Civil rights groups on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Florida law that says a voter's name must exactly match their driver's license or social security card.
According to public records cited by the plaintiffs, "more than 43,000 individuals who submitted otherwise valid voter registration applications to Florida election officials since 2018 across 26 Florida counties have never been able to register to vote successfully solely due to the 'exact match' requirement," said the civil suit filed in a US district court in Orlando.
The exact match protocol has meant that people of color are far more likely to get disqualified, said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project.
"A typo should not stand in the way of a citizen's right to vote. Typos, transposing of numbers and the inability for those who input the data to read what may be imperfect handwriting should not stop people from being able to vote," she told a press conference.
"Today we filed yet another lawsuit against the state of Florida. I say another because I've been suing Florida since the 2000 election over its continuous effort to suppress the vote of black and brown voters," she added.
Dianis said that while black voters account for approximately 14% of registered voters across the 26 counties her group examined, they account for 31% of the applications denied or deemed unverified due to an incorrect driver's license or Social Security last four digits since January 1, 2022.
White people account for approximately 57% of registered voters across the same 26 counties, but only 7% of the applications denied or deemed unverified due to a mismatch, Dianis said.
The plaintiff on the case is Florida Rising Together, a non-profit that focuses on voting rights and social justice.
In line with other tactics that make it harder for certain groups to vote — such as restricting drop boxes, making vote by mail harder, and using redistricting as a tool to diminish representation — exact match verification is "another blatant tool of voter suppression," said Moné Holder, Chief Political & Advocacy Director at Florida Rising.
"Election officials should be focused on fair representation and expanding voting access, instead of forcing voters of color to jump through hoops," she said.
The civil suit is filed against Florida secretary of state Cord Byrd and the elections supervisors of Broward, Miami-Dade. Duval and Orage counties. It challenges the constitutionality of Florida statute 97.053(6) and seeks a permanent injunction and declaratory relief.
"Mismatches can occur for a variety of reasons, including, data entry errors, typos, misread or imperfect handwriting by election officials, and computer glitches," according to the legal filing.
Plaintiffs say a legal challenge to a similar exact match law in Georgia in 2018 was successful, and the registrations of 40,000 people were eventually restored.
"Based on our analysis, more eligible voter registration applications are rejected in Florida due to exact match issues than for any other reason," said attorney John Powers, who added that the exact match program in Florida has been in effect for 17 years.
"In the national landscape today, Florida's policy really does stand out in terms of the scope of the harm," Powers said.
