CLC Seeks Supreme Court Intervention to Stop Florida’s Pay-to-Vote Scheme

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WASHINGTON – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and partners filed an application with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas asking for an order overturning an appeals court decision entered last week that would prevent hundreds of thousands of Floridians from registering and voting in this critical election year.

A district court decision in May found that Florida’s “pay-to-vote” system, which required people with felony convictions to pay fees and court costs before voting, is an unconstitutional poll tax in violation of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle also held that Florida’s system improperly conditioned voting rights on the basis of wealth in violation of the Constitution, and called Florida’s process for administering this law “an administrative nightmare.” Judge Hinkle’s order not only ensured constitutional voting eligibility requirements but provided much-needed clarity about who can vote in Florida. But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit created chaos and confusion about voting eligibility by suspending the district court’s decision just weeks prior to Florida’s upcoming registration deadline for the August primary election.

The status of the more than 85,000 people who have already registered since Amendment 4 went into effect on Jan. 8, 2019 is now up in the air. In total, up to a million voters could be affected by the outcome of this case.

“The Supreme Court must allow the District Court’s order to remain in effect as the State’s appeal is reviewed,” said Paul Smith, vice president at CLC. “Florida’s voters have spoken loud and clear – nearly two-thirds of them supported rights restoration at the ballot box in 2018. This case is about the bedrock principle that voting rights cannot be reserved for those who can afford to pay for them.”

Floridians must register to vote by July 20 in order to vote in the state’s August primary on August 18.

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Joining CLC in today’s filing is the ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, ACLU of Florida, and the law firms Brazil & Dunn LLP and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

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Voting and Elections

Groups Seek Remedy for New York’s Highest-in-the-Nation Rate of Ballot Rejection

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State braces for surge in absentee voting demand for November General Election due to COVID-19

NEW YORK, NY – Today, a coalition of groups filed a lawsuit urging a federal court to change New York State’s flawed absentee ballot verification requirements in time for the 2020 General Election. New York has consistently had one of the highest absentee ballot rejection rates in the country. In the 2018 general election, state election officials discarded more than 34,000 absentee ballots – or about 14% of all absentee ballots cast. This is, in part, because the state does not notify voters and given them an opportunity to respond when their ballots are in danger of not being counted because of benign issues – like an omitted signature or a perceived discrepancy between the signature on the absentee ballot envelope and the one in their voter registration file.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and pro bono partner Selendy & Gay are representing the League of Women Voters of the United States, the League of Women Voters of New York, and individual client Carmelina Palmer in the case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. When she moved to New York City, Mrs. Palmer, 23, was diagnosed with a neurological condition that causes tremors, which last for unpredictable lengths of time. Mrs. Palmer fears that her inconsistent handwriting might cause any absentee ballot she casts to be rejected because of a signature mismatch.

“All eligible voters should be able to have confidence that when they participate in an election, their vote will be counted,” said Danielle Lang, co-director, voting rights and redistricting at CLC. “As more New Yorkers rely on the state’s vote by mail system to exercise their right to vote during the pandemic, more face the risk of disenfranchisement due to their signature or other benign errors. New York’s rejection rate for absentee ballots is alarmingly high. The lack of notice to voters and an opportunity to fix errors must be resolved with urgency with less than 120 days until the General Election.”

“I signed on to this lawsuit to right the wrongs of past disenfranchisement and to vote confidently in the General Election this November,” said Carmelina Palmer, plaintiff in the case. “Providing all absentee voters the opportunity to fix signature verification issues before their ballots are thrown away would give me confidence that when I participate in an election, my vote will be counted. With this lawsuit, my hope is to have that confidence restored.”

“For the past two election cycles, New York’s ballot rejection rate has been among the highest in the country,” said Laura Ladd Bierman, executive director for the League of Women Voters of New York State. “Voters need the opportunity to ensure their vote is counted and their voice is heard. We want to make sure that when a ballot is challenged, the voter is notified and has sufficient time to correct the error.”

“Decisions around the validity of absentee ballots cannot be left to the whims of each individual county. This is a time when every vote counts more than ever, and New York must take the proper steps to ensure that absentee ballots are properly and uniformly counted,” said Selendy & Gay partner Joshua Margolin. “It is also our hope to ensure that New Yorkers, who are still suffering from the pandemic, are not unintentionally foregoing their right to vote by voting absentee.”

