The ACLU of Florida logo (Photo: savedade.org)

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida announced today that “along with the Brennan Center for Justice and the law firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and Coffey Burlington sued on behalf of the League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote, and Florida PIRG, challenging the state’s new restrictions on voter registration.”

According to the ACLU of Florida, the “lawsuit argues that the restrictions passed this year violate the US Constitution and the National Voter Registration Act. The restrictions being challenged are part of HB 1355, the ‘Voter Suppression Act,’ a comprehensive overhaul of Florida’s election laws which is currently under review by a federal court for potential violations of the Voting Rights Act.”

The ACLU of Florida is also intervening in the state’s attempt to receive federal approval for some of the more controversial aspects of the new voting law.

Here is the entire press release announcing the lawsuit:

Today attorneys for the League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote, and the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund [“PIRG”] filed suit in federal court in Tallahassee challenging Florida’s onerous new restrictions on community-based voter registration drives. The attorneys representing the civic groups are with the Brennan Center for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida, and leading pro bono law firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and Florida-based Coffey Burlington. The civic groups asked the court to block Florida’s new restrictions on the basis that they violate both the U.S. Constitution and the National Voter Registration Act.

This suit follows on the heels of a speech in which Attorney General Eric Holder specifically pointed to Florida’s law as an example of recent legislation that restricts Americans’ ability to cast a ballot. In reaffirming America’s commitment to our core right to vote, he stated that “protecting this right, ensuring meaningful access and combating discrimination must be viewed, not only as a legal issue but as a moral imperative.” The action by the civic groups today represents the front lines of this moral imperative.

The restrictions challenged in the suit were enacted by Florida legislators earlier this year as part of H.B. 1355, a broad package of election law changes. They include extremely burdensome administrative requirements, unreasonably tight deadlines for submission of completed forms, and heavy penalties for even the slightest delay or mistake. These restrictions are so unnecessarily harsh that they have forced the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote, among other groups, to shut down their voter registration programs in Florida.

As Deirdre Macnab, President of the League of Women Voters of Florida, explains: “For over 72 years, League volunteers have faithfully and successfully helped to register eligible Florida voters. Sadly, Florida’s anti-voter Law creates impassable roadblocks for our volunteers, who are simply trying to bring fellow citizens into our democratic process. Today, we take a stand against these unacceptable barriers to voting and voter registration.”

Heather Smith, President of Rock the Vote, states: “As the nation’s largest young voter organization, we’ve dedicated more than two decades to educating and empowering young people to participate in our nation’s democracy. Through our volunteer youth-led programs on campuses and in communities to our civics education initiatives in high schools, Rock the Vote has encouraged hundreds of thousands of young Florida residents to have a voice in their community and country. We are outraged at these new laws that will prevent opportunities for youth civic participation; it is simply un-American.”

Brad Ashwell, Advocate for Florida Public Interest Research Education Fund, added, “Our representative democracy relies on an engaged citizenry, yet voter turnout in Florida remains far too low. That’s why we work to sign up thousands of first time voters across the state each election cycle. It’s unfortunate that rather than find ways to bring new voters into the fold, the Florida Legislature is instead targeting groups that help attract new voters. This law will inevitably lead to fewer voters at the polls.”

The new law is regarded by many voter registration groups as an attempt to regulate voter registration drives out of existence by burying such efforts in red tape and threatening volunteer-based organizations with massive fines. The Brennan Center and the League of Women Voters also filed lawsuits against Florida’s two prior laws restricting community-based voter registration. “This law represents Florida legislators’ third attempt in six years to drown voter registration groups in regulation,” said Lee Rowland, counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “It is unfortunate that we have had to represent Florida’s leading voter registration groups, not once, or twice, but three times in fighting back against the Florida legislature’s repeated attempts to stifle access to voter registration opportunities.”

According to today’s court filing, the League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote, and Florida PIRG argue that Florida’s restrictions violate the U.S. Constitution or federal law in three main ways: (1) they violate Plaintiffs’ constitutionally protected rights of speech and association; (2) they fail to give individuals and groups fair notice of how to comply with its confusing and unclear mandates; and (3) they violate the National Voter Registration Act – a federal law designed in part to encourage community-based voter registration activity.

