On Apr. 28, 2008, the League of Women Voters of Florida and several voting rights advocates filed a new lawsuit challenging a Florida voter registration law that imposes prohibitive fines on voter registration groups and risks preventing eligible Florida citizens from registering and voting in the 2008 elections.

Under Florida law, fines are levied against charities for each voter registration not submitted within ten days of its completion. For each late registration, a nonprofit conducting a voter registration drive would be fined $50, posing a tremendous financial burden on nonprofits seeking to legally conduct voter registration drives.

As quoted in a press release by her organization, Dianne Wheatley-Giliotti, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida and a plaintiff in the suit, said,

"This law makes it extremely risky for our volunteers and for our organization to conduct voter registration drives in Florida… The escalating fines make voter registration drives prohibitively expensive, even for individuals who just want to help once a month. The threat of paying costly fees will chill registration efforts and keep eligible voters from the voter rolls."

To learn more, read the League of Women Voter's press release on the suit here and check out OMB Watch's Sept. 2007 article on the Florida voter registration rules Nonprofits Challenge Two Florida Laws Regulating Voter Registration.

Update:
The Brennan Center for Justice issued a press release announcing that the third-party voter registration law will not be enforced until July. "As a result, groups and individuals who conduct voter registration drives in Florida can proceed with their voter registration activities without fear of being fined under the law, until at least early July 2008."

The Supreme Court, voting 6-3, ruled against a constitutional challenge to Indiana's voter identification law, requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID. Opponents of the law argue that having to present such a photo ID will prevent some poor, elderly and minorities from voting. The law will now be in effect for next week's Indiana primary. Bloomberg.com news says that the Court "gave Republicans an election-year victory." This recent decision could also encourage other states to pass similar measures.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the court's lead opinion. "In sum, on the basis of the record that has been made in this litigation, we cannot conclude that the statute imposes 'excessively burdensome requirements' on any class of voters. The opinion also states that it "is fair to infer that partisan considerations may have played a significant role in the decision to enact SEA 483 [the Indiana voter ID law]," but the "state interests identified as justifications for SEA 483 are both neutral and sufficiently strong."

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) responded with these remarks; "Today the Supreme Court failed to protect access to the ballot box for some of the most vulnerable Americans. We have seen an effort by this administration, its political appointees and some partisans to use the specter of purported 'voter fraud' for political advantage. They do so at the expense of vulnerable communities and have excluded millions of elderly, low-income, disabled, and minority voters, even though in-person voter fraud has been proven time and time again to be a myth."

Read the Associated Press story here.

1 - Under Trained and Not Enough Poll Workers: In each primary covered by Election Protection, the dedicated cadre of poll workers misapplied many election rules — from what ballot to give which voter, to what to do when election equipment broke down — causing voters to unnecessarily cast provisional ballots or, worse, to leave the polling place without voting.
2 - Election Machinery Breakdowns : Last-minute changes in voting equipment and new procedures at the polls caused confusion among voters, poll workers and election administrators often leading to disenfranchisement. But it was not only human error and confusion; ballot scanners jammed, electronic voting machines broke down and new electronic poll books malfunctioned.
3 - Registration Roll Problems: From state to state, eligible voters who submitted timely registration applications failed to appear on the registration rolls. Other voters showed up on the rolls registered with a political party other than the one with which they intended to register.
4 - Confusion Over Voter Identification Requirements: Voters across the country were improperly asked for identification. Some poll workers, apparently confused about the requirements in their state, were implementing illegal and restrictive voter identification requirements, turning away eligible voters who did not have identification.

On Wednesday, voting-rights advocate ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) filed suit against the state of Missouri for failing to implement a key provision of the National Voter Registration Act ("NVRA") of 1993 in failing to provide voter registration opportunities at state public assistance agencies. According to ACORN's press release on the lawsuit, ACORN is seeking a preliminary injunction that would require Missouri's Department of Social Services (DSS) to come into compliance with the NVRA as soon as the court can set a hearing date.

ACORN is represented by lawyers from national groups Project Vote, Demos, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The official complaint filed by ACORN is available online through votelaw.com.

For more information on state enforcement of the NVRA provision designed to enable low-income Americans to register to vote more easily, read OMB Watch's recent article "States Failing to Implement Critical Voting Rights Laws"

An article in the St. Louis Dispatch also provides more information on the lawsuit.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has put together a new section of their website that has information about the presidential candidates and where they stand on the issues that matter to nonprofit causes. The Chronicle also invites readers to send in suggestions and additional information. Click here to go to the Chronicle's Special Report on the Campaign 2008.

