Countdown to Election New Orleans

[Anita Garcia]

COUNTDOWN for Orleans Parish Primary Election from March 9th to:
Registration Deadline: 13 DAYS
Absentee Ballot Request Deadlines:
40 DAYS (no affidavit) or 43 DAYS (with affidavit)
April 22nd Orleans Parish Primary Election: 43 DAYS
May 20th Orleans Parish General Election: 71 DAYS

Louisiana Voting Rights Network - ACLU Foundation, ACORN, Common Cause of Louisiana, League of Women Voters of Louisiana, Leaque of Young Voters Education Fund, NAACP of Louisiana, and Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law list concerns and recommendations for the election.

CONCERN #1: Affidavit Requirements

Who Does It Affect? There are a range of problems surrounding the new “Displaced Voter Affidavit Form” required by most evacuees to successfully request an absentee ballot. By law, these forms are required by 3 expansive groups of evacuees:
• any registered voter in the State who is displaced and who has previously voted in person in his parish of registration
• any voter who wants to take advantage of the special rules in Act 4,
• and any voter in the State who is displaced and who registered by mail between 10/5/04 – 9/25/05, but who has not yet voted in person.

1. The Official “Displaced Voter Affidavit” Form was not included in mailed packets already mailed out to evacuees although it is required for most categories of voters (above) requesting an absentee ballot. This form applies to a wide enough group of voters that it should be a required part of the absentee ballot request form and not listed as a separate link.
2. The guidelines for when the Affidavit is needed are complicated, unclear and conflicting.
3. The importance of the form is not stressed by the Secretary of State’s website or their office.
4. Although the legislature used the term “affidavit,” to avoid confusion it should be clearly stated on the form and the Secretary of State’s website that this document does not need to be sworn before a notary or other public official.
5. The Secretary of State insists this form does not need to be notarized or signed by any witnesses, but many within the LA Voting Rights Network do not agree.
6. According to the ACLU of Louisiana’s reading of the law, the form provided by the Secretary of State is invalid unless the following statement appears: “Made under penalty of perjury for providing false or Fraudulent Information” and unless it is signed by a notary or two witnesses. The form mentions none of this and requires the voter to somehow miraculously know it, and handwrite it all onto the state provided form. This means any voter who was lucky enough to know about the affidavit and turn one in with their absentee ballot request, most likely will not have known to handwrite this statement, and their vote can still be contested.

CONCERN #2: Amount of Incorrect & Misleading Information Already Officially Released

1. Official Packets distributed to voting rights organizations on 2/21/06 were incomplete and inaccurate. It our understanding, based on information from the Secretary of State, that these packets were scheduled to begin mailing to displaced voters on March 1 and have been already been mailed.

• Anyone following the guidelines in the packet will miss out on most of the provisions passed by the Special Legislative Session for the benefit of displaced voters.
• The packets fail to outline any of the new, more lenient deadlines passed during the Special Legislative Session specifically to benefit displaced voters.
• The packet fails to even mention the Affidavit form, much less include it or instructions about how and where it must be used to ensure the votes of displaced voters are counted.


2. Problems with Official Forms Provided by the Secretary of State
• Affidavit Form Problems Listed in #1 Concern.
• The Voter Registration Form is confusing for the context of a displaced voter and needs to be modified to clarify “Residence” vs. “Mailing Address” and “Previous Address” issues among others so that displaced communities are clear about how to fill out the form given their present unique circumstances.
• The Voter Registration Form is bundled with a list of Registrar’s offices but the address listed for Orleans Parish is the physical address only. The Secretary of State changed the Orleans Parish registrar’s mailing address to a Baton Rouge PO Box because that office was aware of the terrible mail problems, but new voters will not get the benefit of that change if they consult the mailing address on the form itself.
• The form used to request ballots by fax is entitled “Displaced Voter Request for Absentee by Mail” which is itself misleading.


3. Secretary of State Election Website Problems: A maze of inaccurate, confusing, outdated and conflicting information was on Secretary of State’s website up until Tuesday March 7, 2006. Information now omits many provisions that could help displaced voters.
Web Problems NOW: Although recently the Secretary of State, in response to our repeated requests, used the authority of that office to replace the maze of inaccurate, confusing, outdated and conflicting information on their website with a new, clearer and more concise version, they still do not explain some of the most important procedures now available to help displaced voters.
For example:
• Important Fax Provisions Not Explained or Given Prominence: Since the storm, mail sent to and from New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana is not reliable. For this reason some of the most important provisions available to voters are those that allow voters to request, receive and vote absentee ballots by mail. The Registrar’s fax number is still not listed in the absentee voting sections of the site, nor does it appear on any of the forms that can be sent by fax. Instructions for how to utilize faxing provisions are not explained on the site, nor are there instructions on most of the relevant forms explaining that they can be sent by fax, or that a faxed ballot could be requested. Although it is the form used to request ballots by fax, it is entitled “Displaced Voter Request for Absentee by Mail” which is itself misleading.
• Affidavit Not Explained and Underemphasized: According to the law as explained above, the affidavit is required for nearly every voter but it has a small place on the Secretary of State’s website. At every step this form is underemphasized.
• Forms & Information Spread Out Not Easy to Link To: The forms and information necessary to vote in this election are not all assembled on one part of the webpage so that voting rights organizations and individual voters can easily find the form they are looking for and so that organizations can link to one succinct page of the forms and all pertinent and necessary information that is needed by voters.
Web Problems BEFORE 3/7/06: It cannot be forgotten that up until Tuesday, March 7th, there were a range of very serious problems and inaccuracies posted on the Secretary of State’s website. Any voter who accessed the site for guidance, or any voting rights organization who relied upon and distributed information from the site before Tuesday of this week, did not get or distribute accurate information.
Some of the most egregious problems included:
• There was conflicting information on the Secretary of State’s website regarding whether or not new Voter Registrations are now accepted by fax at the Registrar of Voters. In certain places on the website it said the form can be “mailed, faxed, or hand delivered to the Registrar of Voters” while in other places it said, “Faxed Voter Registration Forms cannot be accepted.”
• There were several places on the Secretary of State’s website where the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot was different.
• Old forms and outdated information was widely posted on the Secretary of State’s website. Even though some links directed users to new forms, if advocacy groups had links with old URLs, the old pages still came up. These old pages were taken offline to prevent confusion but caused plenty of confusion before they came down.
• The Secretary of State’s website listed multiple toll free numbers for voters to call if they had questions, only one which was actually manned by Election Division-trained personnel. They still have two different toll free numbers posted, although they have at least added clarification to help route voters to the correct number.
• There were several voter help email addresses listed, and problems were reported with emails sent to the address being returned to sender.

