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Voting Rights Act Protections

Basic Protections

The Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1973, prohibits the use of any voting qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice or procedure that abridges the right to vote on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group. The right to vote is "abridged" when minority voters have less opportunity than others to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. Almost any practice that has the "effect" of diluting minority voting strength could violate the Voting Rights Act, including the way district boundaries are drawn, purging and registration practices, whether there are sufficient bilingual poll workers, the location of polling places, etc.

Protections for Language Minorities

1. Designated language minority jurisdictions -- In Florida, the following Counties are designated language minority jurisdictions for Spanish: Broward, Collier, Dade, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, Orange and Monroe. These Counties are required to provide bilingual ballots, notices to voters, signs and assistance at the polls.

2. Other counties with a significant Spanish-speaking population may also be required to provide such bilingual assistance if the failure to do so dilutes the voting strength of Latinos.

3. Persons educated in Puerto Rico -- Language protection for persons educated in Puerto Rico is guaranteed without regard to the number or percentage of people affected.

Purging

No one's name can be removed from the voter registration lists solely because they did not vote in the last election. Federal and State law require that the Supervisor of Elections attempt to contact any voter who failed to vote and, if the voter does not respond, the Supervisor must retain their name on the voter registration list unless they fail to vote for two more general Federal elections after the notice. During this time, the person must be allowed to vote by simply showing up at their polling place and verifying their address.

Identification

No one can be refused the right to vote solely because they failed to bring adequate identification to the polling place. Federal and State law require that an individual who is registered to vote but shows up at the polling place without identification must be permitted to vote after signing a statement verifying their name and address.