latino electoral preferences in connection to key policy topics, such as immigration reform, the economy, educational policy, and U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.

Guest panelists will include MDC Social Science Chair Dr. Victor Vazquez-Hernandez, UF Political Science Professor Dr. Daniel A. Smith and UF Political Science Professor Dr. Richard Scher. The moderators will be CLACI’s Executive Director Carlos Barrezueta and Dr. Michael Martinez, professor and chair of UF’s Political Science department.

The symposium is part of the events leading to the AHA’s signature event, the Ninth Annual Gator Guayabera Guateque (GGG), which raises funds for scholarships for minority students (many who are Hispanic) to attend UF. Both UF and MDC students have received scholarships from the AHA and as a result of this event. The GGG gala will be held in the Doral Golf Resort & Spa on May 19.

Symposium on Hispanic Influence in the 2012 Presidential Election

WHEN: Friday, May 11, 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
WHERE: MDC Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave. Building 2, Room 2106

To register for the symposium, please send an e-mail toufahaevents@gmail.com.

For more information, please contact Maggie Sequeira at 305-237-3501, msequeira@uff.ufl.edu.

Governor Rick Scott Talks about HB1355 with Florida Times Union editorial board

Florida’s Dual Election System

Florida election law review will extend into July.

So says the Associated Press.

“A federal court review of Florida’s new election law will extend into July, just a month before the Aug. 14 primary. A Department of State spokesman on Monday said Florida is prepared to use two election laws if the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., doesn’t rule before the primary.”

My previous thoughts on Florida’s dual election system under HB1355 can be found here.

Restrictions on Voter Registration in Florida Have Groups Opting Out

Solid piece in the New York Times by Michael Cooper (who interviewed me for his story) on the impact of HB1355 on voter registration drives in Florida.

My earlier analysis with Michael Herron (Dartmouth University) on the topic was included in my testimony to the US Senate.

And I’m currently working on a paper with Dr. Herron assessing the differential impact of HB1355 on voter registration in Florida.

Stay tuned.

 

Department of Justice’s Joint Status Report regarding Florida’s HB1355

As reported late Friday night by TPM, the US Department of Justice objected to three portions of HB1355, Florida’s controversial election law that truncates early in-person voting, restricts third-party voter registration efforts, and requires transient registered voters to cast provisional ballots.  Here is a copy of the DOJ’s Joint Status Report in which the DOJ alleges that the state of Florida has failed to show that the three provisions are not discriminatory under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

UPDATE: Here’s the link to US Senators Dick Durbin and Bill Nelson’s joint statement on the Department of Justice’s Challenge of Florida’s New Voting Law.

“The Justice Department has made the right decision in challenging Florida’s new voting law,” Durbin said. “The Florida law’s onerous new restrictions are unfair, unwise and will have a disproportionate impact on minority, young, low income and other voters in Florida. I support the challenge and hope the law is overturned.”

 “There’s really not much question at this point that the law’s a thinly veiled attempt by extremists to make it harder for some people to vote, especially seniors, young voters and minorities,” said Nelson.  “The Justice Department’s right to bring this challenge.”

Think Your Provisional Ballot in Florida Counts? Think Again

In the 2008 general election, Florida voters cast some 35,635 provisional ballots on Election Day.  That’s but a fraction of the more than 8.3 million ballots cast in the election, but in close elections, local, state House and Senate, or even presidential, they could determine the outcome an election.

But unlike regular ballots cast by voters, provisional ballots–despite what we’re told–often don’t count.  In fact, in the 2008 general election, less than half of all provisional ballots cast were actually deemed to be valid.  Days after the polls closed on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, and long after the unofficial results were posted by the Secretary of State and broadcast by the media, local three-member canvassing boards in the state’s 67 counties opened thousands of envelopes containing provisional ballots and began to tabulate them.

Whether they count, is another question altogether.  Of the 35,635 provisional ballots cast in the 2008 general election, local canvassing boards validated only 17,312, or less than 50%.

