Florida Plaintiffs File Suit to Protect Their Right to
Vote Statewide
June 19, 2012
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, civil and
voting rights organizations Advancement Project,
Fair Elections Legal Network, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and Project Vote filed a
lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Florida on behalf of Karla Arcia, Melande Antoine and five organizational
plaintiffs affected by Governor Rick Scott’s voter purge program. The organizational
plaintiffs are Veyeyo, Florida Immigrant Coalition, Inc., National Congress for
Puerto Rican Rights, Florida New Majority, and 1199 SEIU United Healthcare
Workers East – Florida.
The lawsuit challenges the legality of the program because it is in
violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination
in voting. It is also in violation of the National Voter Registration Act
(NVRA). Under Section 8 of the NVRA, programs that systematically remove voters
must be completed 90 days before a federal election. Florida will hold
congressional primaries on August 14, 2012; therefore, the 90 day period began
on May 16, 2012. Continuing to engage in the program, as Governor Rick Scott
and Secretary of State Ken Dentzer have confirmed the state will, is in
violation of the protections the NVRA provides to eligible voters.
“This lawsuit will protect eligible voters in every county in Florida from
walking into a polling place only to find that the state has erroneously
decreed they cannot participate in this election. This purge is profoundly
undemocratic and must be stopped,” says Catherine M. Flanagan, director of
the Election Administration Program, Project Vote.
Of the list of nearly 2,700 voters that the state has flagged as possible
non-citizens on the voter rolls using a faulty data matching process, over 500
have already shown documentation that they are citizens and eligible to vote. A
program with a high error rate that places the burden on the voter to proof
citizenship will end up disenfranchising hundreds of eligible voter’s right
before the election with little time to correct the error and restore their
right to vote.
“The Florida Immigrant Coalition, Inc., an organization that represents the
immigrant community across the state of Florida, believes this as another
effort to intimidate legal immigrants,” said Maria Rodriquez, executive
director of Florida Immigrant Coalition, Inc, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “We
see this purge as part of a continuum of attacks on immigrants that could
impact this community’s confidence that their votes this election will be
counted.”
Database matching programs are notoriously unreliable. Data entry errors,
similar-sounding names, and changing information can all produce false matches.
Additionally, some voters slated for removal may well have been naturalized
since completing the DHSMV or juror forms. Further, it places the burden of
proof on the voter, who according to the state, must respond within 30 days to
a notice letter that could easily be lost, misplaced, or inadvertently ignored.
“While counties have an obligation to clean and update voter rolls, they also
have an obligation to follow the law in doing so. If there are people on the
roles improperly, there is a legal process to remove them. Unfortunately,
Florida’s current program does not follow the law,” stated Ben Hovland, senior
counsel with the Fair Elections Legal Network. “As a result, we have seen the
use of outdated or incorrect records from the Department of Motor Vehicles
jeopardize the right to vote of hundreds of law-abiding Florida citizens.
Florida should stop this effort immediately and restore the voting rights of
anyone that has been affected by this faulty matching program.”
“It is clear that the state of Florida is in violation of the Voting Rights Act,”
said Advancement Project Co-Chair Penda Hair. “It is shameful that Governor
Scott is violating federal law to remove the voting rights of thousands of
American citizens, with a glaringly disparate impact on Black and Latino
citizens who are perfectly eligible to vote.”
The facts clearly demonstrate that the program disproportionately burdens
Hispanics, Haitian Americans, and other minority voters in Florida. According
to the NVRA, any state program to maintain an accurate and current voter roll
must be “uniform, nondiscriminatory, and in compliance with the Voting
Rights Act.” However, 87 percent of those targeted on the purge list are
minorities, including 53 percent that have been identified as Hispanics.
“This action by Florida state officials is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise
Latino and other voters of color, and to harm their ability to participate in
the voting process,” said Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel,
LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “Public data records are rife with inaccuracies and
Florida officials know that. This last minute voter purge speaks volumes about
their motivations.”
A copy of the lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District
of Florida can be found here.
For more information, or to request interviews, please contact Sarah Massey at Project Vote,
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