In another ongoing suit, the State of Florida is requesting a panel of federal judges in Washington, D.C. “preclear” H.B. 1355’s controversial provisions, including the voter registration restrictions, under the Voting Rights Act. Under the Act, Florida must seek permission from the federal government before implementing changes to election laws in five of Florida’s counties, by proving that the law has neither the purpose nor the effect of harming minority voters. The League of Women Voters of Florida, other civil rights organizations, and individuals including voters and election officials, have all intervened in that suit to demonstrate that Florida will not be able to make this showing given the law’s impacts on minority voters. The League is represented in that case by the Brennan Center, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and pro bono counsel from the law firm of Bryan Cave LLP.

Today’s lawsuit argues that Florida’s law forces League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote, and Florida PIRG to scale back or eliminate their voter registration efforts – even as voter registration rates have continued to decline in Florida.

Two teachers in Florida have already gotten into possible legal trouble because they unknowingly violated the state’s strict new voter registration rules.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (Photo: Flickr/ryanjreilly)

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be giving a speech today about laws recently enacted all over the country that some say will suppress voter turnout among minorities, young people and low-income and disabled voters.

The speech comes during a flurry of activity following restrictive voting laws passed all over the country in the past year. Policymakers in states such as Florida have maintained the laws were crafted to prevent voter fraud.

Florida’s Republican-led Legislature passed an elections law last session that reduces the number of early voting days, creates onerous regulations for third-party voter registration drives and shortens the shelf life for ballot initiative signatures, among other things. A sponsor of the bill has said the bill makes Florida’s elections more “reliable.”

Many groups have denounced the laws, saying the new rules restrict voting rights from minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters as the 2012 election looms. Those complaints are gaining traction at the state and federal level. Yesterday, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., announced that the Senate will commence with field hearings in January in Florida to investigate the effect of the state’s new law. Holder will today give a speech on the same subject.

The Washington Post reports:

With the presidential campaign heating up, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver a speech Tuesday expressing concerns about the voter-identification laws, along with a Texas redistricting plan before the Supreme Court that fails to take into account the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, he said in an interview Monday.

Holder will speak at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Libary and Museum in Austin, Tex., which honors the president who shepherded the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law.

“We are a better nation now than we were because more people are involved in the electoral process,’’ Holder said in the interview. “The beauty of this nation, the strength of this nation, is its diversity, and when we try to exclude people from being involved in the process . . . we weaken the fabric of this country.’’

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Holder said his department “will be aggressive” in investigating “jurisdictions that have attempted for whatever reason to restrict the ability of people to get to the polls.”

“I think a fundamental question is raised: Who are we as a nation?” Holder said. “Shouldn’t we be coming up with ways to encourage more people to get to the polls to express their views? I am not talking about any one particular state effort, but more generally I think for those who would consider trying to use methods, techniques to discourage people from coming to the polls — that’s inconsistent with what we say we are as a nation.”

The Post reports that “a staff attorney for the ACLU Voting Rights Project … said the Justice Department could reject some laws through the pre-clearance process and file lawsuits seeking to stop others from taking effect.” According to the Post, Holder has already said that “the laws could depress turnout for minorities, poor and elderly people and those with disabilities who would have difficulty securing valid identification documents.”

Florida is currently waiting for a ruling on controversial aspects of its law from a court in the District of Columbia. Five counties in Florida require federal preclearance of voting laws per the Voting Rights Act.

Among restrictions that include new regulations on third party voter registration drives, a shorter “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives and new restrictions on voters changing their registered addresses on election day, the new law would also eliminate some early voting days such as the Sunday before election day.

Torres-Spelliscy told WMNF that the restriction would greatly affect traditions at churches across the state.

“This is a day when communities of worship had organized what is called ‘souls to the polls’ efforts,” she said. “So, on the Sunday before an election you would finish up with church and then sometimes there would be church vans right there — and you would got the early voting location in your Florida community.”

“That is no longer an option under this new law,” she said.

Torres-Spelliscy also believes it would harm people who do not own vehicles and rely on their church for transportation, a population made up of mostly low-income residents and minorities. She said these people might face great difficulty getting to a polling place.

