Florida Judge Rules Jeb's Voter Registration Rules Unconstitutional (WaPo)

[kpete]

FLORIDA JUDGE RULES JEBS VOTER REGISTRATION RULES UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!!!!

Judge Blocks Fla. Voter Registration Law

By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press
Monday, August 28, 2006; 1:29 PM

MIAMI -- A federal judge on Monday declared a new Florida voter registration law unconstitutional, ruling that its stiff penalties for violations threaten free speech rights and that political parties were improperly exempted.

The 48-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz means that state authorities cannot enforce the provisions of the law. It took effect Jan. 1 and has been blamed by several labor unions and nonprofit groups for effectively blocking voter registration drives across the state because of the financial risk.


"If third-party voter registration organizations permanently cease their voter registration efforts, Florida citizens will be stripped of an important means and choice of registering to vote and of associating with one another," Seitz wrote.

The law also "unconstitutionally discriminates" against third-party registration groups because it does not apply to political parties, Seitz added.

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800502.html

[mod mom]

1. This sounds like GREAT news for folks in states with repressive

registration rules (like Ohio).

Would any attorneys out there like to comment whether changes will be implemented prior to midterms or will it held up in appeals?

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. I'm still trying to figure out the repression

I can understand throwing it out because it doesn't apply to political parties, but I've done voter registration drives in Florida ... we had no trouble submitting the paperwork in on time.

[kcass1954]

3. What Jebbie's new law said was that the registrations could only be

turned in by the person who completed them. So if I was involved with League of Women Voters and got paperwork completed for new registrations, I was the only one who could turn them in to the SOE.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. And stiff penalties for even innocent clerical slips.

[Fredda Weinberg]

7. Any fine can be appealed, but "innocent slips"?

What the heck does that mean? I can understand punishing someone who collects a voter's registration form and fails to submit them - and if the law is amended to apply to political parties, I'd support it. So should you. If you're going to do a voter registration drive ... and I was involved in several, you don't have "innocent slips."

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I don't mean clerical slips on the part of the people running the drive.

Even if the citizen registering to vote doesn't fill something out properly and the third-party group turns it in without catching the error, they could be held liable for the mistake. It was a way to financially and legally intimidate third-party groups from sponsoring voter registration drives. They didn't want to risk the fines that could be incurred if somehow something slipped by where all the i's weren't dotted and the t's weren't crossed.

I'll give you an example.

J.Q. Citizen doesn't realize he's already registered to vote. (I know, I know, but it does happen. Ugh!)

J.Q. Citizen fills out a voter registration application.

ABC Group turns it in.

ABC Group faces legal sanctions for participating in voter fraud once the duplication is uncovered.

ABC Group could appeal the fines, but that costs money too.

Hence, ABC Group decides it's not worth having voter registration drives if they are going to be held liable for such things.

[Fredda Weinberg]

14. Please show me where the law said that

Because the judge doesn't seem to agree with you

"Her ruling noted that Florida law already imposes criminal penalties on those who knowingly obstruct or delay the delivery of a voter registration form"

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-828voterlaw,0,6661014.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

That's what we're talking about

[Bill Bored]

16. Obstruction or delay is NOT the same as inadvertent duplication.

The former would be preventing voters from being registered. The latter would be an attempt to get them registered. It's apples and oranges.

[Fredda Weinberg]

17. Inadvertent duplication? How the heck would you do that

in an honest voter registration drive?

[Pacifist Patriot]

20. Did you read my post?

It's happened before. There are really and truly people out there who do not know they are registered to vote. They see a voter registration table set up in front of the library and register again. The third-party group doing the registration has no idea the voter is duplicating his registration. Is the third-party guilty of fraud even though they didn't know the guy was already registered? Common sense would say no. This law says otherwise.

Let's take a look at Ernesto. Assume a third-party group had a voter registration drive this past weekend. Ernesto unexpectedly gains strength and disrupts business for a few days to a week. (Not such a stretch because my sister's company is closing today at noon and all-day tomorrow even though it's just a TS at this point.) The office where the forms are kept is inaccessible for a few more days or people are distracted and forget about it until the following week. The forms aren't turned in on time. Oops, too bad, so sad...third-party group liable.

