By Dara Kam ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — A trial kicked off Monday in challenges to a 2023 Florida law that imposed new restrictions on “third-party” voter registration groups, with plaintiffs arguing the changes are unconstitutional and the state saying the law is aimed at enhancing election security.
The law (SB 7050) is part of a years-long effort by the Republican-controlled Legislature to crack down on voter-registration groups. Organizations including the League of Women Voters of Florida, Hispanic Federation and the NAACP filed a series of lawsuits challenging the law, arguing in part that it unconstitutionally targeted groups that play an important role in signing up Black and Hispanic voters.
Chief U.S District Judge Mark Walker last year blocked parts of the law that would make it a felony for voter-registration groups to keep personal information of voters and place restrictions on non-U.S. citizens’ “handling” registration applications.
Lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration appealed Walker’s preliminary injunction to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the issue is pending.
Walker on March 1 also granted partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs on the part of the law dealing with non-citizens, prohibiting Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd from enforcing that part of the law. But Walker denied summary judgment on the issue as it related to Attorney General Ashley Moody.
The trial, which is being held in federal court in Tallahassee, is expected to last up to two weeks.
In a brief submitted last week, lawyers for Hispanic Federation and other groups argued that the law “is unconstitutional on many fronts.”
The law “is an affront to the First Amendment” and to due process, the 30-page document said.
“It also chills protected speech. Its overbreadth restricts plaintiffs from engaging eligible would-be voters and encouraging them to register to vote. It also silences plaintiffs’ ability to promote democratic participation. And its vagueness leaves plaintiffs unable to know what non-citizens or their employers can do to lawfully comply with the law,” the brief said.
The law would impose a $50,000 fine for each non-citizen who handles applications and make it a felony for workers to keep personal information of voters — sanctions the plaintiffs argued are forcing them to consider halting voter-registration efforts. The law also requires third-party groups to issue a “receipt” to people who’ve registered to vote and prohibits people convicted of certain felonies from assisting voters through the registration groups.
In addition, the law shortened from 14 days to 10 days the length of time for the groups to submit completed voter-registration applications to elections supervisors. Groups face fines for missing the deadlines.
The 2023 law “packs three powerful punches” at the groups “and a fourth targeted at their members — without any legitimate justification for heaping onerous new burdens” on the groups “and the communities they serve,” lawyers for the Florida State Conference of Branches and Youth Units of the NAACP, UnidosUS, Disability Rights Florida and other plaintiffs wrote in a brief last week.
“In the face of these fines, the state has knocked some 3PVROs (third-party voter registration organizations) out of voter registration altogether, which will result in fewer Black and Hispanic registered voters in Florida,” the NAACP’s lawyers argued.
The law also prohibits people with disabilities and non-English speaking people from getting help from non-family members to request mail-in ballots “even though federal law expressly grants them that right,” they added.
Jared Nordlund, Florida advocacy director at UnidosUS, testified Monday that about 70 percent of canvassers working for his group in Florida were non-citizens before the law took effect. The group registered about 35,000 voters in 2022, including some people who re-registered to vote, Nordlund said. About 70 percent to 80 percent of the people registered were Hispanic, according to Nordlund.
“Fewer Hispanics would be registered to vote for the upcoming election” if the restrictions in the 2023 law were allowed to remain in place, Nordlund predicted.
Lawyers for the state, meanwhile, pointed to fines that groups including UnidosUS have paid in the past for failing to submit voter registration applications in time for people to be able to cast ballots in elections. Other problems include voter-registration canvassers forging documents, lawyers for Byrd’s office wrote in a brief last week.
“The state is aware” that some of the groups “have behaved badly,” the state’s lawyers wrote.
“Each year, the Florida Department of State issues an ever-increasing number of fine letters to organizations that have violated statutory and regulatory law,” they added.
“And in recent years, the Florida Legislature has sought to protect voters” from groups “(and their agents) who behave badly. SB 7050 is part of that latest effort,” Byrd’s lawyers argued.
“As the evidence at trial will show, all of the challenged provisions are constitutional and comply with federal statutory law. Above all, the challenged provisions are reasonable, address well-established issues with 3PVROs and otherwise further the state’s interest in running elections in which voters have a high level of confidence,” they wrote.
The League of Women Voters of Florida and other plaintiffs submitted an opening statement that said the restrictions in the law unconstitutionally target political speech.
The law “transforms core civic expression and constitutionally protected voter registration activity into an extraordinarily risky enterprise” for the league and other groups, the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.
In the runup to the 2024 elections, the League of Women Voters of Florida is among the groups that have curtailed registration efforts because of the law.
“Groups like this are vital to Florida voters. There are tens of thousands of voters who rely on them at community events. They help people get access to the ballot box,” Brent Ferguson, an attorney for the league, said Monday before the trial began. “The league has stopped doing its normal paper voter registration practice, and it’s lost thousands of voters because of that. If it continues to go into effect, that just means fewer people voting in Florida and fewer people getting their voices heard.”
— News Service Assignment Manager Tom Urban contributed to this report.
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