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Election Reform

The quest to ensure that all Florida's citizens can vote and have their votes accurately counted has led us to address a wide variety of issues, from ballot design and redistricting schemes to maintenance of voter rolls and signage in polling places. All our work is based upon the "one person, one vote" principle and the belief that voting is our most fundamental right as individuals in a democracy.

ACLU Action During the 2000 Presidential Election

During the 2000 Presidential election, the ACLU received complaints from hundreds of voters about various aspects of the state's voting process. Working in conjunction with our National Voting Rights Project, based in Atlanta, the ACLU filed "friend-of-the-court" briefs in both the Palm Beach County Circuit Court and the 4th District Court of Appeal challenging the now-infamous Palm Beach "butterfly ballot". The ACLU also filed a brief in the U. S. Supreme Court defending the authority of the Florida Supreme Court to interpret and resolve conflicts in state law, and supporting the court's ruling that permitted an extension of time for the hand recount of disputed ballots.

Only weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court's December 2000 decision ending the recounts, the ACLU joined with the N.A.A.C.P., the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and other allies to file NAACP v. Harris, which challenged the voting irregularities and the mass disenfranchisement of the Presidential election. The lawsuit was not just about replacing the out-dated error prone voting machinery. The suit was also about addressing other irregularities - such as voters not being able to cast ballots because they were not provided with adequate language assistance at the polls or because they were erroneously listed on the voter rolls as felons when, in fact, they were not. Slowly but surely, the lawsuit resulted in positive reforms to Florida's voting process.

ACLU Action Since the 2000 Presidential Election

In the months after the 2000 Presidential election, the ACLU of Florida established itself as a watchdog for various changes in Florida's voting process. The ACLU lobbied the Florida Legislature concerning provisions of the Florida Election Reform Act of 2001 and wrote to the Department of Justice to express our concerns about new voting laws that threatened to take the African-American community and other minority communities backward in the civil rights struggle for equality at the polls. When the Legislature passed a law to post in every Florida polling place a list of so-called "Voter Responsibilities" that could have been mistaken by voters and poll workers as legal prerequisites in order to cast a ballot, the ACLU filed suit. Major v. Sawyer eventually prompted the Legislature to add a provision in the law to clarify that failure to perform any of the responsibilities could not prohibit a voter from voting.

The ACLU has continued to join with other groups to achieve common civil rights goals. Throughout 2001 and 2002, the ACLU worked with the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition and others in an effort to try to increase the number of seats on the Miami-Dade County Commission so that there would be greater opportunity for local government to hear all of the country's diverse voices. After the disastrous September 2002 primaries in Miami-Dade County, the ACLU joined with numerous organizations and citizen activists to form the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition. Through the Election Reform Coalition, the ACLU successfully lobbied county officials to mail sample ballots - for the first time ever - to registered voters in Miami-Dade County and obtained extended early voting days and hours. In addition, the ACLU co-authored with the League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade County "Make Your Vote Count!" pamphlets in English, Spanish, and Creole to help voters stand up for their rights at the polls. (The pamphlets were published in the sample ballots as "Frequently Asked Questions"). Today, the ACLU of Florida, together with the Election Reform Coalition, is at the forefront of the push to achieve verified, secure, and auditable voting in Counties with touch-screen voting machines.

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