Even before the global pandemic, voters across the country have increasingly relied upon vote-by-mail as their preferred method of casting their ballot. Vote-by-mail ballots in New York are certain to surge this November and New York’s lack of adequate procedures to safeguard those ballots will affect many more New Yorkers. This failure to provide absentee voters with notice and an opportunity to cure is particularly problematic in New York, which uses signature matching for absentee ballot verification. Signature matching is notoriously error-prone and cannot be properly utilized without clear, accessible ways for voters to cure their ballots and ensure their votes are counted.

The Selendy & Gay team includes Joshua Margolin, Faith Gay, Jordan Weatherwax, Shelby Rokito, and Katie Renzler.

Issues
Voting and Elections

Lawsuit Challenging New York's Signature Match Procedure

At a Glance

CLC is challenging New York’s flawed mail-in ballot verification process that, in the 2018 general election, silently rejected nearly 14% of all mail ballots cast without providing affected voters with notice of or an opportunity to fix ballot defects.

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Closed
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Issues
Voting and Elections
About This Case/Action

Background

In the 2018 general election, New York had the highest mail-in ballot rejection rate in the country, discarding more than 34,000 mail ballots or about 14% of all mail-in ballots cast.

In New York, mail ballots can be rejected for any number of reasons, many of which aren’t the voter’s fault. This includes ballots being damaged in the mail, a voter forgetting to sign their ballot, or if an election inspector mistakenly believes the signature on a voter’s mail-in ballot differs from the one in their voter registration file. New York law does not require the state to notify affected voters that their ballots have problems or provide them with an opportunity to fix them and have their vote counted. Thus, many New Yorkers may not know they have been disenfranchised by this error-prone system.

This disenfranchisement has, for too long, occurred in the shadows. Not only does New York fail to inform affected voters of all ballot rejections, it also fails in its obligation to report mail-in rejection data to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). In 2018, New York failed to provide a reason for rejection for nearly 60% of mail ballot rejections in the data it provided to the EAC.

New York’s practice of verifying ballots through signature matching—without any notice to the voter when an issue arises—is particularly flawed and error-prone.

No two signatures – even from the same signer – are exactly alike. Factors such as age, disability, education, signing surface, and even type of pen can impact the consistency of a signature. With only two signature samples, it is very difficult to determine the identity of a signer, even for trained forensic handwriting experts. The unreliability of this process increases when the people evaluating voters’ signatures are not experts, and disproportionately disenfranchises young voters, elderly voters, voters with disabilities, and voters for whom English is a second language. Records show that the procedures for evaluating and verifying mail-in ballots also varies greatly across counties.

This broad-scale disenfranchisement is unconstitutional. Because New York embraces this unreliable ballot verification mechanism without uniform standards, it has a constitutional obligation to provide voters with notice and an opportunity to fix ballot issues to ensure their validly cast ballots are counted.

Impact of COVID-19

While New York has had some form of mail voting for a long time, before the COVID-19 pandemic, mail voting was relatively rare in New York compared to other states. In 2018, only 6% of ballots in New York cast were cast by mail. 

Even before COVID-19, mail-in voting in New York was on the rise. In the wake of the pandemic, mail voting has since skyrocketed. For the June 24 primary, the Governor lifted restrictions on who could cast a ballot by mail and encouraged residents to vote by mail. In New York County – where Manhattan is located – the local board of elections transmitted 219,440 mail-in ballots to voters for the June 24, 2020 primary, which represents a 655% increase in mail ballots transmitted to voters between that election and the 2018 general election. The number of voters requesting mail ballots is certain to continue to grow for the 2020 general election, an election in which far more voters are expected to participate.

As New York voters increasingly rely on the state’s mail-in voting system to cast their ballots, more New York voters will be at risk of being disenfranchised because the state erroneously rejects their ballot for benign defects.  

Our Case

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is representing Carmelina Palmer, the League of Women Voters of the US (LWVUS), and the League of Women Voters of NY (LWVNY) in this lawsuit.

Ms. Palmer is a New York voter who suffers from a benign essential tremor, or familial tremor, which is a progressive neurological condition that leads to uncontrollable tremor sessions. During tremor episodes, the constant movement of her hands and the difficulty of applying pressure make it difficult for Ms. Palmer to sign her name consistently. She is at heightened risk of having her mail ballot rejected for signature mismatch.

LWVUS is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with members across New York and the United States. LWVUS’s work is dedicated to protecting the right to vote for all voters through advocacy, voter education, and direct assistance to voters.

Associated Cases & Actions

LWVNJ v. Way
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