Arcia v. Detzner

908 F. Supp. 2d 1276, 2012 WL 6212564, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176463
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Florida
DecidedOctober 29, 2012
DocketCase No. 12-22282-CIV
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 908 F. Supp. 2d 1276 (Arcia v. Detzner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Arcia v. Detzner, 908 F. Supp. 2d 1276, 2012 WL 6212564, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176463 (S.D. Fla. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER

WILLIAM J. ZLOCH, District Judge.

THIS MATTER is before the Court upon Plaintiffs’ Motion For Entry Of Judgment (DE 113) and pursuant to the Parties’ Stipulation made in Court at the Status Conference held on October 22, 2012. The Court has carefully reviewed said Motion and Stipulation, the entire court file and is otherwise fully advised in the premises. The Court notes that as to the interpretation of section 8(c)(2)(A) of the National Voter Registration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973gg-6(c)(2)(A), this Order supersedes any previous. Order entered by the Court. In all other respects, and specifically regarding Plaintiffs’ Motion For Preliminary Injunction And Summary Judgment (DE 65) and the issue of the standing of all Plaintiffs, the Court’s October 4, 2012, Order (DE 111) remains in full force and effect.

I. Background

The above-styled cause concerns the implementation of the program known as “Processing Registered Voters — Non-Immigrants” (hereinafter “the Program”) by Defendant Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner (hereinafter “the Secretary”). Plaintiffs were initially comprised of two individuals and five organizations who claim that their rights, and those of their members, “are affected by the program instituted by the Florida Department of State ... to carry out a systematic purge of alleged non-citizens from the Florida voter rolls.” DE 57, p. 2. The individual Plaintiffs, Karla Vanessa Arda (hereinafter “Arda”) and Melande Antoine (hereinafter “Antoine”), are United States citizens who are registered to vote in the State of Florida and were included on the Secretary’s initial list of potential non-citizens. DE 71, p. 4. The five organizational Plaintiffs included a labor union and various Florida-based civic organizations. These organizational Plaintiffs alleged that their members are at risk of being removed from the voting rolls or, that based on the Program, the organizations themselves have had to divert their resources away from their regular business activities and toward addressing the implementation of the Program. DE 57, pp. 5-8.

On June 19, 2012, Plaintiffs initiated this case with the filing of their Complaint For Declaratory And Injunctive Relief (DE 1), alleging that the Program violated certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act (hereinafter “the VRA”) and the National Voter Registration Act (hereinafter “the NVRA”). By this initial Complaint (DE 1), Plaintiffs alleged that in April of 2012, the Secretary began the process of identifying, with the intent of later purging, [1278]*1278potential non-citizens from the rolls of registered voters in the State of Florida. To identify such potential non-citizens, the Secretary obtained information from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (hereinafter “DHSMV”) indicating that a registered voter may not in fact be a United States citizen, which was then cross-checked against various other databases. At that time, the Secretary issued a press release which stated that the Department of State was “actively seeking access to federal Department of Homeland Security databases such as SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) for further verification of immigration status.” DE 1, pp. 7-8 (hereinafter “the SAVE database”). The Secretary initially identified 180,000 names of alleged “potential non-citizens” and sent a sample of that list, containing 2, 625 names, to the Supervisors of Elections in Florida’s 67 counties. DE 57, p. 1. The Secretary then directed these Supervisors to confirm whether any identified registered voter on the list was indeed a non-citizen, and if so, to begin the statutorily required notice and removal process to remove the individual from the voting rolls.

According to Plaintiffs, the Program— especially in its initial implementation— proved to be inaccurate, and the list of 2,625 “potential non-citizens” included at least some United States citizens, including the two individually named Plaintiffs: Areia and Antoine. On April 30, 2012, the implementation of the Program was temporarily suspended. Since that time, the Secretary has received access to the federal SAVE database from the Department of Homeland Security (hereinafter “DHS”), which the Secretary alleges “is a rapidly updated federal database that allows state and local governments to check the most recent immigration status of noncitizens who lawfully entered the United States.” DE 79, p. 6. By checking an individual’s Alien Registration Number (hereinafter “Anumber”), “a unique 9-digit identifier given only to non-citizens,” against information in the SAVE database, Defendant maintains that it can accurately ascertain whether a registered voter has been naturalized as a United States citizen. Id., p. 7. The Secretary asserts that since its August 14, 2012, declaration to use the SAVE database in the implementation of the Program, “the Secretary’s data matching program has identified at least scores of registered voters who have either personally attested to their lack of citizenship or who, after the data matching process, ... appear to be ineligible registered voters based on non-citizenship.” Id.

On September 12, 2012, the Parties filed a-Stipulation Of Dismissal As To Counts I, II, And Part Of Count IV Of Complaint For Declaratory And Injunctive Relief (DE 56), dismissing the claims under the VRA, and the claim under paragraph (6)(b)(l) of section 8 of the NVRA, that the Program is not uniform, nondiscriminatory, and in compliance with -the VRA. Thus, the sole claim that remains by Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint (DE 57) is that the Program violates the NVRA’s prohibition on completing “not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official list of eligible voters.” 42 U:S.C. § 1973gg-6(e)(2)(A) (2002). On September 19, 2012, Plaintiffs filed a Motion For Preliminary Injunction And Summary Judgment (DE 65).

The Court held an evidentiary hearing on Plaintiffs’ Motion For Preliminary Injunction And Summary Judgment (DE 65) on October 1, 2012. At the hearing, the Court heard from two witnesses on behalf of Plaintiffs: Mr. Dale Ewart, the Assistant Regional Director of the Florida Region for 1199SEIU United Healthcare [1279]*1279Workers East, and Mr. Wilfredo Seda, the Chair of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights. The Court then heard argument from Plaintiffs and the Secretary.

By that Motion (DE 65), Plaintiffs asked that the Court do essentially four things: (1) declare that the State’s implementation of the Program, specifically in its recent use of the SAVE database, violates the NVRA; (2) enjoin the Secretary from conducting any systematic purge aimed at excluding ineligible voters prior to the November 6, 2012, election; (3) direct the Secretary to ensure that any individual who was removed after August 8, 2012, be restored to the voting rolls prior to October 15, 2012; (4) and instruct the Secretary to file with the Court a list of voters who have been so removed from the voting rolls and/or have been reinstated. DE 65, pp. 1-2.

On October 4, 2012, the Court issued its Order (DE 111) in response to Plaintiffs’ Motion For Preliminary Injunction And Summary Judgment (DE 65).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
908 F. Supp. 2d 1276, 2012 WL 6212564, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176463, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/arcia-v-detzner-flsd-2012.