CONCERN #3: The Forgotten Displaced Voters Still Living Out-of-State and First-Time Voters

1. Although satellite voting centers have been established within Louisiana, satellite voting procedures should be instituted across the country as was provided to the Iraqi citizens for their election, and as originally proposed by Secretary Ater to the LA Voting Rights Network on February 8th, 2006.
2. Although the first-time absentee vote in person roadblock was addressed by the Legislature, the change only applies to those who registered before Rita (Sept. 25th) and in our opinion does not go far enough. The benefits of this provision should be extended to all voters.
3. Those registering to vote by mail for the first time since September 25th are excluded from absentee voting and benefiting from the recently passed regional satellite provisions. This means anyone who registered to vote by mail since Sept. 25th can only vote if they are present in Orleans Parish on the day of the election or during the early voting period.
4. Those registering to vote in person for the first time since September 25th can vote by absentee ballot, or in person in Orleans Parish during the early voting period or on election day, but are excluded from benefiting from the recently passed regional satellite provisions.

CONCERN #4: Reports of Misconduct Go Uninvestigated

1. Reports of other states requiring mandatory registration in their host state for receipt of benefits must be investigated in order to protect the voting rights of Louisiana citizens. Louisiana citizens do not need to trade their Louisiana voting rights for those of another state in order to obtain benefits that are provided by federal programs (i.e. FEMA, food stamps, etc.)
2. Reports of other states including voter registration forms as a part of the “shelter paperwork” packets given out to evacuees must be investigated. When our citizens were evacuated, they endured the most stressful conditions of survival. Unless the host receiving center can provide proof that these citizens, many of whom who were in a state of shock, were officially advised that registering to vote was not a mandatory piece of the induction packet, and that by filling out the voter registration card provided they were giving up their right to vote in Louisiana, the evacuees should be given the opportunity to sign an affidavit to revoke said new voter registration.

3. Reports of Lousiana citizens being told they were required by motor-voter laws to register to vote in other states simply because they needed to get a driver’s license to replace identification must be investigated.

CONCERN #5: Procedures That Are Still Inadequate for Post-Katrina and Rita Voting

1. Although the State has taken steps to confront problems of the unreliability of the mail post-Katrina and post-Rita, we urge the Governor and Secretary of State to use the power of their offices to officially request that US postmasters expedite any Louisiana voter materials.
2. Many citizens seeking to register to vote for the first time are encountering identification problems. Drivers Licenses and/or birth certificates are needed for registration but many evacuated and left their identification behind. Officials must insure that if evacuees left without these documents that they can easily and expediently obtain replacements by extending through the election post-Katrina Office of Motor Vehicles provisions that allowed Louisiana citizens who already had a driver’s license in Louisiana pre-Katrina to obtain a replacement without a fee and with only a faxed signature for verification of identity.
3. First time voter registration “verification mailing cards” are now mailed only to the applicant’s Louisiana permanent address. As the law reads now if someone registered for the first time from a displaced location, their voter identification card will only be sent, by law, to their New Orleans address, not their mailing address.
4. From our understanding, the law now requires that Absentee Requests by those now living in temporary housing in surrounding parishes be mailed only to that person’s New Orleans permanent address. For example: if you are waiting for your house to be renovated and are living in Metairie, and you request an absentee ballot to be mailed to you, they will by law only mail it to your New Orleans house.

RECOMMENDATION: Enact Provisions to Prevent Chaos Like This In The Event of a Future Disaster
1. Put into place a permanent voting contingency plan that addresses all of the problems we are now encountering so that there will never be an election this chaotic and mismanaged again, no matter how many hurricanes hit us.
2. Both the Governor’s Office and the Secretary of State, during the 2006 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature, should actively pursue the development of long-term legislation patterned on the enabling federal statues from which the Federal Voting Assistance Program for the military derives its authority, that will permanently extend all the benefits given to the military to Louisiana voters who through no fault of their own are unable to vote in the precinct where they are registered in the event of a future emergency.