A law that tripped up a New Smyrna Beach teacher registering students to vote, snagged a Daytona Beach community activist registering new voters at her church, and was scored by Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall as "unenforceable" no longer is in force. A federal judge granted an injunction Thursday halting enforcement of much of the state's controversial new elections law.
And not a moment too soon. The law, passed last year by the Legislature, stopped most volunteer voter-registration efforts across the state.
The League of Women Voters, which had been helping sign up Florida voters for more than 70 years, suspended its usual registration operations and went to the courts. The group complained that the law's strict deadlines, new demands on volunteer organizations and harsh penalties made signups outside of election offices all but impossible.
And a federal district court judge in Tallahassee agreed.
"The statute and rule impose a harsh and impractical 48-hour deadline for an organization to deliver applications to a voter-registration office and effectively prohibit an organization from mailing applications in. And the statute and rule impose burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose, thus rendering them unconstitutional," wrote U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle in a 27-page opinion.
The "harsh and impractical" 48-hour deadline was what got Midtown community activist Norma Bland into trouble last December.
She collected signatures at a church event on a Friday afternoon and turned them in on Monday. That violated the 48-hour deadline even though the elections office was closed on Sunday.
One of the things the judge complained about in Thursday's order was that the law and the rules for applying it are "virtually unintelligible" when it comes to the 48-hour deadline clock.
"The short deadline, coupled with substantial penalties for noncompliance, make voter-registration drives a risky business," he wrote.
Like Bland, New Smyrna High School civics teacher Jill Cicciarelli found herself potentially facing those substantial penalties last October. She fell afoul of the law not just because of the 48-hour deadline but because she failed to register with the state as a "registration agent."
Under the law, everybody associated with voter registration is a registration agent. The example the judge gave was if you had a person with voter-registration forms on a folding table and a person handing out fliers encouraging people to vote, both would need to register ahead of time.
Yes, even a person doing no more than handing out pamphlets.
And becoming a registration agent involves signing a scary-sounding sworn statement promising to obey the elections laws and laying out harsh penalties for even inadvertently running afoul of the law. The statement incorrectly says the volunteers could be criminally charged for unwittingly passing along false information.
"The form is just wrong," wrote the judge.
So, now it looks like customary voter-registration drives can get up and running again in time for the Aug. 14 primary. The registration books close July 16.
Remember: If voting didn't matter, the Legislature wouldn't be going to all this trouble to discourage potential voters.
Source: www.news-journalonline.com
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