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Onward to victory,
Posted on 10/26/2004 6:20:18 PM PDT by 11th_VA
MIAMI Florida election officials will not be required to process incomplete voter registration forms for the presidential election, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King said the three prospective voters for whom the lawsuit was filed did not have the legal standing to pursue the case, which was backed by the AFL-CIO. But he gave the union group a chance to file a new version of the lawsuit next month with people who meet the standard.
That leaves the AFL-CIO and the Advancement Project, a social action group, on the losing side of an attempt to force election officials to accept applications from people who failed to check a citizenship box on registration forms in time for the Nov. 2 election.
Sheila Thomas, an attorney with the Washington-based Advancement Project, said the plaintiffs were considering an appeal. The group argued that the rejections had a disparate effect on minorities. Nearly 45 percent of the challenged forms in one county, Duval, came from blacks.
"Our goal is still to see if we can get relief for our clients before Election Day," she said.
The decision is the latest from courts across the state that rejected attempts to broaden voter rights on touch-screen recounts, provisional ballots and early voting.
"Once again, federal and state laws are very clear on which sections of the voter registration forms have to be filled out to deem that application complete," said Alia Faraj, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood.
She also said the state recognized that it was a procedural move by the judge, who left the unions and other groups options to come back to court later.
Applicants filling out registration cards are required to sign a form that, among other things, attests to U.S. citizenship, but the form also has a separate box to be checked by citizens.
The union coalition sued Hood and election supervisors in Duval, Orange, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
I don't think he can. Election law, especially regarding the presidency, is fairly settled at the federal level. The method of conducting elections is left to the states, and if he interferes with that delegation, he stands against a key constitutional concept.
Huh? It seems the left always says this about everything. What are they implying do they think minorities are just less competent at filling out forms?
The case was thrown out because the ones filing had no standing? Does this mean they were registering fraudulently - ie not really allowed to register in the manner in which they were attempting?
Any time a Florida-related thread is created on FreeRepublic, please be sure to add the "Florida" keyword to it so that interested FReepers don't miss it.
Onward to victory,
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