In a letter this week to Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Secretary of Veterans Affairs James B. Peake said the VA will not help injured veterans at VA facilities to register to vote before the 2008 election, as required by federal law. The letter was in response to a year-long request from Senators Feinstein and Kerry that the VA give veterans using VA facilities an opportunity to register to vote. In the letter Peake wrote,

"VA remains opposed to becoming a voter registration agency pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act, as this designation would divert substantial resources from our primary mission."

Senator Feinstein responded to Peake's letter, saying, "The Department of Veterans Affairs should provide voter materials to veterans," Feinstein said. "I believe the cost of providing these voter materials is minimal. It's a small price to pay for the sacrifice these men and women have made in fighting for our nation's freedom. I am disappointed,"

In a related case, in August 2007 the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, in Preminger v. Secretary of Veterans Affairs upheld a decision that permitted the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to exclude voter registration by third-party groups in VA facilities; "we cannot say that it is unreasonable for the VA to regulate the activities taking place on its grounds and to exercise its discretion in determining when a 'demonstration' (defined to include 'partisan activities') would be disruptive." In February 2008, the case was denied rehearing.

Read more about this story at Alternet.

Earlier, the suggestion was made that "nonprofits" as a whole are increasingly being mentioned in the press in connection to their increased spending for political activity during the current campaign. A perfect example is laid out in this blog, with the headline, "Nonprofits are the New 527s." Understandably, it is easier to use "nonprofit" as opposed to 501(c)(4). 501(c)(4) organizations can be involved in some political activity as long as it is not their primary purpose. The blog makes it clear that the discussion is about 501(c)(4)'s, yet the headline remains vague. Such a generality does a disservice to 501(c)(3) organizations (public charities, public foundations, and private foundations). 501(c)(3) organizations can legally engage in nonpartisan voter engagement activities. In fact, such nonprofit groups do valuable work in getting voters to the polls on Election Day.

As OMB Watch Executive Director, Gary Bass says here, "Yet with headlines about 'nonprofits' engaging in electoral politics ... media organizations use too broad a brush and inadvertently tarnish the image of the nonprofit sector."

The Sunlight Foundation has created an initiative that allows citizens to participate in marking up the Transparency in Government Act of 2008, (TGA) on its site PublicMarkup.org. "Sunlight decided that public input and scrutiny would refine the bill and improve its chances of garnering lawmakers' support. Rather than immediately looking for legislators who might sponsor the bill, Sunlight, therefore, created PublicMarkup.org as a place to post the bill, and to allow you to comment on and suggest edits to the substance of the legislation." There are many provisions of the TGA, including requiring that all Freedom of Information Act requests online and making Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports available.

So, go ahead, markup.

A highly valuable resources for 501(c)(3) nonprofits has launched this week, NonprofitVoter.org. The site has everything a nonprofit would need to become active in the vital work of nonpartisan voter registration. "Nonprofits have inherent assets making them strong civic intermediaries to encourage voter and citizen participation." The site has useful resources such as toolkits, training resources, guides, and links. Check out the site that reminds us that "nonprofits have many opportunities to encourage voter and civic participation as part of its charitable mission so long as it is done on a nonpartisan basis."

Nonprofit Vote!

In Florida State Conference of the NAACP v. Browning, the 11th Circuit court of appeals has ruled that Florida can temporarily enforce a law that disqualifies any voter registration where the Social Security or driver license number on the application does not match with government databases, reversing a lower court's December injunction against the voter registration law. The Associated Press reports that the law will not be reinstated right away. "While Thursday's decision overruled the U.S. District Court's finding that the state law contradicted federal voting laws, the original suit also argued that the state law was unconstitutional. Because the lower court didn't rule on that aspect of the case, the plaintiffs could take that aspect of the complaint back to the lower court."

The Brennan Center disapproves, noting; "These sorts of common errors or inconsistencies make 'matching' unreliable, jeopardizing the status of new voters in Florida, and subjecting these voters to undue and burdensome bureaucratic requirements to climb out of a registration limbo. Moreover, some immaterial mistakes by voters become entirely insurmountable hurdles under Florida's rule: an eligible voter who happens to swap two digits of her driver's license number on the registration form will be blocked from casting a valid vote, no matter what kind of other documentation she is able to show."

On Monday, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) announced that it will award $2 million in funding to five states to improve precinct-level election data. The EAC is now accepting applications. The deadline is April 28th.

According to the press release, the objective of this new program is "to provide states with the resources needed to develop and implement election data collection administrative and procedural best practices that can be shared with and replicated by other states."

At a new website, Ask Your Lawmaker, anyone can ask lawmakers questions on issues they care about. The site was created by Capitol News Connection (CNCNews). Users of the site vote on the questions, and then CNCNews reporters track down lawmakers in Congress and on the campaign trail to get the questions answered. The answers are then posted back on www.askyourlawmaker.org. In addition, users can add a customizable widget to their own websites, allowing visitors to their websites to ask and rank questions.