‘Caging' letter: Are Republicans trying to disqualify [Florida] Democrats? - "A challenge to any voter's eligibility can be filed beginning 30 days before and up to, even on, Election Day, under Florida law. Elections offices have no legal obligation to notify the voter of the challenge…Still, if a challenge is filed on Election Day, the voter has no defense — even if he or she brings relevant information. That right was eliminated in a Florida law passed in 2005…The voter may be required to come to the elections office to present documents that support his or her eligibility. Those most vulnerable are working people who can't take time from their jobs to defend their eligibility." 9/20/08
Florida Could Again Muddle Race for White House - "Other battleground states have recently tightened voter-identification laws, but Florida was named ‘the most hostile state in the nation to new voters' by three national voting-rights groups." 9/20/08
Florida Voting Law May Disenfranchise Thousands - "The process starts with an attempt to "match" voter information to other government databases, an error-prone exercise that often fails. For example, the Social Security Administration reports that 46% failure rate when trying to match voter registration applications." 9/12/08
Florida gets tough on new voter registrations - "...voter registration information for anyone who signed up Monday or later must match identification information in other government databases. If the state can't make the match or the person can't prove that the registration information is correct with a driver's license or Social Security card before Nov. 4, the voter will get only a provisional ballot on Election Day. And that's even if the voter shows up with the proper ID at the polls. Then, the voter will have two days after Election Day to prove his or her case, or the provisional vote won't count." 9/12/08
Florida Republicans, Democrats and Non-Partisans Join Forces, Call for State Action To Secure November's General Election - Press Release. 9/10/08
'No match, no vote' law to be enforced - "Elizabeth Westfall, senior attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based Advancement Project, a civil rights group, said that when the law was in effect in 2006 and 2007, it disproportionately excluded Latino and African American voters who often had double last names that often didn't register accurately in the data files." 9/9/08
A Bad Experiment in Voting - "For Internet voting to be trustworthy, it must be clear that there is no way for a hacker to break in and voters must have complete confidence in the software being used. All Americans have a stake in ensuring that presidential ballots are cast using reliable voting systems." 9/5/08
Florida's 2008 Election Landscape Looking More Like 2000 - "This ruling puts thousands of real Florida citizens at risk this November based on bureaucratic typos... Justin Levitt, counsel, Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law. 6/28/08
Court Declines to Block Florida's No-Match No-Vote Law - "Voters who do everything right, who submit forms that are complete, timely, and accurate, will suddenly find themselves unregistered when they go to vote, because someone somewhere slipped on a keyboard. It's unjust and it's unnecessary, and Florida voters will pay the price this fall." Justin Levitt, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law, 6/25/08
What Barriers Stand in Your Way to the Polls? - "An analysis of new voter applicants in December 2007, covering the past two years, showed that 66 percent of new applicants were white, and they accounted for 17 percent of those who didn't match. Hispanics, on the other hand, comprised 16 percent of all new applicants but represented 39 percent of the still unmatched category. Blacks, too, represented a larger percentage of those still unmatched than they did new applicants." 6/4/08
Election Day in Florida May Look Familiar - "According to independent elections experts at Pew's Electionline.org and other organizations, it is now harder to vote here than in nearly every other state in the nation." 4/28/08