A lawsuit was filed Tuesday against Florida Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, concerning his interpretation of early voting laws.
Among the plaintiffs is Megan Newsome, a 22 year-old UF alumna who now works as a researcher for UF’s physics department.
During her undergraduate career at UF, Newsome was an ambassador for the Vote Everywhere program of the Andrew Goodman Foundation.
“With my title as an ambassador, I registered over 3,000 voters, and we shuttled over 100 students to vote during the 2016 election,” Newsome said. Newsome was also asked to look into the issue of early voting.
In 2014, FL Statute 101.657, often referred to as the early vote statute, was updated to include early voting locations where approved, Newsome said. Students asked to use the Reitz Union as an early voting location, and Detzner said no.
In November 2017, Newsome wrote an op-ed to draw attention to the issue. Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA Foundation and UF alumnus, read the op-ed and decided to get involved.
Priorities USA Foundation is focused on making sure access to the ballot box is protected and expanding, Cecil said. They are providing the legal and financial resources to the League of Women Voters of Florida and the student plaintiffs against Detzner.
Cecil said there is nothing in the statute that prohibits public universities from serving as an early voting location, and that Detzner “wrongly interpreted (Statute 101.657) in the most conservative way possible and in a way that actually restricts and discourages access to the ballot box on the part of young people and college students.”
“For there not to be access to an early vote location on campus, it’s not just unnecessary,” Cecil said. It is from our perspective intentionally making it more difficult for those students to vote."
Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, says the state should be making it easier for college students to vote, not harder.
“A lot of these students that live on campus in dorms don’t always have a car and may not be close to a polling center to vote early or to vote on election day,” Brigham said. “We believe that these students should not be hindered from casting their vote if they need to do so early. They should be supported.”
Follow Sloan Savage on Twitter@sloanasavageand contact her atssavage@alligator.org.
