FLORIDA HB 1355 –Omnibus Elections Bill

CS/CS/HB 1355 is an omnibus elections bill consisting primarily of the Secretary of State’s election administration and campaign finance packages, along with numerous other significant changes to the Florida Election Code that include:

 •Joint Resolutions:  providing for alternative ballot summaries and/or the full text of a constitutional amendment proposed by joint resolution to be placed on the ballot; providing lead-time until the end of 2013 for voting systems to be modified to accommodate the full text of an amendment; creating a presumption that placing the full text on the ballot provides electors adequate notice of what they’re voting on; containing procedures for curing defective ballot summaries; making the provisions of this section retroactive to joint resolutions passed during the 2011 legislative session.

•Early Voting: providing for a more compressed, 8-day early voting period that’s closer to election day — from the 10th to the 3rd day before the election — while maintaining the current 96 total hours of early voting should supervisors deem it necessary in their counties; requiring early voting at each site to be open for a minimum of 6 hours and a maximum of 12 hours per day.

•Third-Party Voter Registration Organizations: requiring such groups to submit voter registration applications within 48 hours of receipt instead of 10 days, identify registration agents collecting applications, and act as a fiduciary to voters whose applications have been collected; requiring registration forms to contain certain identifying information; mandating that the Florida Division of Elections maintain a database of forms issued to third-party voter registration groups; applying the provisions of this section retroactively to existing third-party voter registration groups.

•Address Changes at the Polls: allowing voters to change their addresses on election day and still vote a regular ballot, provided the elector is: 1) voting in the same county in which they originally registered to vote; or, 2) an active military member or in the same family with an active military member. Other electors making inter-county address changes at the polls would be required to vote a provisional ballot.

•Citizen Initiative Petitions: reducing the shelf-life of initiative petition signatures proposing constitutional amendments from 4 years to 2 years.

•Reporting Election Results: requiring county canvassing boards to report all early voting and tabulated absentee ballots to the Department of State within 30 minutes after the polls close, and to subsequently report all results (other than provisional ballots) every 45 minutes until complete.

•Presidential Preference Primary (PPP) Date: eliminating the current date for the Presidential Preference Primary (last Tuesday in January) and creating a 10-member PPP Date Selection Committee, which will establish the PPP date every four years to fall between the beginning of January and the beginning of March; the date must be selected by October 1 of the year preceding the presidential election.

•State Primary Date: moving the State’s primary election from 10 weeks to 12 weeks before the general election (i.e., August 14, 2012).

•Party Switching: prohibiting would-be candidates from seeking a party’s nomination to an office if the person was a member of any other political party for a year preceding qualifying.

•Binding Directives: empowering the Secretary of State to provide written direction to supervisors of elections on matters relating to their official duties under the Florida Election Code or department rule.

•Absentee Ballots: standardizing the time frames during which absentee ballots are mailed to military, overseas, and other voters; allowing county canvassing boards to begin canvassing absentee ballots at 7 a.m. on the 15th day before an election instead of the 6th day.

•Election Law Violations: correcting an oversight in current law by providing that an administrative law judge in the Division of Administrative Hearings has the same authority as the Florida Elections Commission to impose civil penalties for election law violations.

•Voter Information Cards: adding the polling place address to voter information cards, and requiring supervisors of elections to comply with this requirement with respect to all voter information cards issued after August 1, 2012.

•Poll Watchers: bringing greater transparency and flexibility to poll watcher procedures by providing for “at-large” poll watchers.

•Random Audits: specifying that if a manual recount was conducted, a post-election, random audit of the voting system is not required.

•Campaign Finance Automatic Fines: increasing the penalty for committees of continuous existence that late-file their final campaign finance report due before a primary or general election for the first three days the report is late, from $50 per day to $500 per day (to conform to current law regarding political committee and candidate filings).

•County Candidates/Reapportionment: allowing county candidates who are seeking to qualify by petition in an apportionment year to obtain the required number of signatures from any registered voter in the respective county, regardless of district boundaries.

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In March 2011, the Florida Legislature passed the House Bill 1355, signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott in May 2011. HB 1355 is an omnibus elections bill consisting primarily of the Secretary of State’s election administration and campaign finance packages, along with numerous other significant changes to the Florida Election Code. Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a controversial vote suppression bill that radically overhauled the state’s election laws, reducing the time available for early voting, invalidating absentee ballots if the voter’s signature does not closely match the one on file, and forcing provisional ballots for voters whose names or addresses have changed.

HB 1355  severely restricts third party voter registration by requiring that volunteers return all signed voter registration forms within 48 hours  or face large fines ($1000) and criminal charges (voter fraud). Before the law was enacted, they had 10 days to review and submit registration forms.

            Volunteers will now need to go down to local Supervisor’s Offices, register by providing detailed personal information, take an oath and be held personally and financially liable if they do not deliver the completed forms back to the Supervisor within 48 hours. Fines will be levied up to $1,000 per person

• These proposed laws target nonpartisan voter registration and advocacy groups that have long brought to the voting poles low-income communities,  youth and minority citizens of color in Florida, including Asian Americans, who were approximately twice as likely to register to vote through voter registration drives compared to white voters

The League of Women voters, one of the country’s biggest third-party registrars, pulled out of Florida as a result of the new law, because it now:

• imposes deep monetary penalties for even accidental infractions
• decreases the time that organizations have to conduct quality control measures
• creates the need to do burdensome organizational paperwork in advance of the voter registration drive

The Asian American Federation of Florida, which has previously assisted in voter registration through its member organizations and in church congregations, have also decided not to participate in voter registration assistance for fear of stiff penalties.

