Opinion ID: 78001
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Subsection 6 Places an Undue Burden on the Right to Vote.

Text: Florida's matching scheme likewise fails under the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it imposes a severe restriction on the right to vote that is not justified by a compelling state interest. See Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992). An individual's fundamental right to vote must be weighed against the state's power to regulate elections. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 1; see also Tashjian v. Republican Party, 479 U.S. 208, 217, 107 S.Ct. 544, 93 L.Ed.2d 514 (1986). We must assure that in balancing the two, we take into account both the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule. Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059 (quoting Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983)). [28] When an individual's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights are subject to severe restrictions, the state election law must be narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance. Id. at 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059; Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279, 289, 112 S.Ct. 698, 116 L.Ed.2d 711 (1992); see also Buckley v. Am. Constitutional Law Found., 525 U.S. 182, 216, 119 S.Ct. 636, 142 L.Ed.2d 599 (1999) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). In this case, we do not have a state electoral scheme that teeters on the cusp of reasonableness. Florida's matching scheme clearly imposes a severe restriction on 14,000 individuals and counting as it requires the matching of an identifying number as a prerequisite to voter eligibility. See Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups, 439 F.Supp.2d 1294, 1350 (N.D.Ga.2006) (noting that the deprivation of the right to vote is undeniably demoralizing and extreme). [29] Subsection 6 severely restricts the right to vote by adding a layer of complexity and precision to voter registration that is unduly burdensome. All unmatched voters are subjected to additional bureaucratic, administrative, and technological barriers to voting. Prior to the book-closing deadline, in order to cast a regular ballot on election day, unmatched voters must take steps to provide to the appropriate election official the necessary documentation to verify their application information. This entails traveling to an election office and navigating through a complex bureaucracy without clear guidance. For those who remain unmatched past the book-closing deadline, Subsection 6 places even more onerous burdens on the right to vote. For those voters whose applications were unmatched due to state error, and through no fault of their own, the applicants will now have to go to an election office within forty-eight hours of casting a provisional ballot. Within this short-window of time, the applicants will have to verify not only that the state made a mistake, but also confirm their application information to the satisfaction of an election official in their county. However, if the state determines that an applicant's own mistake led to the non-match, that applicant will never have a chance to cure her mistake after voting provisionally even if she presents indisputable documentary evidence of her eligibility. Subsection 6's burdensome requirements are all the more troubling because, as noted earlier, the state does not even have a uniform procedure in place to determine whether a mistake was made by the state or by the applicant herself. To justify these burdensome requirements that have already disenfranchised over 14,000 Florida citizens, the state has advanced two interests: preventing voter fraud and maintaining the integrity of the electoral process. The state contends that Subsection 6 secures to lawful voters the exclusive enjoyment of their political privileges and that voter registration fraud poison[s] the whole sphere of citizen participation in a representative democracy. (Appellant's Br. at 43.) While both of these are compelling interests, Subsection 6 is not narrowly drawn such that its restrictions on the right to vote pass constitutional muster. In effect, Subsection 6 secures only to some lawful voters the exclusive enjoyment of their political privileges while denying that very same right to other lawful voters. And if voter registration fraud poisons the very fabric of our representative democracy, then Subsection 6 is just as poisonous in denying otherwise eligible voters a chance to have a voice in our democracy. The state's argument that Subsection 6 is the only reliable barrier (Appellant's Br. at 40) in preventing certain voter fraud practices is completely unsupported. There is nothing essential about a registration system that deprives thousands of otherwise eligible voters of a fundamental right, and it is definitely not the only means of ensuring reliability in the integrity of elections. The state could simply require photo identification to achieve the same end. [30] Or, as in California, Florida could simply issue a unique identifying number to unmatched applicants and thus provide a reasonable safeguard for voters who are unmatched but otherwise eligible to vote. See Cal.Code Regs. tit. 2, § 20108.70(c) (If a driver's license or state identification number cannot be identified or verified through [the matching database] and the registrant is otherwise eligible to vote, then a unique identification number shall be issued . . . .); see also id. § 20108.38(c). If the vast majority of other states do not have a matching scheme, how are they able to conduct legitimate and functional elections? [31] By imposing an unduly severe restriction on Florida citizens' right to vote, the state has turned back the clock on the fundamental right to vote by disregarding the constitutional safeguards enacted to prohibit precisely the types of unlawful restraints embodied in Subsection 6. [32] V. Conclusion The right to vote is a fundamental political right, because preservative of all rights. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886). Florida's matching requirement under Subsection 6, despite the state's contentions, is nothing more than a grave impediment to Florida citizens' fundamental right to vote. [33] Subsection 6 leaves a large number of otherwise eligible voters without a voice in our democracy, simply because of alphabetical and numerical mishaps. [34] We must not forget that it was only just over fifty years ago that the Supreme Court held the polling tax to be unconstitutional as a qualification for voting, [35] and it was only just over thirty-five years ago that the Court upheld Congress' power to bar literacy tests. [36] Subsection 6, to the extent it acts as an unlawful impediment to voting that disproportionately affects minorities, must be viewed within this framework of past discriminatory practices with respect to voting. [37] Florida's matching scheme is not an additional safeguard in ensuring the integrity of elections; rather, it is another in a long line of discriminatory weapon[s] [38] that have been used to disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters. [39] The state's goal of preventing voter fraud does not make a registration scheme that disproportionately deprives minorities of their right to vote any more legitimate. It is at times such as these that we are reminded of how fragile our rights can be, especially for certain groups which have historically been deprived of certain fundamental rights which our Constitution guarantees to every citizen, regardless of race or ethnicity. It cannot be that accidentally transposing two numbers on a voter registration application is a sufficient basis upon which to deprive an otherwise eligible voter a right which is too precious, too fundamental [40]  its fundamental nature stemming from the equal dignity owed to each voter, Bush, 531 U.S. at 104, 121 S.Ct. 525, which is at the heart of our democracy, Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 198, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 119 L.Ed.2d 5 (1992).