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Challenge compromise in Hillsborough might speed voting

According to information received tonight as part of the Election Protection training, polls might not come to a grinding halt every time a voter is challenged in Hillsborough County.

In a late compromise agreement, Buddy Johnson has issued new rules which specify that after a voter is challenged, the voter’s immediate fate will be decided by a Democratic poll watcher, a Republican poll watcher, and the local precinct chief in conference.

Previous rules required all poll workers to stop assisting other voters and confer over the challenge. Voters who lose a challenge will be able to cast a provisional ballot, for whatever that’s worth.

This is very good news for those who fear that excessive challenges could end up causing delays and long lines, but the GOP is still expected to push the challenge envelope to the max.

This time, the Dems are ready for them.

A network of Democratic trial attorneys and law professors is threatening to sue poll watchers and poll challengers who intimidate or disenfranchise voters in Florida, Ohio and other battleground states.

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Pennsylvania Democrat, announced the Voter Protection Network on Monday in response to high-profile Republican strategies to challenge the legitimacy of thousands of newly registered voters, including many black and Latino voters.

"Quietly and lawfully monitoring voting is one thing, but aggressively suppressing and intimidating voters is quite another," said Fattah, who represents parts of Philadelphia and its suburbs. "Aggressive poll challengers need to ask themselves a simple question — is one day of trampling on voters' rights worth risking my financial security? Because that's what it could ultimately cost."

In Florida, more than 5,000 Republican poll watchers will be on the lookout for fraudulent voters, people who are trying to cast ballots in the wrong precinct, and new citizens or young people who failed to register properly. The GOP has created a list of 1,800 voters in Duval County — most of them African-American — whose voting rights may be questioned. Gov. Jeb Bush has encouraged watchers to frequently challenge voters.

"The Republicans may think they're clever, but what this is really is a new Jim Crow mentality," said Mikel Jones, a trial attorney with offices in Philadelphia and Boca Raton, Fla., who plans to be at polls in West Palm Beach on Tuesday as part of the Voter Protection Network.

Jones said the network would lean on the Democratic activists, get-out-the-vote groups, and voter advocacy coalitions to collect the names and contact information of people who were disenfranchised or intimidated through poll watchers.

At least a dozen law firms in three states have agreed to handle cases that arise on Tuesday, and law professors at several universities will act as advisers. Attorneys will likely sue individual watchers under the Voting Rights Act or Civil Rights Act, Jones said, and damages could exceed $100,000 per watcher.

NOTE - Election Protection is a non-partisan voter rights protection organization. The organization mentioned in the article looks to be a different group.