Court Rules Against Key Voter Drive Limitations

Sarasota organizations that want to hold voting registration drives without stiff penalties received a small victory today in U.S. District Court.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Thursday instituted an injunction against some key provisions in a state law that would discourage voter registration drives.  (A PDF of the ruling can be found to the right of this story.)

The League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote and the Florida Public Internet Research Group Education fund, filed the lawsuit in December. The League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote had suspended voter registration drives in fear of hefty fines by the state or the registrations being declared invalid.

Local groups protested the law and other forms of voter suppression during an in January.

The ruling states that the 48-hour time limit to turn in voter registration forms and requiring that they be hand delivered, is restrictive and the law doesn't account for an employee or volunteer not actually collecting or handling voter-registration applications. 

"The statute makes no provision for mailing at all. If the statute means what it says—that an application must be received in the voter-registration office within 48 hours after the applicant signs it—a prudent voter-registration organization can never mail in an application," Hinkle wrote.

"This is so because even if the organization delivers the application to the Postal Service immediately after the applicant signs it—and this in itself would be virtually impossible—the organization cannot be assured that the Postal Service will deliver it within 48 hours. Could an organization that collects an application at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday mail it in? Of course not." 

The plaintiffs in this case are satisfied with the results, according to a press release issued by the state's League of Women Voters:

"For over 72 years, League volunteers have faithfully and successfully helped to register eligible Florida voters," explained Deirdre Macnab, President of the League of Women Voters of Florida in a statement. "We are hopeful that this ruling will enable us to continue this important work. Florida's anti-voter law creates impassable roadblocks for our volunteers, who are simply trying to bring fellow citizens into our democratic process. We are grateful the court recognized that the Constitution does not tolerate these types of barriers to civic participation and voter registration."

Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote said in a statement they would examine to see if they could start drives again in Florida. 

"Rock the Vote has encouraged hundreds of thousands of young Florida residents to have a voice in their community and country,” Smith said. “Today's ruling is a victory for them, and for our democracy. We will quickly assess whether this ruling will allow us to restart our critical voter registration work on the ground in Florida."

Gov. Rick Scott said he is satisfied with the ruling as well.

“I am pleased that central parts of the voter registration law have been upheld by a federal judge." Scott said in a statement. " This is a vast improvement over the previous system that will help protect the integrity, accountability, and enforcement of the voter registration process. Our democracy relies on ensuring only valid, legal votes are counted, and that starts with having a voter registration process that safeguards the ballots of Florida citizens.” 

Other key opinions in Hinkle's ruling: 

• Requiring that organizations identify itself on each form it collects is also burdensome, Hinkle ruled, and "serves no legitimate purpose." 

• Requiring organizations to county applications it hands out and receives back from volunteers and employees and filing monthly reports on those counts also "imposes a burden for no legitimate reason," Hinkle wrote. He said the forms don't provide a way to have identification easy.
• Requiring a volunteer to swear to a statement, risking perjury, that they "willfully" submit false voter-registration information instead of knowingly "could have no purpose other than to discourage voluntary participation in legitimate, indeed constitutionally protected, activities," Hinkle wrote. Hinkle said the forms that contain that information is wrong, and not the law. 

• Organizations required to file within 10 days that a volunteer is no longer a volunteer is unreasonable.

"If a voter registration organization sets up a table at a mall or farmer’s market, giving out and collecting voter-registration applications, and a volunteer hands out flyers encouraging passersby to register to vote but does not collect or otherwise handle the voter-registration applications themselves," Hinkle writes, "the state has little legitimate interest in knowing the identity of the volunteer. Indeed, the organization itself may not know the volunteer’s identity—anyone willing to hand out flyers will do nicely— and may not know whether the volunteer will come back tomorrow or next weekend or next month or never."