Brennan Center for Justice

For
Immediate Release:

January 24, 2008

Contact:
Renée
Paradis, 212-992-8162
Tim
Bradley, 646-452-5637

 
BRENNAN CENTER CRITICIZES JUSTICE DEPARTMENT APPROVAL OF FLORIDA VOTER REGISTRATION LAW
Expert: Preclearance Violates Letter And Spirit Of Voting Rights Act

New York -- Today, the Brennan
Center for Justice at NYU School of
Law criticized the U.S. Department of Justice for its decision to approve Florida's revised law restricting
voter registration drives.

In
September, the Brennan Center wrote to the Department of Justice to urge them
to reject the law and explain how Florida's revised law would force
organizations to cease or cut back on their voter registration drives, which
would disproportionately affect black, Hispanic, and Spanish-speaking
voters. A copy of the letter is available by clicking here. The Brennan Center then sent a second letter in December. A copy of the letter is available here.

Last
year, in League of Women Voters of Florida v. Cobb, the state's
restrictions on voter registration drives were declared unconstitutional. 
After the ruling, the Florida
state legislature went back and reenacted the law with slight changes. It
is the revised law that received approval yesterday from the Civil Rights
Division of the Justice Department.

"This
decision will effectively disenfranchise thousands of minority voters across Florida. Black and Hispanic voters and voters from
Spanish-speaking households are twice as likely to register to vote through
these third-party voter registration drives than white voters or voters from
English-speaking households," said Renée Paradis, Counsel in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. "By
making it difficult to conduct voter registration drives, Florida's law reduces the electoral participation
of eligible voters from communities protected under the Voting Rights Act."

"It's
disappointing but not surprising that the Department of Justice would fail to
honor both the letter and the spirit of the Voting Rights Act by approving a
law that will discourage black, Hispanic, and Spanish-speaking American
citizens from participating in our democracy, particularly in a presidential
election year when voter registration drives are usually at their height," said
Paradis.

The
Voting Rights Act requires states to obtain "preclearance" of a voting law
before it can go into effect. The Act requires the Department of Justice
to not preclear a law unless the law leaves protected minorities no worse off
than they would have been without it. In recent years, the DOJ's Voting
Section has been criticized for politicized preclearance decisions. In
2005, the first version of the Georgia
voter ID bill was precleared despite the recommendation of a majority of the
Voting Section staff who worked on it, who found the law's strict requirements
would have a clear retrogressive effect on the rights of black voters. 

Florida's new law will impose escalating
penalties on voter registration groups that do not file new registrant's forms
within a limited time frame. The rules also hold organizations liable for
innocent mistakes, a third party's malicious acts (including those of
disgruntled employees or political opponents), and potentially even the state's
mishandling or loss of applications. After the original registration law
went into effect in 2006, the League of Women Voters of Florida stopped
registering voters for the first time in its 67-year history. The AFL-CIO
and SEIU Healthcare Union also ceased their registration efforts.