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Action Center
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Voter Services Committee
CONTACT:
Charley Williams
cjwilliams@g-e-c.com
Voter Services Subcommittees:
January 30, 2012 Florida President Preference Primary (Subject to Change)
June, 2012 New District Lines/Redistricting
August 28, 2012 Florida Primary (Subject to Change)
November 6, 2012 General Election
2011-12 Voter Services Program for 2011-12
- Increase voter education and participation.
- Maximize use of new technologies in voter service efforts.
- Expand LWVOC Speakers Bureau to educate the public on voting related issues.
- Expand community partnerships, use of media and outreach.
- Support expansion of early voting sites.
- Develop plans to publicize voteanywhere.com and vamosavoter.com for 2012
Commentary: GOP will keep democracy from running amok
Carl Hiaasen The Miami Herald May 31, 2011
According to a new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters, Rick Scott is now one of the country’s most unpopular governors, a dubious feat after only four months in office.
It’s bad news for Republican Party bosses, but all is not lost. Scott recently signed a new election bill that is callously designed to suppress voter turnout, making it harder for many disgruntled Floridians to cast a valid ballot in 2012.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, so GOP leaders are desperate to find ways to keep certain people away from the polls. One of the Legislature’s top priorities was to change the voting rules to avoid a repeat of 2008, when Barack Obama won the state’s 27 electoral votes on his way to the presidency.
Obama benefited from early-voting days, which proved popular among minorities, college students and retirees. Republican officials became incensed during the election when then-Gov. Charlie Crist — one of their own — decided to extend polling hours to accommodate the long lines.
The nerve of that guy, making it easier for common citizens to vote!
Determined not to let this whole democracy thing get out of hand, the GOP-held Legislature crafted a bill that reduces the number of early voting days from 15 to eight, and requires some voters who have moved to cast provisional ballots, a deliberate inconvenience aimed at students.
Historically, provisional ballots are counted at a much lower rate than regular ones, meaning many young voters won’t get heard — exactly what Scott and the Republican leadership want.
The new bill also throws out a rule that had been in effect for 40 years allowing Floridians to update their legal addresses when they arrive to vote. Now you can only do that if you moved within the same county.
To hinder community groups that register first-time voters, the law requires volunteers for organizations such as the League of Women Voters to register with the state as if they were sex offenders.
Upon signing the anti-voting bill into law, Gov. Spaceman said the following: “I want people to vote, but I also want to make sure there’s no fraud involved in elections. All of us as individuals that vote want to make sure that our elections are fair and honest.”
Those who recall what happened here in the 2000 presidential election can’t help but chuckle at the comic aspect of a Republican governor pretending to fret about voter fraud.
Interestingly, the officials who are most familiar with the fraud issue — the county supervisors of elections — are mostly opposed to the new voting law, and say current voter-data bases are fairly accurate. They actually asked the Legislature for more early-voting sites, and were of course rebuffed.
The statewide association of elections supervisors also warned Scott that imposing the restrictive provisions could cause a fiasco at the polls in 2012, just what we need to reinforce our national reputation for electoral dysfunction.
When the governor promised to bring all those new jobs to Florida, who knew he was talking about lawyers?
Nobody except a handful of GOP honchos thought the punitive new voting law was a good idea. The League of Women Voters, labor unions and other citizen groups lobbied against it, to no avail. Scott’s office reported receiving more than 15,300 calls and emails, with opposition running 10 to one.
It’s significant that the governor’s own overseer of elections, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, never once spoke in favor of the legislation. Only after Scott signed the bill did Browning offer a lukewarm endorsement.
The effort to manipulate elections by making it difficult for some people to vote has been around since the nation was founded. It’s a strategy that was infamously codified in the Deep South by “literacy tests” intended to disenfranchise black citizens, which prompted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Congressional Democrats have asked the Justice Department to block Florida’s new law, which already took effect in all but five counties – Monroe, Hendry, Hardee, Collier and Hillsborough. There the federal government must approve changes to voter-eligibility rules.
