The Republican Party of Florida (“RPOF”), an intervenor along with the Republican National Committee, supporting Defendant Florida Secretary of State and other Supervisors of Elections, applauds the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida’s recent order dismissing a baseless complaint that sought to eradicate Florida’s verification requirements that safeguard the voter registration process and enhance election integrity.
The meritless complaint was brought by left-wing special interest group Florida Rising Together, which challenged Florida’s requirements to verify the accuracy of information provided on voter registration applications. These verification requirements, which are solidified under Florida law, are also required by the federal Help America Vote Act. Specifically, Florida law requires that the individual’s driver’s license number or social security number written on the voter application form must match with the State’s records for that individual on file. If an individual’s records do not match, their voter registration applications will not be accepted until the voter provides other evidence to assure state officials of that individual’s identity. Notably, this requirement applies only to individuals who do not register to vote with Florida’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.
RPOF’s Chairman Evan Power said, “It is simply nonsensical that anyone would want to remove well-established safeguards to Florida’s voter registration process. Florida’s election officials have worked tirelessly to make our state the gold standard for the nation when it comes to election integrity, and we’re not about to go backwards.”
The Plaintiff filed its lawsuit in September of 2024, asking the federal court to prevent the State from prohibiting an unverified person from voting. But Plaintiff’s complaint had numerous defects, which Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd wisely argued in a Motion to Dismiss. Secretary Byrd argued that Plaintiff had filed a messy, shotgun pleading, which means that it was unclear which claims Plaintiff was trying to bring against which Defendants. In addition, Plaintiff claimed to be seeking statewide relief, but failed to name all 67 of the State’s Supervisors of Election as Defendants in the lawsuit. Finally, Plaintiff also failed to allege how it could expect to receive relief under the Florida law, when federal law would still require the same safeguards.
The Court agreed with Secretary Byrd, dismissing Plaintiff’s complaint as an impermissible shotgun pleading and informing the Plaintiff that it could not receive statewide relief unless it properly named all necessary individuals as Defendants. Although Plaintiff gets one more chance to amend its complaint, RPOF will continue to fight to defend Florida law and our state’s election accountability procedures from those who would seek to weaken these and other security measures.
