The mean-spirited, massive drive to cut down the vote, state by state

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 By Wendy Weiser
wendy.weiser@nyu.edu

Following is a lecture by Weiser at Pitzer College May 1, 2012

My topic for today is the battle over voting rights in 2012. I will start by telling you about one casualty of that battle—Jill Cicciarelli.

Jill Cicciarelli is a high school civics teacher in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, whose job includes preparing students for civic life. Last fall, Ms. Cicciarelli was notified that her name had been forwarded to the Secretary of State for violating Florida’s election laws, meaning she could face $1000 in fines and other penalties. Her offense: setting up a voter registration table at her school that helped about 50 eligible students register to vote.

What Ms. Cicciarelli did last fall was the same thing she had been doing for years, and something I hope many of you will consider doing as well. She told the Daytona Beach News Journal, “I just want them to be participating in our democracy. The more participation we have, the stronger our democracy will be.”

But what she didn’t know was that Florida had just passed a law requiring anyone who helps others register to vote to jump through a series of hoops or face hefty fines and other legal consequences.

To comply with this new law, even before setting up a voter registration table in the school auditorium, Ms. Cicciarelli would have had to register online with the state as a “third party voter registration organization,” and to sign an affidavit warning her about all the possible felonies involved in voter registration. She would also have had to ensure that each of the students who were helping her with the drive signed that affidavit, so that she could submit their affidavits to the state. She would then have had to wait for the state to assign her a special number. Once she got the number, that number would have had to be stamped or written on all the forms she used for her drive. At that point, she could have set up her table to help students register to vote. But that’s not all. She would also have had to track the forms that she and her student volunteers handed out so that she could report to the state each month what happened to those forms, whether or not they were used for voter registration. And after helping students fill out registration forms, she would have had to ensure that each form reached state election officials within 48 hours, no matter how far in advance it was of an election. If she was even a minute late, she would face a $50 fine per form. READ MORE