And yes, I know you keep saying these penalties can be appealed but it's a resource risk third-party groups just don't want to take.

In some ways this law helped and in other ways it hindered the voter registration process. In my opinion, the ways it hindered out-weighed the ways it helped. So it was a bad law and deserved to be struck down. The legislators need to draft and pass a better law. Perhaps this will provide them with some ideas on how to do that.

[Fredda Weinberg]

21. We're obviously not talking about the same law

The one that was overturned dealt with withholding registrations - what are you referencing?

[Pacifist Patriot]

22. LOL! I guess I'm referencing the law everyone else in this thread...

but you is referencing. I'm sorry, but I really don't think we're going to be able to have a discussion about this. I directly commented on potential problems with withholding registrations and you either missed it or ignored it.

[livvy]

10. Here are some details about the law in question.

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3466/1/450
June 13, 2006 Vol. 7, No. 12:
Nonprofits Registering Voters Face New Restrictions
>snip

The League of Women Voters of Florida has worked to encourage eligible voters to register to vote since 1939. After a new law took effect in January, however, the group suspended all of its voter registration programs, blaming what it calls the Florida law's "punishing and complicated regime of deadlines and fines."

In May, the League and other plaintiffs filed League of Women Voters et. al. v. Cobb et. al. in the U.S. District Court in Miami to stop enforcement of the new law. The plaintiffs include community, religious, labor and educational groups. They describe their concerns in a May 18 release: "For each and every voter registration form submitted more than ten days after the form was collected from a prospective voter, the government will impose a fine of $250, while for each registration form submitted after the passing of a registration deadline, the fine is $500. If a registration form is not submitted, for any reason, the fine per form jumps to $5,000.

Most chilling to plaintiffs' activities is the law's adoption of a 'strict liability' legal standard, meaning that no extenuating circumstance -- not even destruction of an office by a hurricane -- will excuse the failure to submit a registration form. Plaintiffs say the impact of multiple fines would devastate the budgets of many non-partisan voter registration groups."

>snip

The Florida suit may be only the first in a number of similar challenges to laws negatively impacting nonpartisan voter registration initiatives throughout the country. A fact sheet from the Brennan Center notes that similar laws have been recently enacted in Colorado, Ohio, Maryland and New Mexico; with Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, and other states considering similar bills. In all cases, the laws seem to make voter registration efforts substantially more difficult, or perhaps impossible, for organizations who have "dramatically increased voter registration rates among groups that have traditionally faced the greatest barriers to voting."

[Fredda Weinberg]

12. OK, I've discussed this with a lawyer

And bless the Brennan Center, but I think this point was hyperbole - strict liability refers to presumption and does not eliminate an appeal due to extenuating circumstances.

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. Of course it does not eliminate an appeal....

but appeals cost time and money and third-party groups typically do not have the resources. So they opt not to even risk it. It was intimidation.

[Fredda Weinberg]

6. When I handed out registration forms, I never

"completed" them. Do you have a link for this detail?

[w4rma]

9. If you did that this year in Florida, then you were breaking the law.

Of course, with this ruling it means your law breaking is absolved, however.

[Fredda Weinberg]

13. What law are you referring to - this one never made my

action illegal.

[w4rma]

18. The law that was just struck down in the article above. Are you dense?(nt)

[mod mom]

15. the same is true of Ohio and you have 10 days to turn it in to the County

BOE where the voter resides.

I will give an example how I could have been effected with the dozens of registrations I submitted in 2004. I carried around registration forms and targeted fairs/festivals where large groups of people attended. There would be people from all over the state. I turned them in the ACT (hand delievered to their office, since I knew they were following up on the registrations they received and I wasn't confident the the OH Dem Party was doing the same. Since I have to travel ~ 20 minutes to the office, I usually waited until I had about ten to hand in (obviously this was in the spring & early summer that I waited.) Now I could be charged with a crime for my action because I didn't turn them in to the voter's resident BOE, and I might have been over the 10 day limit.

The fact that volunteers might be charged with a crime will make it less likely to get people to volunteer to do registrations.

[Pacifist Patriot]

5. Yeah!

[livvy]

11. Good news!

:kick: