Federal Ruling Allows Florida to Reject Incomplete Voter Registrations!

[flpoljunkie]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FL_FLORIDA_VOTING_FLOL-?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=state.shtml

Oct 26, 5:46 PM EDT

Ruling allows Florida to reject incomplete voter registrations

MIAMI (AP) -- Florida election officials will not be required to process incomplete voter registration forms for the presidential election, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King said the three prospective voters for whom the lawsuit was filed did not have the legal standing to pursue the case, which was backed by the AFL-CIO. But he gave the union group a chance to file a new version of the lawsuit next month with people who meet the standard.

That leaves the AFL-CIO and the Advancement Project, a social action group, on the losing side of an attempt to force election officials to accept applications from people who failed to check a citizenship box on registration forms in time for the Nov. 2 election.

Sheila Thomas, an attorney with the Washington-based Advancement Project, said the plaintiffs were considering an appeal. The group argued that the rejections had a disparate effect on minorities. Nearly 45 percent of the challenged forms in one county, Duval, came from blacks.

"Our goal is still to see if we can get relief for our clients before Election Day," she said.

more...

[bullimiami]

1. talk about writing laws on the bench.

the federal law specifically prohibits invalidating registrations for non critical mistakes or data. fundie repug judge is my guess.

[Nicholas_J]

Its worse than that

There are two places on the form where you mark citizenship.One place where you affirm your citizenship by signing a place that askes if you are a citizen, an another place on the form where you check a box that says Citsizen, yes, no. Hopefully they will lose this, as the [erson has already affirmed citizenship, making the box checking redundant.

[AlamoDemoc]

2. We still have time, don't we?

lets re-register them in time for Nov. 2nd

[flpoljunkie]

7. No, the Florida registration deadline was October 4th!

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Poor lawyering?

The strongest case would have been if the litigants had forgotten to sign the citizenship box, but signed the application which affirms their citizenship.

[DaveinMD]

4. they should appeal

to the appelate court. I'm sure they will.

[gardenista]

5. The "citizen" check box was teeeeny tiiiiinnnny on my CA reg. form.

I suspect that this is the same in many states, probably FL included. I came very close to missing that little check box. I'm pretty good a filling out forms.

This little check box, if it is responsible for disenfranchising voters, must either be eliminated or printed in a regulated font.

There should be new federal legislation mandating fonts and form design for registration forms as well as for ballots.

[gavodotcom]

6. There's a "James Lawrence King" Federal Justice Building in Miami.

Which was formally the Federal Justice Building

"The courtroom, located in downtown Miami, is situated in what is called the James Lawrence King Justice Center - a building named after the former chief judge who presided over a civil case that granted $140 million to the right-wing Miami-based terrorist group, 'Brothers to the Rescue.'"

Sounds like a good guy.