JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – New regulations are making it more difficult for organizations and individuals to help other people register to vote in Florida as the presidential election year heats up.
When Senate Bill 7050 became law last year, it imposed new rules on third-party voter registration groups as well as penalties for violating those rules including felony charges and thousands of dollars in fines.
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The president of the Jacksonville branch of the NAACP said his group used to come to a JTA terminal downtown near the Prime Osborn Center every month to try to get people registered to vote, but he said in light of the new law, it has stopped those efforts.
“They are afraid, because they don’t know what they’re going to be in violation of the law,” said NAACP Jacksonville President Isaiah Rumlin.
Rumlin said the Florida election law that passed last year is chilling voter registration activities, including for his own organization.
“Because the law is so detailed, you don’t know what the violating or not,” he said.
The law did several things, including making it illegal for people convicted of certain felonies to collect or handle voter registrations for a third-party voter registration organization. The penalty? A $50,000 fine for the organization.
The law also shortens the window in which third-party voter registration organizations must turn in voter application forms from 14 days to 10 days.
And when it comes to a provision requiring an organization to turn applications into the county where the applicant lives, SB7050 raises the maximum annual fine for a willfully out-of-compliance organization from $50,000 to $250,000.
Cecile Scoon, who is the co-president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, said the risks in the law led her organization away from collecting paper voter registration forms. They now try to guide people to fill out voter registration applications themselves which means they’re helping fewer people register to vote.
“I know it’s been reduced at least 50%,” Scoon said.
She said the new rules disproportionately affect minority groups.
“One in five Black and brown citizens uses a third-party voter register and organization to register. I think the data in the testimony is one in 50 white Floridians do,” Scoon said.
The League of Women Voters and other organizations have filed suit over SB7050 resulting in the court striking down a portion of it that prohibited non-citizens from collecting voter registration applications. Scoon said her group is still waiting for the court’s decision on other challenges to the law.
The law also makes it a felony for a member of a third-party voter registration organization to copy or retain an applicant’s personal information for purposes other than helping them register to vote.