Six months before the presidential election, the Florida ground game is already underway.
In political terms, the ground game is the process of mobilizing voters and getting them to the polls. And the first step is registering people to vote.
But in Florida this year, there are tough new restrictions on groups that conduct voter registration drives. The restrictions already appear to be having an impact on the number of people who are registering to vote.
“We go to dense Hispanic neighborhoods — shopping plazas, supermarkets,” says Natalie Carlier of the National Council Of La Raza. “And basically were just out there talking to people, letting them know that were providing a service and that we want them to vote.”
With clipboard in hand, canvasser Melli Romero approaches shoppers at the bustling La Mia Supermarket in Miamis Allapattah neighborhood, asking if they have a voter registration card and, if they dont, whether theyd like to sign up to vote.
Shoppers come and go while music blares from a nearby coffee shop. Its one of the places where Carlier says her group likes to register new voters.
Over the last two months, Romero and others with NCLR have registered nearly 10,000 Hispanic voters in Miami-Dade County.
This is work the group has done before, but this year, registering a voter has become more time-consuming and exacting than in the past. Each canvasser now must first register with the state. And groups must turn in completed forms within 48 hours — rather than the 10 days available previously — or theyll face significant penalties.
Carlier says that puts them on a tight schedule.
“The quality control process is the canvasser checks all the forms,” says Carlier. “Then their captain checks all the forms. Then our quality control manager checks all the forms. And once all that is done, before I turn them in, I check all the forms. Its a long process and we have to, you know, squeeze it within 48 hours for every days work.”
The new rules are part of an election law passed by the Republican-controlled Florida legislature. Because of those rules, and their potential penalties, the League of Women Voters and some other groups have stopped conducting voter registration drives in Florida. The League is challenging the rules in federal court, but in the meantime, few non-partisan groups aside from NCLR are registering voters in the state.
SOURCE: In Florida, Registering Voters A Whole New Game : NPR.