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DECLARATION OF STEPHANIE PORTA

My name is STEPHANIE PORTA. I am over the age of 18 and fully competent to make this 

declaration. Under penalty of perjury, I state the following:

1. I am the Executive Director of the non-profit organization Organize Florida, which has its 

principal office in Orlando, Florida.

2. I am responsible for managing the organizations’ strategic planning, civic engagement 

activities, advocacy efforts, communications campaigns, staffing, and operations.

3. Organize Florida is a community-based, non-profit member organization. Its membership 

consists of low- and moderate-income people dedicated to the principles of social, racial, 

and economic justice and the promotion of an equal and fair Florida for all. Organize 

Florida’s members throughout the state of Florida bring communities together to join in 

the fight for safe neighborhoods, healthy families, quality education, good jobs, justice, 

equality, and a more representative democracy. 

4. Organize Florida has supporters in all 67 of Florida’s counties and members in the 

following counties: Brevard, Broward, Charlotte, Collier, Escambia, Hernando, 

Hillsborough, Lake, Lee, Leon, Marion, Miami-Dade, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, 

Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Seminole, Suwanee, and Volusia.

5. Organize Florida normally hosts a large-scale voter registration program throughout the 

State of Florida. Our current voter registration campaign began in August 2019. Every 

week for five days a week, 65-70 canvassers engage residents around the state Florida 

counties to assist people in registering to vote. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, we 

shifted our work to a program consisting of phone calls, texts, and assisting with online 

voter registration.

6. When we learned about the State’s last-minute extension of the voter registration deadline 

on Tuesday, October 6th, we scrambled to get the word out eligible voters.

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7. We had initially planned to shift to vote-by-mail work, but we had to alter our plans to 

focus on notifying people of the additional time to register. We knew it was imperative to 

reach them.

8. We sent out 20,000 emails, 80,000 text messages, and made 1,606 phone calls.

9. We told people that the deadline had been extended and they had more time to register. We 

instructed people that if they were not registered yet, they should visit the Online Voter 

Registration (OVR) site.

10. 627 people clicked on a link indicating that they wanted to complete their online voter 

registration.

11. We also told people that they could make sure their registration was up-to-date if they 

weren’t sure if they were registered because of the issues with the website.

12. 112 people clicked on a link indicating that they wanted to check their voter registration 

status.

13. We paid 31 of our 60 canvassers to work three extra hours each to help reach more eligible 

voters. This cost approximately $1900 extra for us.

14. For people that had trouble with the website, we redirected 13 staff members 

towards helping follow up with people. They conducted activities such as calling people 

and walking them through the Online Voter Registration site.

15. Despite these numbers of people we were able to reach through extra work, we missed 

many people who did not know about the extension or we could not reach in time. We 

simply did not have enough time to reach as many people as we wanted to.

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16. With an extension, we could reach additional people. We have call lists and scripts ready 

to go to reach as many people as possible within the additional time. We will do as much 

as we can to ensure as many eligible Floridians vote as possible.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and 

correct.

Stephanie Porta /s/Stephanie Porta

Printed Name Signature

Executed on: October 7, 2020

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