Report from the Front Line: Fighting Back in Florida...

...and a Case Study of How the Anti-Democracy Right Wages Its Battle

One of my running theories about the current battle of democracy is pretty simple: “If they’re trying to stop you from an activity you’re doing, it means that activity threatens their grip on power. Which means you’re on the right track. Keep going.”

Bottom line: the anti-democracy right keenly understands the pro-democracy strategies and tactics that most threaten their power. And pro-democracy advocates can actually tell when they’re on the right track by the scale of the right’s pushback. (Conversely, if they don’t push back on something you’re doing, they unlikely see it as a threat to them—or maybe it’s under the radar and they haven’t figured it out yet). There are so many examples of this:

• It’s why they violated the Ohio Constitution seven times to stop us when we were on the verge of having fair maps. It was their holy grail.

• It’s why Mitch McConnell fought so fiercely to use the filibuster to stop voting rights/anti-gerrymandering protections.

• It’s why GOP legislatures added partisan labels to judicial races in Ohio and North Carolina once independent courts emerged and finally began to provide checks and balances.

• It’s why they are now trying to scuttle direct democracy in states in Missouri (and tried in Ohio).

• It’s why they banned drop boxes after 2020, even though Utah and Alaska voters had used drop boxes for years, and they never cared.

And…it’s why they are trying to make voter registration more difficult…in so many places.

Why?

The Power of Community-Based and Non-Profit Engagement/Registration Efforts

Especially in states where purging of voters from the rolls has been rampant, the active and effective registration of those voters is vitally important to lifting democracy.

Voter suppressors like Ohio’s Secretary of States Jon Husted and Frank LaRose have spent endless time and effort suppressing and purging the parts of the electorate that threaten them on Election Day. So we must spend even more time and resources ensuring we re-engage those who are being targeted and removed from democracy.

I dedicate a good chunk of my book “Saving Democracy” to this dire need, challenging readers and activists to think through all the ways you can use your full footprints to register and engage voters. Not just through your standard political activity. Not just through party and political organizations. But through every organization and activity you have any connection with.

In doing so, you should especially prioritize public-facing community, non-profit and government organizations, which the law allows to do non-partisan democracy work. Not only can these organizations greatly lift the overall level of pro-democracy engagement, but they often interact with and directly serve the very voters who are disproportionately purged, not registered and/or not engaged. Which means these organizations are often in the best position to inspire these non-voters—their constituents—to reenter the democracy they have been removed from (or chosen not to be part of because they’ve decided voting doesn’t make a difference in their lives).

Think about it this way: do you think a stranger with a clipboard chasing you down the street to see if you’re registered is the better messenger of why registering or voting early is important…

or

• the nurse or doctor at the health clinic who just helped address your child’s illness…

• the social worker at the food bank…

• the staff member who signed you in at the homeless shelter or recreation center.

Especially if you’re not a regular participant in democracy, the answer’s pretty obvious.

Non-profits engaging in the non-partisan work of lifting democracy can therefore make a HUGE difference. They are directly interacting with the very voters we need to engage and inspire, and are doing so on an ongoing basis. They are trusted. The graph below shows the potential power of their involvement:

Any time you can encourage any such organizations to do this work, please do!

BUT…

…per my rule above, be prepared: because when we, as individuals, groups and organizations, do this effectively, those attacking democracy will pull out the stops to get in the way.

They know that an army of public-serving organizations inspiring their constituents to be part of democracy can make a huge difference…and that such an approach, done right, can grow to a huge scale, a permanent effort, and be highly effective with the exact voters they want to stay uninvolved.

It’ a threat to them, just like fair districts and independent courts and referenda and steps that make voting more convenient.

Ground Zero: Florida

Which is the reason why, in Florida, they recently passed a law to put this type of pro-democracy work out of business. (I have been on the ground in Florida this week, meeting incredible groups of pro-democracy champions, and I heard all about this new law.)

Just a few years back, an army of new and legacy Florida nonprofits—the term they use is third-party voter registration organizations, or “3PVROs”—were working tirelessly to register voters, including those who have been disproportionately left out of Florida’s democracy. They were using the exact strategies I described above.

