## Facts

- Florida implemented a voter-registration verification requirement for first-time registrants under Fla. Stat. § 97.053(6).
- Registrants were required to provide a Florida driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number on the registration form.
- State officials compared the provided number against the Florida driver’s license database or the Social Security Administration database.
- If the information did not match, the registration was treated as incomplete unless corrected by the registration deadline.
- Voting-rights organizations sued the Florida Secretary of State, alleging the matching regime was preempted by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) and violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- The district court found the organizations had standing and entered a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the matching requirement before an impending election-registration deadline.
- The Secretary of State appealed the preliminary injunction to the Eleventh Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether the organizational plaintiffs had Article III standing, including based on diversion of resources and interference with organizational activities.
2. Whether plaintiffs showed a substantial likelihood of success that HAVA or the Civil Rights Act preempted or prohibited Florida’s “match” requirement as a condition of completed registration.
3. Whether the district court abused its discretion in granting preliminary injunctive relief under the traditional four-factor test.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that the organizations had standing.
- The court reversed the preliminary injunction because plaintiffs did not show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.
- The court held HAVA did not clearly bar Florida from conditioning registration completion on successful database verification.
- The court found the Civil Rights Act theory required a more developed record than existed at the preliminary-injunction stage.
- With likelihood of success not established, preliminary relief was not warranted in light of the state’s interests in orderly election administration and accurate voter rolls.

## Legal Principles

- Organizations may establish Article III standing when a challenged election-administration practice causes concrete injury to organizational activities, including diversion of resources to address the practice’s effects.
- A preliminary injunction requires, at minimum, a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; failure on that prong can justify denial of relief.
- HAVA sets federal requirements for statewide voter-registration systems and verification procedures but leaves substantial implementation discretion to states unless state rules conflict with HAVA’s text or structure.
- Claims that a matching/verification regime violates the Civil Rights Act’s materiality provision may depend on factual details of how the rule operates and may be unsuitable for definitive resolution on an undeveloped preliminary record.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit recognized organizational standing based on resource diversion and interference with programmatic activities, but it reversed a preliminary injunction because plaintiffs failed to show that HAVA or the Civil Rights Act likely prohibited Florida’s voter-registration matching requirement, particularly given HAVA’s state-implementation discretion and the limited preliminary record.


Fla. State Conf. of NAACP v. Browning, 522 F.3d 1153 (11th Cir. 2008)