In addition to impeding potential Democratic voters, Republicans lawmakers have tacked several items on the November 2012 ballot in hopes of galvanizing their own base. You’ll see an anti-abortion amendment, an anti-Obamacare amendment and still another measure that would allow tax dollars to be funneled to religious institutions.
The GOP’s dream scenario is a low turnout dominated by a grumpy, aging core of conservative white people who can’t stand Obama. With their party outnumbered on Florida’s voter rolls, top Republicans hope that rigging the voting rules will improve their chances to recapture the White House.
You could call it democracy with selective exclusion.
Or you could call it what it is
POLITIFACT April, 2011:
Mickey Mouse Has Never Registered to Vote in
Florida
Democracy Under Fire
Speech opposing the Elections Bill approved by the Florida Legislature given by LWVOC President Ann Hellmuth at a rally in Orlando on May 10, 2011.
We VOTERS and all citizens of Florida are under attack - not from an outside enemy, but from many of our own State Legislators!! These elected representatives, entrusted with our welfare, have passed bills that severely undermine our state election laws and your voting access.
It is time for us to act before the shadow of Jim Crow re-emerges in Florida.
We call on Gov. Rick Scott to veto the Anti-Voter Bill - aka HB1355. read more
Democratic process suffers if groups end voter registration drives
THE ISSUE: House passes regressive voter bill
South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com Editorial May 11, 2011
...The measure would cut early voting in half. It would ban the longtime practice of updating addresses at Election Day polls for the one in six Floridians who move each year. And it would bludgeon voter registration groups with burdensome prerequisites and late fines.
On Monday, the first casualty fell. Long a stalwart in voter registration drives, the League of Women Voters of Florida announced that if the bill becomes law, the nonpartisan group will abandon those efforts. read more
Orlando’s Awake the State rally slams Scott, local state GOP pols
The Republican Threat to Voting
New York Times April 26, 2011
Less than a year before the 2012 presidential voting begins, Republican legislatures and governors across the country are rewriting voting laws to make it much harder for the young, the poor and African-Americans — groups that typically vote Democratic — to cast a ballot. Read more...
Senate Panel Passes Elections Bill,
Drawing Fire
By Brandon Larrabee
posted with permission from The News Service of Florida
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, April 26, 2011
Opponents of a massive Senate bill overhauling the state’s elections process accused backers of ramming the measure through its final committee Tuesday as it moves toward the Senate floor.. read more
Voter Services Committee activities supporting the 2008 elections cycle
in Orange County:
- LWVOC on-line Voter Guide profiled key candidates in Orange County
(January, August and November elections)
- Adopt-a-Precinct: LWVOC staffed all three 2008 elections at the Winter
Park Lake Island Recreation Center
- Award-winning website: www.voteanywhere.org
(expanded to include links statewide)
- Eleven electronic billboards in Central Florida featured "Stay
Home and Be Counted: voteanywhere.org campaign, promoting (absentee)
vote by mail
- LWVOC Voter Services Phone Banks on WKMG/Local 6-TV and WESH/Channel
2-TV
- LWVOC website offered expanded, up-to-the-minute voter information
and news, including Top 5 Election Questions of the Week
- LWVOC sponsored candidate debates and WMFE candidate forums
- Orange TV Hot Topics programming devoted to voter registration and
voter concerns
Today's Teens/Preteens & Voting:
59% of preteens and teens say they will vote because it is personally what they want to do (up from 42% in 1989).
- - -
84% of 7th-12th graders say they intend to vote in every election (up from 77% in 1989).— Girl Scout Research Institute, Good Intentions, 200
Read More about Voter Services
Restore transparency in campaign advertising
November 13, 2010 OrlandoSentinel.com
Letter to the Editor - Charley Williams President, LWVOC
The 2010 election impact goes far deeper than which party controls Congress. The incivility and tone of the 2010 campaign surprised many hard-core political watchers: How low can we go?
