>>Should plaintiffs succeed in their lawsuit and the federal court agree that the First Amendment protects voter registration activities from the fines and other burdens Florida has established, the legal outcome will help to head off comparable voter-suppression statutes in other states, such as
Ohio, New Mexico, and Colorado.<<
(quote from original article)
But political parties are exempt? >>Nevada Democrats came out swinging Wednesday. "Most disturbing is that Voter Outreach of America is being paid by the National Republican Party and we ask how can people have faith in government if a national party is involved in trickery in depriving people the right to vote," said Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates.
The Republican National Committee acknowledges that it hired Voters Outreach of America to register voters, but in a statement said it had zero tolerance for any kind of fraud.Local party officials said there is no way the GOP would instruct the company to trash democratic registrations. However, similar problems have been alleged elsewhere. In Washoe County, the registrar says he too has turned over information to the FBI about Republican backed registration efforts.
In Oregon, the same company that was operating here has been criticized for its tactics in signing up voters. There, it used the name America Votes, which is actually the name of a Democratic organization.<<
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe>>In 2004, elections supervisors did face a crunch as various groups, including MoveOn.org, submitted registration forms at the last minute. But the lawsuit alleges that private groups did no worse than the political parties in that regard,
including one box from the state Republican Party that showed up 18 days after the deadline. So why does the law exempt the parties?
The potential for partisan gain here is obvious: Republicans like the fact that Democrats do a poor job of voter outreach and don't like the involvement of groups like MoveOn.org or the AFL-CIO. But the law is objectionable even if the political motives behind it were pure. Deliberate destruction of voter forms is already a crime, which means the new law mainly inhibits sincere, community-minded voter outreach.<<
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/05/24/Opinion/Offensive_voter_regis.shtml>>Contacted shortly after the filing in Miami, Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State in Tallahassee said the agency had not yet seen the lawsuit and therefore could not comment. Other voter registration advocates say they also fear that one of the underlying political intents of the law — which was passed by the Republican-majority Florida Legislature — is to dilute and discourage Democratic voter registration, since groups like the AFL-CIO are thought to register more working-class and minority voters.
Sen. Bill Posey, a Rockledge Republican, argues that hurricanes or other disasters are not the issue; by imposing the fine for failing to submit a voter's application, he maintains, the law discourages people or groups from destroying the registration forms of people with differing political views. (Weiser points out that Florida already had a law on the books to address that problem.) And if a hurricane hits, any fine due to delay or destruction can be appealed, he says. "If a hurricane blew a building away, I can't imagine they're going to get somebody for that," Posey says. "I think common sense would prevail. If there is a nuclear holocaust I think the last thing people are going to be worried about is getting their registrations in on time."
State Rep. Ron Reagan (no relation to the former President), a Sarasota Republican who sponsored the law, says political parties are exempt from the law "because we rarely have a problem with political parties. It didn't matter what side you were on. We were not going to penalize them." But Weiser of the Brennan Center calls that position "discriminatory. The League of Women Voters and AFL-CIO have been forced to shut down their operations. It's not only burdensome but discriminatory. That's problematic — and unconstitutional."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1195517,00.html:grr:
JCOATH* :wtf:
(*Jesus Christ on a Trailer Hitch)
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