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Florida Equal Voting Rights Project Urges Department of Justice to Object to Portions of Florida Electoral Reform Package
Warns that Some Provisions Will Have Discriminatory Impact on Minority Voters
July 19, 2001
MIAMI -- In a letter sent today to officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Florida Equal Voting Rights Project, a project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida in conjunction with the Florida Justice Institute and Florida Legal Services, called on the DOJ to object to sections of the Florida electoral reform package that will have a discriminatory impact on minority voters if implemented.
"Rather than moving forward into the future, the provisions in question threaten to return minority voters to the Jim Crow past," said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida.
The Florida electoral reform package, passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor this past session, was recently submitted to the DOJ for review. The DOJ's approval of the voting changes is necessary for Florida's five preclearance counties (Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, Collier, and Monroe), designated as such for their history of discrimination against minority voters. Any provisions of the legislation not approved by the DOJ for these counties will be invalid throughout the state.
The Project's letter objects specifically to three aspects of the omnibus Florida electoral reform act as adversely affecting minority voters: (1) the posting of the Voter Responsibilities list that harkens back to literacy tests; (2) the new felony purge process; and (3) the disqualification process for provisional ballots.
The Project's letter objects to the establishment of a list of Voter Responsibilities for posting in all Florida polling places. Among its ten provisions, the Responsibilities list requires each voter to "study and know candidates and issues," "know his or her precinct and its hours of operation," and "bring proper identification to the polling station."
"Because of the prominence of the display and based on past practices with similar signage in Florida," stated JoNel Newman, Project Attorney and Co-Director, "voters and pollworkers alike will perceive these responsibilities as the legal obligations of voters, rather than advisory goals. Therefore, these admonitions are a return to pre-Voting Rights Act literacy tests, once employed in Florida's preclearance counties to disenfranchise African Americans." The letter goes on to point out that, according to the most recent census data available, blacks and Latinos are far more likely than whites to move frequently and to be impoverished. As a result, they are less likely to have photo identification or to know their correct precinct after a recent move.
The letter also finds problematic the new list maintenance procedures to be used for removal of ex-felons from the voter rolls. While the reform package eliminates the role of a private contractor in producing the felon list (thus avoiding the Database Technologies, Inc. debacle of the last election), it further decentralizes the felon purge process, placing the burden first on underfunded county supervisors of elections to determine which people should be on the felon list, and then shifting the burden to the voter to prove his or her eligibility to vote if placed on the list in error.
"?what is most striking," states the letter, "is that the standard incorporated in the statute is 'if the supervisor of elections finds information that suggests that a voter is ineligible to register to vote [due to ex-felon status], the supervisor of elections shall notify the voter by certified United States mail.'"
"Suggests" said Charles Elsesser, Project Attorney and Co-Director, "gives the supervisor almost limitless discretion to notify the person that he or she may be taken off the voting roll. And the use of certified mail means that highly mobile minority voters may never receive the supervisor's letter. The result is that people who never committed a felony will once again be prevented from voting."
The fact that minorities tend to move more frequently than whites and to be erroneously purged as felons underlies the Project's concern over provisional ballots, the final issue addressed in the DOJ letter. "While as a general matter provisional ballots should be seen as a progressive step," reads the letter, "...the provisional ballot system established by the [electoral reform package] ? will in all likelihood result in a substantial number of minority ballots not being counted. This is because rather than resolving the issue of where the voter is supposed to vote or whether the voter is eligible to vote, pollworkers and voters will be encouraged to utilize a provisional ballot in all cases in which the voter does not appear on the rolls." Under the statute, provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct or by persons erroneously deleted from the rolls must be "Rejected as Illegal."
Florida Equal Voting Rights Project staff are careful to underscore the positive changes made by the Legislature and Governor through electoral reform. "We aim simply to make sure the positive change is not undermined by dilution of the voting rights of minorities," stated Simon.
- Click here to read the full text of the 14-page letter.