Florida is currently fighting a federal law that requires preclearance of the state’s election law that might affect minority voting rights in certain counties in the state. The state is still waiting for a D.C. court’s ruling on the law.

Florida is one of many states that have passed laws making it harder for people to vote and harder for groups to register voters. Opponents of the new laws say the rules will make it more difficult for minorities and young people — largely considered a part of the Democratic base — to vote in the upcoming election.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has been one of the most active opponents of the new laws. He recently sent a letter to Holder requesting that the Justice Department launch an investigation into whether the “new state voting laws resulted from collusion or an orchestrated effort to limit voter turnout.” He sent the letter days after requesting a congressional hearing on the matter.

TPM reports:

“This Department of Justice will be aggressive at looking at this jurisdictions that have attempted for whatever reason to restrict the ability of people to get to the polls,” Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) — who chaired a hearing on attempts to place restrictions on voting rights through measures like voter ID, shortening early voting periods and limiting the capabilities of groups trying to run voter registation drives — asked Holder what DOJ was doing to ensure voters weren’t disenfranchised.

“I think a fundamental question is raised: who are we as a nation?” Holder said. “Shouldn’t we be coming up with ways to encourage more people to get to the polls to express their views?” he continued.

“I am not talking about any one particular state effort, but more generally I think for those who would consider trying to use methods, techniques to discourage people from coming to the polls — that’s inconsistent with what we say we are as a nation,” Holder said.

Florida is currently waiting for a ruling on controversial aspects of its law from a court in the District of Columbia. Five counties in Florida require federal preclearance of voting laws per the Voting Rights Act.

Last week, 196 members of Congress, including six from Florida’s delegation, signed a letter sent to secretaries of state all over the country expressing their disapproval of new voting restrictions.

In his letter to Holder, Nelson writes:

I have asked Sen. Durbin’s subcommittee to conduct a congressional investigation to see if Florida’s new election law is linked to the efforts to pass similar voting restrictions in 14 states so far this year.

The changes mostly involve new ID requirements, shorter early voting periods and new restrictions on third parties who sign up new voters. In Florida, the League of Women Voters considered these restrictions so egregious it abandoned its registration drives after 72 years, and teachers there are running afoul of the law for the way they sign up students to vote.

According to the first comprehensive study of the laws’ impact, just completed by The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, these voting changes could make it significantly harder for more than five-million eligible voters in numerous states to cast their ballots in 2012. Both The Washington Post and New York Times have reported such measures could keep young people and minorities away from the polls.

If the Brennan Center is correct in its assessment that five-million voters could be disenfranchised that would be more than the all the registered voters in any of 42 states in this country.

In short, indications are mounting of an effort to suppress the national vote. In Florida, the Justice Department continues reviewing how the voting law changes would affect certain voters, particularly minorities, pursuant to the Voting Rights Act. I believe more should be done.

The Justice Department should investigate whether new state voting laws resulted from collusion or an orchestrated effort to limit voter turnout. The Department needs to determine whether or not there was broad-based motivation to suppress the vote – and, if so, whether any laws were violated.

Opponents of Florida’s law have said the rules are aimed at suppressing the minority and youth vote for the upcoming 2012 election. The current instances of teachers getting in trouble for registering voters has been used as an example of how the youth vote might be particularly affected by the laws.

Groups like the Miami-based LGBT-rights group, SAVE Dade, have had to stop registering voters because of the new limitations on third-party voter registration drives and the potential financial penalties. The group says it simply could not afford to register voters — even after almost two decades of providing that service.

Florida is currently waiting for a ruling on controversial aspects of the law from a court in the District of Columbia.

In a statement today, the Americans Civil Liberties Union of Florida says the court “denied the state’s request for an expedited schedule to hear whether the state’s Voter Suppression Act complies with the federal Voting Rights Act and can be implemented statewide.” The ACLU of Florida is one of the interveners in this case.

