WASHINGTON, DC – In Florida, RITE PAC is pushing back against the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) misinterpretation of the Civil Rights Act in a lawsuit regarding original signatures on voter registration applications. RITE PAC, supporting the Republican Party of Pasco County, is defending a Florida state law that modestly requires an inked signature to validate a voter registration card for voters who choose to register in that manner.
“Activists are trying to upend Florida’s voter registration rules, and the Department of Justice is now inviting that chaos nationwide. Nothing in the Civil Rights Act remotely suggests the law may eliminate a state’s simple and practical voting requirements, like signing your application, especially where, like in Florida, all voters have a chance to cure their errors.”
– Derek Lyons, President and CEO of RITE.
RITE PAC has submitted a brief to the Northern District of Florida federal court in response to an argument presented by the DOJ that Florida’s signature law runs afoul of the “Materiality Provision” of the Civil Rights Act. That federal law, however, works to prevent states from applying their laws in ways that deny citizens the right to vote on account of their race. For instance, if state law mandates that a person must be 18 years old to vote, a registrar cannot disqualify a potential voter for not knowing the exact number of days they have been alive since only years matter under state law.
As RITE PAC points out in its brief:
- “The United States argues that Congress, with a single line in the Civil Rights Act, wiped out longstanding election rules.” That theory has been rejected by courts across the nation.
- The Materiality Provision is “aimed at racial discrimination.” That is, it was meant to prohibit Jim Crow Era racist registrars from denying individuals the right to vote based on errors that are not significant in establishing a voter’s qualifications under State law. But Florida’s signature requirement is not argued to be discriminatory on the basis of race.
- Not only does the Materiality Provision apply only to conduct that discriminates on the basis of race but also “only to state action that exceeds the bounds of state law.” It does not give the federal government the authority to determine the factors states can and cannot evaluate in establishing voter eligibility.
- Finally, the Materiality Provision does not come into play at all in this case because Florida’s signature requirement does not deny any person the right to vote. In Florida, voters who do not sign their applications are given an opportunity to cure their error, meaning no one is blocked from accessing the ballot. “A voter who cures her application and then votes has not been denied the right to vote.”
Click HERE to read RITE’s amicus brief.