This was evident in the barrage of relentless advertising and breaches in candidate forums and in the public debate. Voters were asked to absorb millions spent on negative ads, but were not provided the sources of funding for many of them.
Voters, not money, enhance democracy. This 2010 election demonstrated the critical need to improve our governmental structures and safeguards. Because Congress has yet to act, there are no disclosure requirements governing the huge amounts of money that the Supreme Court recently turned loose in American politics. One solution: Encourage Congress to pass the Disclose Act, which would restore transparency in U.S. elections.
The Disclose Act passed the U.S. House earlier this year, but failed consideration in the Senate. It requires disclosure of corporate and special-interest spending in candidate elections. It does not favor either party. It simply lets a voter know if a special interest is paying for the ad.
The League of Women Voters continues to fight for enhanced disclosure of campaign advertising. Why do we continue to bemoan declining voter turnout when campaign advertising casts a questionable shadow over common-sense disclosure rules? The net result is that voter enthusiasm wanes and younger citizens are slow to trust a tainted process.
This alarming trend is not a hopeful sign for long-term voter investment and confidence.
Charley Williams President, LWVOC
Florida cracks down on everybody
(except Decent People)
By Howard Troxler, St. Petersburg Times
June 2, 2011
Voting law targets those who have struggled
OrlandoSentinel.com Letters to the Editor June 7, 2011
What YOU Need to Know about the New Elections Bill
Florida GOP's electoral reform sparks ire, could add hurdle for Obama in '12
Sean J. Miller, The Hill, June 2, 2012
LWVFLA Special Edition Voter Guide:
Amendments Pros and Cons
Candidate Profiles: U.S. Senate,
Florida Governor and Cabinet Officers
LWVOC November 2
Orange County
General Election
Voter Guide
Featuring Candidate Profiles for:
Orange County Mayor
Orange County Commission
Orange County School Board
Orange County School District Special Ad Valorem Millage Referendum
Summary:
Testimony on the Hill
As many as three million registered voters did not vote in the 2008
General Election due to voter registration problems, suggests a survey
cited by Doug Chapin, director of Election Initiatives for the Pew Center
on the States in testimony
before the Subcommittee on Elections of the Committee on House Administration
on March 26, 2009.
Chapin’s testimony at the hearing on “The 2008 Election:
A Look Back on What Went Right and Wrong” was based on the “2008
Survey of the Performance of American Elections," conducted by
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The survey found that
while most Americans who voted on Election Day had a positive experience,
problems with election administration–including registration, polling
place location, voter identification and long lines–affected millions
of voters, and most significantly, were a major factor preventing as
many as 38% of voters who registered but did not go to the polls to
vote.
The
2008 Survey of the Performance of American Elections, conducted
by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the Pew Center
on the States with support from AARP and the JEHT Foundation, is the
first comprehensive nationwide study focused exclusively on how voters
experience the administration of elections in the United States.
No
Country for Close Calls
Op-Ed by Nat Silver and Andrew Gellman
New York Times April 19, 2009
Florida's
Solid Bellwether State Status
Fascinating overview of Florida voters' demographics, ideology and politics
- and how they compare to national averages
Dr. Susan MacManus, February, 2009 www.Sayfiereview.com
No
voting rights in D.C.
As Central Florida turns its eyes to Washington, D.C., for the inauguration,
we should remember that D.C. is the only capital in a democratic country
that does not have full voting rights.
DEIRDRE MACNAB, President, League of Women Voters of Orange County
Orlando Sentinel letter to the editor, January 20, 2009
LWVOC VOTER newsletter
Orange County election recap, Adopt-a-Precinct, early voting, the electoral
college...
Dec 2008/Jan 2009
PEW Center Press Release
Election Day Went Smoothly but Trouble Spots Remain, Survey Shows
Dec 9, 2008
Orlando Sentinel.com
- Editorial
We think: This election showed why legislators need to change early
voting rules
December 7, 2008
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