On May 15th, the Florida Division of Elections released a new proposed rule (1S-2.048) that–if adopted–would provide for greater compliance of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Florida Statute 97.058.
Why the need for a new rule? According to Maria Matthews, assistant general counsel for the Department of State, the NVRA has been around for 15 years and, while Florida has complied with the federal act, compliance can be made better. Basic elements of the proposed rule that will likely make it into the final version include the following:
Each State agency designated as a voter registration agency under the NVRA should:
1) Designate a coordinator that would act as a liaison to the Department of State’s NVRA coordinator;
2) ensure compliance with the federal and state law governing voter registration activities;
3) record voter registration services provided for each client;
4) track, monthly, the number of new voter registration applications and registration updates that are received;
5) and require voter registration training for staff.
The new rule would also require a combined preference form in both English and Spanish, which allows for greater “tracking of voter registration activity and that incorporates a detachable national mail-in application form.”
At a rulemaking workshop sponsored by the Florida Division of Elections on June 1, I voiced Project Vote’s support for the rule while suggesting how it could be improved to better ensure the rights of citizens under the NVRA are properly implemented. Among other recommendations, Project Vote stressed that Florida’s KidCare program, the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, should be included in the list of agencies that provide voter registration services. This follows recent guidelines announced by the U.S. Department of Justice. Project Vote also made recommendations regarding how the state could better track agency data to ensure that NVRA performance was being monitored carefully.
Project Vote will continue to attend workshops on proposed Rule 1S-2.048 and make recommendations to help Florida agencies improve their compliance under Section 7 of the NVRA. A proposed rule may go through several workshops until it is scheduled for a public hearing. Once a public hearing is scheduled, the rule has 90 days to be adopted.
An additional problem that Florida will need to solve is how election officials track the source of voter registration applications in the state. In response to a 2008 letter from Project Vote, regarding apparent violations of the NVRA in public aid agencies, the state claimed that it was having difficulty allocating which voter registration applications came from which agencies. However, without improved tracking-–using, for instance, discrete codes or colored forms as in other States–-election officials cannot report accurate voter registration data to the Election Assistance Commission, as required under the NVRA.
In addition to its work with election officials in Florida, Project Vote has been working closely for several months with Florida’s Women, Infants & Children Program (WIC) to improve its compliance monitoring system to capture offers of voter registration and monitor how offices are performing. This fall, Florida plans on launching an electronic NVRA monitoring system that will effortlessly and systematically track voter registration by local WIC offices.