The dirty little secret in the Sunshine State is that provisional ballots often don’t count. Or at least they don’t count as frequently in some counties as in others. There are innumerable reasons for the disparity, but the disparity exists. For whatever reason, provisional ballots cast by registered voters don’t have an equal shot of being accepted by local canvassing boards. The assault on voting rights by the Florida legislature in 2011, with the passage of HB1355, will likely increase the proportion of provisional ballots cast in the 2012 general election, and could very well lead to an even lower likelihood that provisional ballots will be validated.

In the 2008 general election there was a tremendous amount of variation across the state’s 67 counties regarding the number of provisional ballots cast and the percentage that were actually added to the final tabulation.  In six counties, all of them largely rural, all of the provisional ballots cast (a total of 54) were deemed to be valid by the county canvasing boards (Baker (0/0); Dixie (11/11); Hamilton (12/12); Holmes (13/13); Lafayette (3/3); and Suwannee (15/15)).

Other counties, as this Provisional Ballots Chart reveals, also had high percentages of validated provisional ballots.  For example, over 82 percent of the 731 provisional ballots cast in St. Johns County, 72 percent of the 411 provisional ballots cast in Pasco County, and nearly 60 percent of the 4,659 provisional ballots cast in Hillsborough (a Section 5 Voting Right Act county) were added to the total vote.

This 2008 Provisional Ballot Plot, crafted by my collaborator, Dartmouth University Professor Michael Herron, helps the visualization of where provisional ballots were cast in Florida in the 2008 general election. The proportion of the total votes cast in each county that were provisional ballot runs along the horizontal axis, and the percentage of provisional ballots cast in each county that were validated by the 67 county canvassing boards runs up the vertical axis. The size of the dot is proportional to the total number of provisional ballots cast, as distributed across the 67 counties.

There are several outliers, but two are pretty dramatic: Broward County, with its paltry acceptance rate of cast provisional ballots, and Osceola County, with its exceptionally high proportion of provisional ballots cast.

As I’ve written elsewhere with Dr. Herron, the rate of provisional ballots, the acceptance rate of provisional ballots, and the variation across counties should all be of grave concern as we head into the 2012 general election.

In the coming months, we’ll be investigating why there might be so much variation in the casting and counting of provisional ballots in Florida.  I suspect it’s quite likely that these clear disparities across Florida’s 67 counties are not out of the ordinary when it comes to voting provisional ballots in other states.

US Senate Testimony on “Protecting the Right to Vote in the Sunshine State”

Here’s a copy of my written testimony with Prof. Michael Herron, which I presented on January 27, 2012 in Tampa, Florida, before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, “New State Voting Laws II: Protecting the Right to Vote in the Sunshine State.”

Here are the slides I projected during my 7 minute oral testimony.

And here’s the link to the key plot showing by day the racial/ethnic early in-person voting in Florida in the 2008 General Election.

If you’re interested in discussing our testimony, please contact me at “president<at>electionsmith[dot]com“

Honored to be testifying before US Senate Judiciary SubCmte in Tampa tomorrow

“New State Voting Laws II: Protecting the Right to Vote in the Sunshine State”

Senate Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights

DATE: January 27, 2012
TIME: 01:00 PM
ROOM: Hillsborough County Courthouse

OFFICIAL HEARING NOTICE / WITNESS LIST:

January 12, 2012
NOTICE OF SUBCOMMITTEE FIELD HEARING

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a field hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights entitled “New State Voting Laws II: Protecting the Right to Vote in the Sunshine State” for Friday, January 27, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, 800 E. Twiggs Street, Tampa, FL 33602.

Chairman Durbin to preside.

By order of the Chairman.

Witness List

Hearing before the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights

On

“New State Voting Laws II: Protecting the Right to Vote in the Sunshine State”
Friday, January 27, 2012
Hillsborough County Courthouse
800 E. Twiggs Street, Tampa, FL 33602
1:00 p.m.