One group I’ve gotten to know, for example, created a non-stop, on-the-ground operation to engage Florida’s communities of color—hiring staff from within the community to do this crucial work all day, every day. The organization is called Mi Vecino—“my neighbor.” And it’s a case study of a community-based engagement effort that can make a difference over time.

Many other 3PVROS were engaged in similar work.

And due to this collective work, and the dynamic I describe above, “people of color [were] five times more likely than white Floridians to register with the assistance of a 3PVRO.” (Democracy Docket).

So what was the response of the Florida legislature and Ron DeSantis to this spirited and effective pro-democracy activity, which disproportionally lifts communities of color?

As best they can, to put it out of business.

In 2023, Florida passed a law that added hurdles to do this critical work, including barring non-US citizens from registering voters (or even “touching or handling voter registration forms”) and limiting the amount of time an organization has to turn in voter registration forms they have collected. Most ominously, the state added outrageous fines—up to $50,000—for organizations found to be in violation of these new rules.

The new scheme clearly operates as a trap, imposing fines so onerous they would put organizations like Mi Vecino out of business. Which, for many organizations, was too much risk. Many almost immediately stopped doing the voter registration work that was making such a difference.

As always, the GOP saw the threat they posed, and stopped them in their tracks. (And yes, if you study your history, targeting registration efforts in this way is a page right out of the Jim Crow playbook.)

Fighting Back

But that is not the end of the story.

First, a number of groups (including organizers from Mi Vecino) sued over the rules that non-US citizens could not engage in voter registration activities, alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause by “impermissibly discriminat[ing] based on alienage.” Last week, a federal judge ruled that the new prohibition did in deed violate Equal Protection and struck down that provision. And with it, the threat of $50,000 for violating this provision goes away.

As Alex Berrios, one of the co-founders of Mi Vecino, said after the victory: “We’d registered 35,000 voters before SB 7050 [that Florida law] was signed, so it was clear to us from the start that the law was aimed at shutting down Mi Vecino and organizations like ours. But, we aren’t scared of a fight and we weren’t going down that easily. We found ways to continue our work after DeSantis’ prior two voter suppression bills – SB 90 and HD 524 – and this time, we took our fight to court. I hope DeSantis gets the message that he can’t bully us and we’re not going anywhere.”

Great!

Second, the other major provision triggering those exorbitant fines is the new time requirement—that any 3PRVO must turn in registration forms within 10 days of collecting them, or also pay those fines. Again, this presents a huge risk if you’re gathering thousands of paper registration forms on an ongoing basis, so this again halted the work in its tracks.

But in talking with Florida voter advocates this week, some organizations have developed a work-around: moving to a model of paperless-only registration.

Rather than risking that a paper registration form isn’t turned in for 10 days—triggering those fines—these organizations are registering only with tablets, accessing the state’s online voter registration process. So not only are they not at risk of violating the deadline for paper forms, but it also means each voter registers immediately.

Again, great!

Other organizations can clearly do the same thing—either using tablets, or computer kiosks, or other devices to allow voters to register immediately and in a paperless way, so they can avoid those prohibitive fines. This may add costs and be less convenient for some types of registration efforts, but it’s still worth doing—and if incorporated the right way, can provide easy and immediate voter registration support all across communities and states.

And, as Alex said, it sends “the message that [they] can’t bully us and we’re not going anywhere.”

The overall lesson is:

• when they are doing all they can to stop something you are doing, it means you are on the right track

• after they try to ban your activity, do whatever you can to:

  • block their effort, by lawsuit if possible

  • work around it, because continuing that work is so important

  • send Alex’s message that you will never stop fighting for voters and democracy

• and if you’re in a different state, and you watch this happen elsewhere, it should underscore how important this type of work is in your state too. Florida’s outrageous action here underscores how much of a difference community-based organizations working hard to engage and register their constituents can make.

  So, wherever you are, however you can, please be sure it that exact type of work is happening in your community and communities you care about.

Yes, they may try to make it harder once you do this work at scale, but it means you‘re on the right track.

So do it.

And if they try to stop you, do what they’re doing in Florida—keep fighting.

Never stop fighting for democracy!