Contact Jennifer Dillon Managing Director of Communications
jdillon@advancementproject.org
Miami, Florida—Today, Advancement Project and Dechert LLP, on behalf of Florida Rising Together, notified the Florida Secretary of State and election supervisors in several Florida counties of their intent to file suit under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to stop Florida’s ‘exact match’ voter verification process. The exact match process, which uses computerized data matching to verify voter registrations, has led to the rejection of tens of thousands of valid applications since 2018, with a disproportionate number of those rejected applications submitted by Black applicants.
Over the past several years, in Miami-Dade county alone, approximately 12,000 applications were rejected due to a mismatch of the last four digits of the applicants’ social security numbers while approximately 1,800 applications were rejected due to a driver’s license mismatch. In Miami-Dade, along with Broward, Duval, and Orange Counties, which have large Black populations, Black voter registration applicants have been rejected at a rate more than twice their share of the registrant pool, while White applicants are denied registration at a small fraction of their share of the electorate.
Because election officials utilize the exact match process to determine whether applicants are eligible to vote, they reject voter registration applications submitted by people who are eligible to vote. This process not only forces Black voters to jump through needless and burdensome hurdles to vote, it increases the potential to prevent Black voters in counties like Broward, Duval, Miami-Dade, and Orange from voting at all.
Advancement Project and Dechert LLP recommends three steps necessary to remedy Florida’s NVRA violations: (1) stop rejecting voter registration applications based on a failure to meet exact match requirements (2) place otherwise eligible applicants on the rolls in active status if their voter registration application was denied solely due to a failure to satisfy the exact match requirement and (3) permit all applicants whose registrations were not accepted to have their ballots counted. The parties intend to file suit in the coming days if election officials do not remedy the legal violations. Read the full letter here.
“With voter suppression tactics like exact match, Florida continues its long legacy of intimidating and discarding Black voters,” says Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director of Advancement Project. “Florida officials are responsible for ensuring Florida’s compliance with federal law, yet they continue to fail voters. We do not cherry pick our voters. Every voter should have access to free and fair elections”
“Black voters in Florida have demonstrated, time and again, that they are committed to turning out to the polls. Yet they continue to experience blatant discrimination and suppression when they try to cast their vote,” says Moné Holder, Chief Political & Advocacy Director at Florida Rising. “If Florida is serious about fair representation then they need to discontinue the practice of permanently rejecting voter applications and not force voters of color to jump through hoops to vote.”
“The right to vote goes to the very core of our democracy,” says Angela Liu, a partner with Dechert. “We are committed to ensuring all eligible Florida voters, of every race, are able to register to vote, to vote and to have their votes counted.”
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Advancement Project is a cutting-edge, no-holds-barred national organization whose team members are dedicated to building local power in communities of color. Centered on a movement lawyering approach, defined as community-centered racial justice lawyering, Advancement Project supports grassroots organizations working to eliminate oppressive structures in our laws and institutions and shift narratives towards transformative change. By fighting for liberatory public education, protecting and expanding our right to vote, and supporting community-led public safety that affirm the dignity and humanity of people of color, Advancement Project advances real change from the ground up.
Florida Rising Together is a 501c3 organization dedicated to advancing economic and racial justice across the state by building power in historically marginalized communities. Our organization develops leaders that will help shift power so communities get to decide their own destinies.
Dechert is a global law firm that advises asset managers, financial institutions and corporations on issues critical to managing their business and their capital – from high-stakes litigation to complex transactions and regulatory matters. We answer questions that seem unsolvable, develop deal structures that are new to the market and protect clients’ rights in extreme situations. Our nearly 1,000 lawyers across 20 offices globally focus on the financial services, private equity, private credit, real estate, life sciences and technology sectors.