The group’s statement says:

In denying the state’s request for a quick hearing and decision, the federal three judge panel cited the state’s own repeated delays in getting the law approved and concurrent decision to move forward the Presidential Primary date to January. The Court cited the state’s three week delay in seeking approval of the changes from the Department of Justice, failure of the state to seek expedited review, removing provisions of the law from DOJ review after 50 of the 60 days had expired, filing in federal court, and amending their filing to challenge the Voting Rights Act as examples that any time pressure for a decision was caused by the state itself.

Moreover, the Court found that the expedited schedule proposed by the state would not afford the federal government and interveners including the ACLU enough time to present their case.

Because Governor Scott and Secretary of State Browning moved ahead to implement the law without waiting for federal approval, one major result of the ruling is that Florida will conduct its January Presidential Preference Primary with two sets of election laws in the state.

Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning has filed a complaint challenging sections of the Voting Rights Act. He claimed that federal preclearance requirements for state election laws are “unconstitutional.”

Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU, said in a statement that “the Court was right to say this is a mess created by the Governor and the Legislature.”

“In denying their request for a ‘drive by hearing’, the Court essentially said that the state’s failure to take this issue seriously until recently is no one’s fault but their own,” he said.

SAVE Dade is one of many advocacy groups in the state that used to run voter registration drives before elections to promote civic engagement. But a new law passed this year has installed new limitations on third-party voter registration drives, and also levies financial penalties on groups that violate those rules.

The law also created a shortened “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, placed new restrictions on voters changing their registered addresses on election day, and reduced the number of early voting days.

David Valk, a community organizer with SAVE Dade, tells The Florida Independent that the non-partisan group has had to change its strategy since the passage of the controversial elections law.

“We have been tremendously negatively impacted,” Valk explains.

He says the group has relied heavily on volunteers to register voters in the past. Because the group does not generate enough money to pay the steep financial penalties, Valk says the group has decided to not register voters this election for the first time since the group’s inception 18 years ago.

“In effect, we’d go bankrupt,” he says. “What we are doing now is ‘working with the law’ to canvass supporters and make sure they are registered to vote.”

Valk says the group’s new campaign “#12×12″ would train their volunteers to provide help to people who support the group but are not registered to vote. He says he hopes to sign on “12,000 new pro-equality supporters” despite the new law.

On the group’s website, the promotion for training for the new campaign says:

New laws in the State of Florida have made it difficult for organizations like SAVE Dade to register voters.

Despite this challenge, we have worked with other community leaders to develop a unique and powerful solution.  Please sign up to join us at our first voter engagement training and learn how you can help advance the movement for equality in South Florida by increasing LGBT voter registration.

Valk says the group sought advice from other groups on how to best move forward since the law’s implementation in 62 counties in the state. Florida is currently waiting for a ruling on controversial aspects of the law from a court in the District of Columbia.

Valk says that because the 2012 election is still far away, other groups have not been proactive in dealing with the new law.

“They just aren’t educated enough about the law,” he says.

“And this isn’t just a partisan issue,” he adds. “This is an incumbent issue. Legislators are doing this so they can stay in power. Everyone should be angry.”

Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning recently filed a complaint in court claiming that the Voting Rights Act’s federal preclearance provision is “unconstitutional.” Five counties in Florida fall under the preclearance rules; the state must receive approval from the federal government in order to implement the new voting laws in those areas. The other 62 counties have already implemented the new elections regulations.

The state is currently awaiting a D.C. court’s approval of controversial parts of the new election laws limiting third-party voter registration drives, shortening the “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, adding new restrictions on voters changing their registered addresses on election day, and reducing the number of early voting days in the state.

Thurston wrote in a letter today:

Through taxpayer-funded legal shenanigans — including Secretary of State Kurt Browning’s efforts to ignore landmark federal civil rights legislation that protects racial and language minorities in Florida — it is clear that there is a move to suppress the vote.

I firmly disagree with Secretary Browning’s assertion that Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act is no longer required in Florida or the United States.

Accordingly, I am confident that the federal court is likely to block significant sections of the new “voter suppression” elections law that Republicans in the Florida Legislature passed and you signed into law earlier this year. Those unnecessary statutory changes amount to a dangerous threat to the voting rights of Florida’s language and racial minorities, and thankfully the federal courts are reviewing this misguided directive.