Panel I

Michael Ertel
Supervisor of Elections, Seminole County
Sanford, FL

Ann McFall
Supervisor of Elections, Volusia County
DeLand, FL

Hon. Bruce Smathers
Former Secretary of State of Florida
Jacksonville, FL

Panel II

Daryl Parks
President
National Bar Association
Tallahassee, FL

Sara Pemberton
President
Florida College System Student Government Association
Clearwater, FL

Dr. Daniel A. Smith
Professor of Political Science
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL

Brent A. Wilkes
National Executive Director
League of United Latin American Citizens
Washington, DC

Here’s a link to the official announcement

 

Senator Durbin Announces Field Hearing on Florida Voting Law

Below is a Press Release from Senator Durbin’s Office

January 12, 2012

Durbin Announces Field Hearing on Florida Voting Law

January 27th Field Hearing Will Be Subcommittee’s First

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – US Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, today announced a field hearing examining the impact of Florida’s new voting law, which restricts early voting and makes it harder for third-party groups to help people register to vote. The hearing will be held on January 27^th, just days before the Florida Presidential Primary, at the Hillsborough County Courthouse in downtown Tampa.

 Among other things, Florida’s new law reduces the number of early voting days from 14 to 8, prohibits early voting on the Sunday before an election, and creates a series of new administrative requirements for individuals and volunteer organizations that register voters.  These new requirements and the hefty fines associated with them have led non-partisan organizations like Rock The Vote and the League of Women Voters to indefinitely suspend all voter registration efforts in Florida.  Other witnesses will be announced at a later date, but Florida Governor Rick Scott has been asked to testify.

“For more than half of the life of our Republic, a majority of Americans were not allowed to vote. Fortunately, we learned from these mistakes and expanded the franchise and reach of our democracy though six constitutional amendments,” Durbin said. “Worryingly, a spate of recently passed state voting laws seemed designed to restrict voting by making it harder for millions of disabled, young, minority, rural, elderly, homeless, and low income Americans to vote. Protecting the right of every citizen to vote and ensuring that our elections are fair and transparent are not Democratic or Republican values, they are American values.”

“The fact is a number of states including Florida have made it harder for some people to vote,” said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who led a call forthe committee to investigate Florida’s law. “We want to know why this is happening.”

Over thirty states have new or pending changes to current voting laws. States seeking to change their laws have passed or proposed provisions that significantly reduce the number of early voting days, require voters to show restrictive forms of photo identification before voting and make it harder for volunteer organizations to register new voters. Supporters of these laws argue that they will reduce the risk of voter fraud. The overwhelming evidence, however, indicates that voter fraud is virtually non-existent and that these new laws will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of elderly, disabled, minority, young, rural, and low-income Americans to exercise their right to vote.

The Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing on these new state voting laws in September of last year. More information on that hearing can be found here. Following this hearing, Senator Durbin sent a letter to Governor Scott asking whether the Governor planned to take any action to ensure that the Florida voting law would not disenfranchise Floridians.  To date, Governor Scott has not responded to that letter.

Florida’s Early Voting Period is Reduced from 96 to 48 Hours under HB1355

According to a story in USA Today, Chris Cate, the director of communications for the Florida Department of State, continues to misinform the public about the total hours of early in-person (EIP) voting hours that are required under HB1355.  He claims that although the number of days has been shortened, the number of EIP voting hours  remains the same, and says that there is no systematic attempt to suppress any group of voters.

Yet, as Politifact has documented, that claim regarding the total number of EIP voting hours under HB1355 is “Mostly False.”

In fact, the total number of early in-person voting hours that county Supervisors of Elections must remain open under HB1355 has been cut in half.

In addition to putting restrictions on voter registration drives, the casting of provisional ballots, and several other voting and elections issues, HB1355 shortened the window of EIP voting from 15 to eight days. Under the new law, county Supervisors of Elections have the discretion to offer between six and 12 hours of early voting each day—amounting to a minimum of 48 hours and a maximum of 96 hours.

Early voting under HB1355 is to commence on a Saturday, 10 days prior to Election Day, and must end on a Saturday, three days prior to Election Day. Most notably, HB1355 prohibits county election supervisors from offering EIP on the Sunday immediately before the election. In the 2008 general election, 10 Supervisors of Elections—including some of the state’s most populated and racially and ethnically diverse counties—offered EIP on the Sunday immediately prior to Election Day.

In short, HB1355 has reduced the number of EIP voting days, has cut in half the required number of EIP voting hours, and has eliminated EIP voting on the final Sunday before Election Day.