• As a result of the new law, two Florida teachers are now facing upwards of $1,000 in fines for registering their students to vote. One high school teacher is under investigation by the state for pre-registering high school students to vote without herself registering beforehand as a registrar with the state.
• One teacher from Volusia County was reported to the Secretary of State because she made as mistake of taking a little over 48 hours to review her students’ applications for accuracy and completion before submitting hem.
• With teachers facing “voter fraud” charges, high school-aged youth will most likely not be registered to vote in 2012 in Florida

 

2.) HB 1355 requires anyone whose address may have changed since they registered to vote,  to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day instead of a regular ballot.   This specifically affects college students, or military personnel, low income and minority voters, or whose names may have changed such as newly married women,

HB 1355 would disallow voters from updating their address at their polling place on election day. Previously, voters who have moved within the State of Florida were able to update their information at their polling place and still cast a regular ballot.  

• Has a disproportionate impact on people who are more likely to move between elections. These voters are primarily people of color, low-income citizens, and the many Floridians who lost their homes to foreclosure.
• Given the historic number of foreclosures in Florida, a number of citizens who are already experiencing hardships may have to move their homes and may not be able to update their addresses on Election Day.
• Floridians who are legally registered to vote in Florida and who have moved from one county to another have historically been able to update their address on Election Day. Yet, under the new law, Floridians who update their address on Election Day will be forced to vote a provisional ballot. (HB 1355 allows voters to change their addresses on election day and still vote a regular ballot provided the elector is 1) voting in the same county in which they originally registered to vote, or 2) an active military member or in the same family with an active military ember. Other electors making inter-county address changes at the polls would be required to vote a provisional ballot)
• Many college students who move to new dormitories and have to update their addresses will have issues with their registrations and may ultimately have to cast provisional ballots
• This results in greater chance that their votes will never be counted. Provisional ballots are often not counted with Election Day results and are expensive and time-consuming for Supervisors to process. In 2008, 51% of provisional ballots were not counted in.

Early Voting strengthens our democracy by making voting easier, bringing more people to the polls,  reducing congestion at polling places on Election Day, and maybe even decreasing the effectiveness of last-minute negative political attack.

• HB 1355 decreased early voting from 14 days to 8 days, eliminating early voting on the Sunday prior to Election Day that traditionally has had a significant turnout of minority voters due to churches and community organizations that organize voter participation efforts

HB1 1355 provides for a more compressed, 8-day early voting period that’s closer to election day — from the 10th to the 3rd day before the election 
•  will affect about  40 million people nationwide, including a third of Florida voters, who cast their ballots before Election Day in 2008

• Means that fewer state residents, especially the most vulnerable, would have their voices heard
• Will disenfranchise thousands of voters, especially minorities, students and low-income voters
• Also affects doctors and health professionals  who, due to demanding work schedules , make it challenging to wait in long lines on Election Day, and prefer to vote early

 

ARGUMENT FOR: The bill is necessary to curb voter fraud

• Facts don’t support that argument.
• Between Jan 2008 and March 2011, there were 31 cases of alleged voter fraud referred to the Florida Dept of Law Enforcement. Only 3 resulted in arrests.

• HB 1355 shortened the life of a signature collected in a petition drive from 4 years to 2 years.
• This makes it even more difficult for organizations or individuals to create change in the law because by the time they gather enough signatures needed, they may have to start over again

 

Florida is now seeing a significant drop-off in new voter registrations.  In the months since the new law took effect in July, at least 81,471 fewer Floridians have registered to vote compared to the same period before the 2008 presidential election.

• New registrations dropped sharply in some areas where the Asian voting age population has been growing, including Miami-Dade County where they fell by 39%, and Orange County where they fell by a little more than 20% 
• Some local election officials said that the lack of registration drives by outside groups has been a factor in the decline

The Florida League of Women Voters, the Rock the Vote group that focuses on young people and the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund say the election law infringes their First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of association.

Progressive forces are now mobilizing against the GOP’s voter suppression bill in Tallahassee and across the state.

• Third party registration groups, including Project Vote, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and the ACLU, have filed a joint lawsuit against HB 1355, arguing that the new law makes it harder for Floridians, especially minorities like Asian Americans, to register to vote, to actually vote, and to have their votes counted.

As of March, 2012 – The state is seeking court approval for changes that shorten the time for voter registration groups turning in registration forms to 48 hours and narrow the time frame for early voting from  10 days to 3 days before election day

On the legislative side, State Rep. Mark Pafford , Democrat of West Palm Beach, has introduced a bill in January that would reverse many of the suppressive measures in HB 1355. Pafford’s Bill would also require that third party registration groups deliver voter registration forms to the division or the supervisor of elections within 10 days rather than within 48 hours stipulated in the current law.

Five Florida counties with a history of racial discrimination (Hendry,  Hardee, Collier, Hillsborough and Monroe) are covered by the act, which requires Federal approval of changes in State election laws.

Higher early voter turnout for the presidential primary in these five counties compared to other Florida counties, where the new elections law decreased the number of early voting days including the final Sunday before election day.