…

Also, what seems comically transparent about these attempts is how they are part of a concerted national effort, spearheaded by conservative, big-business-backed groups like ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. According to news reports, Florida is among 38 states that have instituted very similar new rules prohibiting same-day registration and early voting on Sundays.

So, it is my opinion that under the false premise of attacking rare cases of voter fraud in our state, you have aligned yourself with those who would twist our democracy for the purpose of suppressing Floridians vote.

Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, has said that the state’s attempt to undermine the Voting Rights Act is “an admission that they know that the federal courts are likely to find that the Voter Suppression Act passed this year is a serious threat to the voting rights of Florida’s language and racial minorities.”

The Sun Sentinel reports:

The ACLU argued that the state couldn’t implement the law in some of the counties while waiting to see if the law passed federal muster in the five counties subject to the Voting Rights Act. A U.S. District judge in Miami disagreed.

“I am pleased that the United States district court judge agreed with our position that Florida’s election laws are being appropriately implemented throughout the state,” said Secretary of State Kurt Browning in a press release. “The 62 counties in Florida with no preclearance requirement do not need to wait for the approval of the federal government before implementing Florida law.”

Five Florida counties are waiting for preclearance from the federal government before they can implement the new law, as required by the the Voting Rights Act. The law was created in 1965 to outlaw discriminatory voting rules. Section 5 of the act requires the federal government to review and approve any changes to election laws in certain areas.

Browning last week filed a complaint against the law, arguing that preclearance requirements for state election laws are “unconstitutional.”

Howard Simon, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said the state’s challenge to the Voting Right’s Act was “an admission that they know that the federal courts are likely to find that the Voter Suppression Act passed this year is a serious threat to the voting rights of Florida’s language and racial minorities.”

The state is waiting to hear from a federal judge about four of the law’s most controversial measures: new restrictions on third-party voter registration drives, a shortened “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, new restrictions on voters changing their registered addresses on election day and a reduction in the number of early voting days.

Federal judges in Washington have yet to schedule a trial date for this next stage — they’re expected to do so Wednesday — but they’ll hear arguments from the Justice Department as to particular concerns.

Monday afternoon, the department signed off on Texas’ new Board of Education and the state Senate maps, but it wouldn’t so so for the state’s Congressional and state House plans:

Defendants deny that the proposed House plan, as compared with the benchmark, maintains or increases the ability of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice.

The filing uses similar language for the Congressional map, and while that news will be encouraging to groups that challenged the maps in Texas, the Justice Department said it simply doesn’t have the information it needs to reach a conclusion on either of those maps. (Read the full filing below.)

The Justice Department will offer more details on its questions for the state on Tuesday, according to the Texas politics blog Quorum Report.

Last week a three-judge panel in San Antonio heard closing arguments from a coalition of groups arguing the new districts cheat minority groups out of the equal representation they’re guaranteed under the law. Lawyers for the State of Texas begged to disagree, as the San Antonio Express-News reported, calling the suits an “effort to fix the results of an election.”

Over the last two weeks, the quick trial often heated up, as lawmakers and their staffs leveled or deflected charges of racism:

“Let’s not pretend the state didn’t know the racial implications of what they were doing,” said Gerry Hebert, a longtime civil rights lawyer representing state Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth.

“They knew it at every click of the mouse in drawing the map,” Hebert said.

Those charges of racism could reach all the way to Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign, if the courts do decide the GOP-drawn map cuts off minorities communities’ representation.

Texas’ maps must wind through a complex legal system because they face two separate challenges: first because a handful of groups sued over the maps in federal court, and second, because Texas is one of a handful of states with discriminatory histories, which must have any changes to its maps “pre-cleared” at the federal level.

The judges in Texas have suggested they’ll hold off on making their decision until they hear a ruling from the panel in D.C., and as the Los Angeles Times reported, that process puts every potential candidate in the state under a tight deadline:

[Dallas attorney Michael] Li said the rulings could force Texas state election officials to delay the November elections, including the presidential primary, which might affect Perry’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Given the filing deadlines, that makes it a little hairy,” Li said.

As Li reported on his blog covering the redistricting process, the NAACP recently weighed in on the case, as well, asking the Justice Department to oppose the maps.

DOJ response to Texas Redistricting Maps