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Florida Voters Said “NO!” To Proposed Repressive Voter Legislation
This is great news for voters in Florida. This is great news for voters all over America.
Last month we told you about the proposed bill in the Florida State House and the Florida State Senate known as SB 956 / HB 7149. It was described as having the potential to be “the most repressive voter bill in the nation.” Here’s an update on that important piece of legislation.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, (ACLU Florida) in cooperation with the efforts of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People); American Association of Retired Persons,(AARP); Progress Florida, Florida Public Interest Research Groups,
(PIRG); along with the League of Women Voters and about forty other public interest activist groups, was able to defeat the endeavors of the sponsors and supporters of SB 956 / HB 7149 in both the Florida House and the Florida Senate which would have been, if passed, the most repressive voter regulations in the country.
Fortunately, for all voters the largest coalition ever assembled in Florida for this purpose, mobilized their members to stop bad laws that would have further limited the number of IDs that voters could use at the polls, without offering a reasonable alternative.
Also defeated was the further disfranchisement of disabled voters by adding a four-year extension to the date when paper ballots were to be available for voters with disabilities.
The coalition’s action stopped laws that would restrict voter registration efforts and impose unnecessary restrictions on petition-gatherers.
As a result of this incredible union of civil rights, voting rights and civil liberties organizations they were able to halt a proposal to force more voters to vote unnecessarily on provisional ballots, which have a high rejection rate.
This is a monumental achievement. Anyone who has ever cast a ballot in an election in Florida knows how meaningful, how important this winning action is to bringing a halt to this latest attempt to repress our voting rights.
Success in defeating bad laws came from the grassroots up. Community organizers working with ACLU lobbying personnel in the state capital, Tallahassee, who also worked with the ACLU’s Miami based Voting Rights Project along with the more than 40 organizations and You. Your phone calls and emails to your circle of influence helped to bring about this astounding change for the better. You struck another blow for freedom.
As Courtaney Strickland, Director of Public Policy for the ACLU of Florida says,
“We wouldn’t have been able to defeat this legislation without you.”
We are glad we all know where the power base is.
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