Florida Settles Voting Rights Suit Over Student Voting

Release from Marc Elias via email:

You may recall that in 2018 we won a critical federal court case striking down the Florida Secretary of State’s ban on early voting sites being located on college campuses, while allowing them in any other government building.  The court held that the State’s policy violated the 26th Amendment by discriminating against young voters.  That case, which was sponsored and supported by Priorities USA Foundation, is now the leading 26th Amendment case in the country.  It resulted in 57,639 college students voting early on their campuses. In their paper, studying the effect of this victory, Mobilizing the Youth Vote? Early Voting on College Campuses in Florida, Professors Enrijeta Shino and Daniel A. Smith found:

“[A] broad increase in the turnout of 18-22 year-olds who were exposed to the new opportunity to vote early in-person in facilities on the campuses of public universities and colleges. There is little question that after the eight SOEs and the participating college and university administrations built the new early voting locations, young voters came out to vote. In short, we find strong evidence that the extension of early in-person voting to college campuses in Florida in 2018 led to higher turnout, all else equal.”

Put succinctly, the professors concluded that:  “On-campus early voting increases turnout, especially among young voters.” This finding, while intuitive, should help guide all of us who are looking to increase young voter turnout and ensure the dream of the 26th Amendment is fulfilled.

Last summer the Florida legislature passed a new law aimed at preventing early voting site on college campuses. They added a new  requirement that any early voting locations must “provide sufficient nonpermitted parking to accommodate the anticipated amount of voters.”  They did this because during our first lawsuit, the Florida Secretary of State repeatedly cited limited parking as an excuse for the prohibition on on-campus early voting, claiming it was the lack of non-permitted on-campus parking—rather than an intent to discriminate against young voters—that motivated the Secretary’s position that the University of Florida’s Reitz Student Union and other on-campus locations like it were inappropriate for early voting. The Court found that the Secretary’s stated interest in “alleviating parking difficulties that an on-campus early voting site might create” by prohibiting on-campus early voting, “is neither precise nor sufficiently weighty” to justify the prohibition.  

We immediately sued to block the new law on behalf of the League of Women Voters of FloridaAndrew Goodman Foundation, and individual young voters  (sponsored by Priorities USA Foundation). I am pleased to announce that we have now settled that case.  As one part of that settlement, last night the Florida Secretary of State issued a new directive interpreting the new law.  It reads, in part:

Finally, the Secretary clarifies that to the extent any supervisor of elections interpreted prior directives from the Division of Elections that related to Reitz Union as indicating that buildings such as student unions are not appropriate sites for early voting, those directives are withdrawn in their entirety. There is nothing in Florida law that prohibits the use of on-campus sites for early voting, provided that the requirements of Section 101.657(1)(a) are otherwise met. 

In sum, Section 101.657(1)(a) should be read to permit supervisors of elections to place early voting sites on college and university campuses, consistent with the purpose of each county having a network or combination of early voting sites placed so as to provide all voters in the county an equal opportunity to cast a ballot.  Further, the Nonpermitted Parking Language emphasized in paragraph 4 above is a matter properly considered in light of the surrounding population of voters anticipated to use a particular early voting site and the availability of nonpermitted parking at other early voting sites in the county that may be used by voters who travel to the polls by car. 

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