TRAVIS ANDREWS, THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY
Louisiana is being sued for alleged non-compliance with the National Voter
Registration Act (NVRA) by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc. (LDF), Project
Vote, and several private persons.
The lawsuit, filed on April 19, alleges Louisiana has failed to give ample
opportunity for low-income and minority voters to register by failing to follow
the required procedures outlined in the NVRA.
“The NVRA has been in effect in Louisiana since 1995,” said Nicole Kovite
Zeitler, director of the public agency voter registration program for the
Washington, DC-based Project Vote. “The act requires the agency to give out a
voter registration form with every application for benefits and change of
address.”
Project Vote, a nonprofit organization dedicated to equal voting rights for all
citizens, and the LDF, an organization dedicated to fighting for racial
justice, are defenders of the NVRA in states where it is not being upheld.
And, according to Zeitler, the state of Louisiana has failed to do so, which is
immediately reflected in the rapidly decreasing number of low-income voters, an
88 percent drop since the law was passed in 1995.
By failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act, Louisiana is
denying minority and low-income voters across the state equal access to the
ballot box,” said Dale Ho, assistant counsel with LDF’s Political Participation
Group, according to a press release.
According to the official complaint, in 1995 there were 257,347 applications
for Louisiana SNAP, the food stamp program. That number grew to 291, 865 in
2007.
While voting registration forms are supposed to be included with SNAP and
Medicaid applications, there has been a severe drop fro 74,636 in 1995, when the
law was placed into effect, to 8,688 in 2007.
Though Medicaid saw a drop in applicants, having 383,752 applications in 2005
to 2006 and 340,710 in 2007 to 2008, there is a vast difference in comparison
to number of voters, something Zeitler said can indicate a state’s
non-compliance with the NVRA.
Based on these numbers, she said, “In the state of Louisiana, I think it’s
pretty clear they’ve been out of compliance for a long time.”
The lawsuit is directed simply at having Louisiana comply with the NVRA and
offer voter registration alongside benefits packages, something that is not
being done.
In fact, according to the complaint, “We also identified individuals who
reported they had not receive any offer of voter registration by agency staff,
even though such an offer should have been made. Our survey also revealed that
personnel at numerous agencies around the state were wholly unfamiliar with
their voter registration obligations under the NVRA. In addition, a number of
agencies around the state did not have hard copies of voter registration forms
available for clients.”
Zeitler said their goal is compliance, and she is confident voter registration
will rise once that happens.
“This is a law Louisiana should have been in compliance with for the past 16
years,” she said. “Once Louisiana starts following the law, I’m confident we’ll
see many low-income [persons] registering to vote.”
Though both organizations say they would rather settle the matter outside of
court, they feel their hands were forced.
“Of course, we would have preferred to resolve this matter absent the need for
litigation,” said attorney Ronald Wilson, who filed the complaint, according to
a press release. “The State’s refusal to make the changes required to bring it
with federal law left us with no other alternative.”