WASHINGTON, Sept 16:Voting-rights groups that virtually stopped registering voters in Florida for a year as they challenged the state’s new restrictions on elections now are scrambling to get people there registered for the November 6 election.
The effort in Florida – a large, politically divided state that is crucial in the nationwide race between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney – comes two weeks after a federal judge rejected strict limits on
voter-registration drives that have led to a big drop in Floridians signing up to vote.
The Florida law was so limiting that groups such as Rock the Vote and the League of Women Voters, which have helped to register millions of voters in the last two presidential elections, essentially halted their registration drives in the state.
Now, with the restrictions lifted and Florida’s October 9 deadline for registering to vote in the November election looming, such groups are fanning out across the state to find new voters.
Massive voter drives across the country in 2008 helped put millions of people aged 18 to 29 on voting rolls. That age group – which makes up roughly one-quarter of the US electorate – voted 2-to-1 for Democratic President Barack Obama then,
helping to propel him to victory over Republican John McCain.
This year, campaigns and civic groups have faced challenges in signing up voters because of laws passed largely by Republicans who took control of legislatures in 20 states after the 2010 elections.
Besides limits on voter registration, the laws also have included requirements that voters produce a photo ID and limits on early-voting periods aimed at helping working-class people cast ballots if they can’t get to the polls on Election Day.
Dozens of legal battles are being waged over such voting laws in courts, and judges have tossed out a few – including registration limits in Florida and a photo ID requirement for voters in Wisconsin, another state that could be key in deciding the race for the White House.
Republicans say the laws are aimed at preventing voter fraud; Democrats and other critics say they are designed to reduce voter turnout among groups that typically back Democrats.
“Over the past two years we’ve seen this wave of tremendously creative and tremendously destructive laws … that make it harder for people to vote,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school, said on MSNBC.
“The scariest was the effort to stop voter registration,” said Waldman, whose group represented the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote in a lawsuit against the law in Florida, which had nearly 11.5 million registered voters at the end of July.
Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, said the nonpartisan group’s efforts have been complicated by the legal wrangling over Florida’s voting laws.
“It’s more than just the numbers” of voters, she said. “It’s the volunteers. Having put our volunteer programs on hold means we weren’t able to engage and train and build these
teams.”
(agencies)
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