Last month, the Louisiana legislature amended its election code with Act 383, sponsored by Rep. Tim Burns (R). The new law will single out public assistance clients by subjecting them to strict voter verification procedures. Louisianans who apply to register to vote through another government agency—the DMV—will not be subject to the new rule. These barriers will frustrate the already difficult task of enfranchising the state’s most vulnerable and marginalized individuals.
Only six months ago, Louisiana public assistance clients won a major victory in Scott v. Schedler against the state for failing to provide meaningful voter registration opportunities to its citizens that seek food stamps, TANF, Medicaid, WIC, etc., through the state’s public assistance agencies, as mandated by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The Scott court ordered that Louisiana agencies amend their practices to become fully compliant with the NVRA and certify their compliance with the law by March 15, 2013. The decision sent a clear message that Louisiana must take its responsibilities under the NVRA.
However, it appears that message was not heard because Act 383 adds a stricter verification procedure for applications from public assistance agencies compared to those received from DMVs, thus unjustifiably singling out the most vulnerable of Louisianans.
Act 383 establishes that Louisiana voter registration agencies are subject to the stricter verification process for mail-in registration forms under La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18:115. Now, whenever someone applies to vote through a public assistance agency, the registrar must mail a verification letter to the address on the voter application form before adding the person to the official list of voters. If the letter is returned as undeliverable within 10 days, the voter is not added to the official list of voters.
This is different from the current DMV (and former public assistance agency) procedure. When a person applies at the DMV, the registrar verifies that the information contained on the application meets the requirements for registration and then immediately registers the applicant and mails a notice of registration. Unlike people who apply through a public assistance agency, DMV applicants are only required to verify their applications by mail when their applications are incomplete or contain errors.
This new procedure at public assistance agencies is wrought with potential pitfalls. Many public assistance clients are homeless (like the named plaintiff in Scott) or live in low-income neighborhoods with unreliable mail service. Moreover, mail can be returned-to-sender because election officials made typos; because those in charge of homeless shelters failed to deliver mail to residents; or because the addresses belong to Armed Forces personnel overseas.
Act 383 is a “vote caging” strategy, masquerading as good government voter list maintenance. According to a Department of Justice investigation from 2008, “Vote Caging” is the “practice of sending mail to addresses on the voter rolls, compiling a list of the mail that is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or challenge voters’ registrations on the grounds that the voters on the list do not legally reside at their registered addresses.”
Some may argue that Act 383 is an attempt to maintain accurate lists, but creating more of a burden for the clients of public assistance agencies defies the intent behind the NVRA, which was passed “to establish procedures that will increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office” and “to ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.”
The Scott court was clear that the intent behind the NVRA requiring public assistance agencies to offer voter registration materials was to allow all citizens to connect “‘[w]ith an office at which they may apply to register to vote with the same convenience as will be available to most other people’ when they apply for motor vehicle driver’s licenses.”
Though Scott v. Schedler was an important victory for Louisianan clients of public assistance agencies, Act 383 proves that the struggle to enfranchise the most vulnerable and marginalized Louisianans continues.
Kwame Akosah is a second-year law student at Fordham University School of Law. He joins Project Vote as legal intern for summer 2013.