[EL] requirements to turn in voter registration cards

[Doug Hess]

The FL law, of course, goes beyond a requirement to turn in registration
applications within 48 hours of accepting them. It requires that groups and
persons to sign up with the state, provide a sworn statement, and file
monthly reports (not clear to me if it's every month or just months when you
are active).  Indeed, according to material on the SOS website, any person
that takes a form from anybody who is not in their immediate family has to
register with the state!  Also, just talking about the importance of
completing and mailing in the form, if you hand them out, requires that you
register with the state (see below). There are also other reporting
requirements in the FL law, including monthly reports on activity, and then
there are the fines. Do other states have fines connected with requirements
on handling registration forms?

This is truly a bizarre law when you think it through: If somebody not
related to you wants some help and asks you post the application for them,
e.g., they are home bound or require assistance with simple chores, you need
to sign up as an "agent" and then WAIT for approval from the state before
taking the form. Am I reading this wrong? See here:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/TPVRFinalFactSheet.pdf    It's as if the
forms are now toxic, and you need to be a certified handler before touching
them.

This notion that you have to register as an "agent" harkens back to the
pre-NVRA days of voter registration. Forcing people to sign up with the
state in order to help your fellow citizens with mailing a form is very
backwards. Red-tape with your neighborly civic duty anybody? Maybe next they
will require Boy Scouts to sign up before they do any anything wild and
crazy like carry groceries for their elderly neighbors. Or require you
to fill out a sworn statement for helping with something much more complex
than a simple voter application, like volunteering to help people at the
local food pantry understand their Medicaid or Medicare benefit paperwork or
help with the EITC.

It will be interesting to see if the law has a chilling effect on
registration in the public schools. Many schools offer voter registration in
civics courses, etc. Apparently these schools think, or have they been
told?, that they must register as third party voter registration
organizations because some are on the list of registered groups (see link
below). This could mean that they will have to file reports monthly (wasn't
clear on the site how this works). It's likely that some schools that did
voter reg in the past will decide the extra red tape is not worth it. Should
make for good evidence in court if schools decide the hassle is not worth
helping students register.

On top of it all, simply handing out applications and talking to people
about the importance of completing and mailing in the application on their
own requires that you register with the state, even if you don't accept
forms. Talking about the importance of registering (while handing out
registration applications) means your are "soliciting" the Fact Sheet
says. As the SOS website says in the Fact Sheet in the link above:  "Be
careful about what you say and do!"  As Florida humorist Dave Barry would
say, I'm not making that up; the exclamation point is even in the original.

I assume mailmen don't have to sign up as agents for "accepting" voter
registration applications...but the whole thing is almost that absurd.

You can see the list of groups that have signed up here (note that some
groups have "withdrawn"): http://election.dos.state.fl.us/tpvr/  . So far
only a handful of groups have handed in any registrations; reported here
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/tpvr/Applications.aspx

Question for the lawyers: Can this law cover use of the federal form in FL?

Doug
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