A high school civics teacher in Florida may face thousands of dollars in fines for organizing a voter registration drive on campus, thanks to a controversial new election law that is currently under review by the Department of Justice.
Jill Cicciarelli heads the New Smyrna Beach High School student government and was trying to show her 17-year-old students–who are legally allowed to register to vote in Florida–the “privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy,” reports the Daytona Beach News-Journal. But, the newly enacted House Bill 1355/Chapter 2011-40 requires third parties who help sign up new voters to register with the state. It also requires the third-party group to submit the completed application within 48 hours. Cicciarelli was unaware of these requirements when she headed the drive at the beginning of the school year.
In June, Project Vote, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, and the Florida ACLU asked the Department of Justice to deny preclearance of the law because of its impact on eligible voters. Last week, Project Vote was given permission by the federal district court in Washington, DC to intervene in Florida’s case seeking preclearance of HB 1355. The groups questioned the law’s intention, stating that the Florida State Association of Election Supervisors actively opposed the bill when it was under consideration.
“If they opposed it, clearly it wasn’t designed to help them run elections,” said Project Vote Director of Advocacy Estelle Rogers earlier this summer.
“It’s bizarre,” Volusia County Supervisor of Elections, Ann McFall said of the law. “I haven’t found one person who likes this law.”
The high school civics teacher is not the only “third-party” voter registration organizer who has been stifled by HB 1355: the League of Women Voters and “local political activists in both parties” have suspended voter registration efforts in the state because of the complicated law.
“This isn’t someone who was going to commit fraud,” said McFall. “She was doing a good thing. New Smyrna Beach High School was doing a good thing.”
“I just want them to be participating in our democracy,” said Cicciarelli. “The more participation we have, the stronger our democracy will be.”