Testimony: Total Hours for Early Voting in this Year's Florida Primary Down by 1,888 hours -- or, Nearly 30 Percent - Compared to four Years Ago

Press Release

When Florida Republican lawmakers pushed through a new election law last spring they specifically prohibited early voting on a day of higher turnout for African Americans, Hispanics and young voters, new research shows. And afterward, it appears top state officials "misinformed" voters about whether there would still be the same amount of time for early voting, according to congressional testimony from the researchers.

Two university scholars, who are analyzing the potential impacts of Florida's new election law, have submitted the testimony for a rare U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing in Tampa tomorrow. In their prepared remarks, they note that on the Sunday before 2008's general election on Tuesday the number of African-American and Hispanic voters increaseddramatically from any other day of the week during early voting, while voting by whites on that day drop off.

"The greatest drop-offs in white early voting rates occur on Sundays, and on these days the fraction of African-American early voters jumps," according to the testimony of Dartmouth College Professor Michael C. Herron and University of Florida Professor Daniel A. Smith. "Among its many provisions that restrict early voting, [Florida's new election law] HB1355 reduced the total number of days, from 14 to eight, that county Supervisors of Elections may offer early voting.

HB 1355 also completely eliminated early voting on the Sunday immediately preceding Election Day.

"Despite these clear reductions, outgoing Secretary of State [ Kurt ] Browning and his staff appear to have misinformed the public about the number of total hours of early voting hours that are required under HB 1355," the professors say in their testimony.

Their remarks note there were 6,432 hours of early voting time prior to the 2008 Florida presidential primary, but there will be only 4,542 before this year's primary set for Jan. 31 - or, a reduction of nearly 30 percent.

Theydraw preliminary findings about the potential impact of Florida's new election law in large part from voting patterns in 2008, when early voting was a windfall for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and Democrats. Their ongoing study is one of but a few non-partisan efforts to determine the possible impact of voting law changes. It's scheduled to be released in full at a policy conference in Houston next month.

A previous study done by New York's Brennan Center for Justice delved into a number of similar laws that all won passage last year in more than a dozen states including Florida. All told, the Brennan Center found as many as five million Americans could be adversely affected by these new voting laws pushed through mostly by Republicans.

In Florida, the law reduced the number of early-voting days, including canceling the Sunday right before the Tuesday election. State officials countered that registered voters could still have the same number of hours in which to vote early. But that assertion is called into question by the professors' testimony.

Florida's law also makes voting harder for people who have recently moved to another county and have an address change, like college students. And it subjects voter-registration groups to penalties and fines for mistakes. It's so burdensome that the League of Women Voters was forced to abandon its registration drives in Florida after 72 years.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) requested the congressional hearing that will take place in downtown Tampa starting Friday afternoon. He wants to know whether the overhaul of election laws was the result of an orchestrated effort to suppress the vote. The bulk of African-American voters are Democrat. And the majority of Hispanic voters in Florida no longer are Republican, as was the case in the early 2000s.

"We're here to examine, among other things, how one of these election laws made its way through the Florida Legislature and was quickly signed by the governor - despite widespread public outcry," Nelson says in a copy of his prepared hearing remarks. The senator delivered a speech to the Senate earlier today, which can be watched by clicking here.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) will chair the hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. The hearing is to begin at 1 p.m. at the Hillsborough County Courthouse on Twiggs Street.

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