Opinion ID: 78001
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Subsection 6 Violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Text: When an election process reache[s] the point of patent and fundamental unfairness, there is a due process violation. Roe v. Alabama, 43 F.3d 574, 580 (11th Cir.1995) (citing Curry v. Baker, 802 F.2d 1302, 1315 (11th Cir.1986)). While there is no bright line in determining when an election process has reached the level of patent and fundamental unfairness, this is not an ordinary dispute over the counting and marking of ballots or a simple deviation from absolute accuracy. See Curry, 802 F.2d at 1316. Rather, we are faced with a registration system plagued by the inadequacy of notices sent to unmatched registrants, the lack of adequate process to correct minor mistakes, and the outright refusal to count provisional ballots because of minor mistakes. All of these critical problems with Florida's registration system render the election process under Subsection 6 patently and fundamentally unfair. Under Florida's matching scheme, Florida's sixty-seven counties are free to provide, and actually do provide, notices different in content and form to applicants whose registration applications have been rejected. These notices to unmatched applicants are wholly inadequate to ensure that voters are given a fair opportunity to not only cast a ballot, but to have their ballot counted. As the majority concedes, the notices sent to unmatched applicants are generic, simply advising an applicant that she is not registered because her application was incomplete or incorrect. The generic notices do not tell applicants what is required to cure an erroneous application. There is no explanation that the rejection was due, for example, to an unmatched driver's license or social security number. Nor is there any notice at all that if an application containing an error made by the applicant is not corrected before the book-closing date, the provisional ballot cast by the applicant pursuant to HAVA and Subsection 6 will not be counted. Moreover, the generic notices may not, and often do not, reach applicants in the mail until it is too late to rectify any mistakes on their applications before the book-closing deadline. Even if an applicant timely presents herself at an election office with a passport or birth certificate in response to the notice that her application is incomplete, her effort will have been to no avail. If she does not have her driver's license or social security card with her to match the name or number on her application, her application will remain incomplete and she will not be registered. [22] Having to go to an election office is burdensome enough for most individuals who may not have the means to get to an election office or cannot take the time from work to do so; an additional trip with the necessary documentation is even more so. [23] Even the state's Voter Registration website, which is misleading, does not provide adequate notice. The website does not provide voters with any notice regarding Florida's matching scheme. [24] It does not once make mention of a matching program, nor does it state that if a voter registration application is incomplete, a notice will be mailed to the applicant. [25] Furthermore, the website states that [i]n order to register, an applicant must provide her driver's license number or the last four digits of her social security number, which will be used only for voter registration purposes, and not as a determinant of an applicant's eligibility. [26] A state registration system, the specifics of which are not explicitly made known to potential voters, that leaves potential voters in the dark as to its effect on a voter's eligibility and that fails to give voters a fair opportunity to cure minor mistakes, is fundamentally unfair and violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.