Earlier today, the Fair Elections Legal Network, along with Advancement Project, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and Project Vote filed suit against Florida's Scretary of State Ken Detzner over their recent efforts to remove alleged non-citizens from their voter rolls.
This purging not only directly violates the National Voter Registration Act, but already hundreds eligible voters have been improperly flagged for removal as part of the process. Once flagged, these citizens are forced to provide proof of citizenship within 30 days of recieving a notification letter, which may be easily lost or misplaced. The burden falls in the hands of the citizens to update the state's records, rather than on the state itself.
Furthermore, the data matching process by which Florida is conducting the purge is flawed and innacurate. The state is using potentially out-of-date information from the DMV and jury recusal records, which can also suffer from error in data entry, similar-sounding names, and changing information.
This lawsuit will protect all eligible voters in Florida from being erroneously removed from the voter rolls. While counties have an obligation to clean and update voter rolls, they also have an obligation to follow the law in doing so. There is no way to make up for a voter who loses their right to vote through this impermissible process. Once it's lost, it's lost. If there are people on the roles improperly, there is a legal process to remove them.
