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Regarding Court Ruling that Florida's "No Match, No Vote" Statute Does Not Violaate Federal Law |
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By ProjectVote
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April 06, 2008 |
Advancement Project, the Brennan Center for
Justice at NYU School of Law, and Project Vote are disappointed with a
ruling in a Florida voting case issued yesterday from the Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals, but made clear their 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.
“Yesterday’s ruling by the appellate court represents a
setback for all eligible Floridians, particularly voters of color, who
wish to register to vote and participate in the upcoming presidential
elections,” said Elizabeth Westfall of Advancement Project, one of the
attorneys for the plaintiffs. Added Justin Levitt, counsel at the
Brennan Center for Justice, “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.”
“This is not the only pending case against Secretary Browning
that challenges unnecessary restrictions on the right to register to
vote,” said Brian Mellor, Senior Counsel for Project Vote. “We hope
that Secretary Browning will protect the rights of voters, and
organizations that conduct voter registration, and we remain hopeful
that we can resolve these cases, in favor of all Florida citizens, well
before the upcoming elections.”
The plaintiffs are represented in the case by The Brennan
Center for Justice at NYU School of Law; Advancement Project; Project
Vote; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; and Greenberg
Traurig LLP.
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