Right to vote in jeopardy for FL RVers (Specifically St Brendan?s Isle users)

[NY_Dutch]

Part of the process of claiming Florida as your domicile calls for submitting an affidavit declaring that Florida is where you intend to return to and reside when your travels are finished. "Residency" and "Domicile" are not necessarily the same place. I can have multiple residences in multiple states or even countries, but only one domicile.

 

[Trivet]

You are claiming RVers should have the "right" to vote whether they meet the residency requirements or not.  I am curious why you believe RVers should have that "right" when millions of other American citizens don't.

I'm trying to think of who these millions of American citizens who don't meet the residency requirements are.  Are they people who have moved recently and haven't lived in their new place long enough to qualify to register to vote? 

Most states don't have a minimum duration of residency, and in those that do, it's not longer than 30 days.  I'm sure fulltimers would be willing to wait to register to vote for 30 days, if that's what it took for them to not pull rank over others.

I suspect almost every permanent RVer could maintain their residency and voting status in the state they are living when they go on the road.

It's not as easy as you seem to think.

One reason South Dakota, Florida, and Texas are popular is that they have mail forwarding businesses that give customers an address that satisfies "physical address" requirements for banks, driver's licenses, vehicle insurance, and voting.  If a person wanted to remain domiciled in the city where he lived before fulltiming, he would have to have a new address to use, since he's moved out of his house.

There might be a mail forwarding service in that town, but it would have to provide an acceptable physical address.  P.O. boxes won't work for that.  UPS stores with private mailboxes might provide mail service, but the acceptability of the address they assign a person for bank, driver's license, and voting purposes is not a given at those places.

So presumably he could look for a mail forwarding service somewhere else in the state, but then he's setting up his domicile in a county he's never actually lived in, and that's the issue here:  In addition to an acceptable residence address, the advisory opinion requires meaningful contacts in the county.

Take a person who was born in Florida 70 years ago and who has never even once left the state and therefore couldn't be more of a Floridian if he tried.  He wants to hit the road.  He's living in a rural county where there's no mail forwarding service, so he looks elsewhere in the state, and finds St. Brendan's Isle mail service.  But he can't register to vote there because SBI can't provide him an address that will satisfy the Supervisor of Elections, and because he's never lived in Clay County and doesn't have "meaningful contacts indicating the requisite intent and physical presence in the county."

BTW, the "meaningful contacts" could be used to trip up the other Florida mail services, even those with addresses that satisfy the "residence" requirement.  And as I mentioned before, the Escapees one in particular is problematic because their Florida address is used only for the occasional mail that is related to "Florida" matters, and it is simply, and always, forwarded to a Texas address before the customer can have it sent to him wherever he happens to be. 

The problem is that it is hard to maintain your residency for voting purposes separate from your residency for tax purposes.

I'm sure it's no accident that the tried-and-true mail forwarding services are all in states that don't have an income tax, but that doesn't affect the fact that these tried-and-true mail forwarding services are the only practical solution for many fulltimers.  Our 70-year-old lifelong Floridian--he's obviously not motivated by taxes, but he's caught in the same trap.  SBI is out for him, but all the others will be too if Florida cracks down on all of the mail forwarding services under the "meaningful contacts indicating the requisite intent and physical presence in the county."

In order for him to go fulltime, he might have to give up his right to vote, and he's not even guilty of tax avoidance.

 

[zulu]

In order for him to go fulltime, he might have to give up his right to vote, and he's not even guilty of tax avoidance.

Do you full time?

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

I wonder if I might prefer that they remove all mail service customers from the voter rolls instead of using case-by-case scrutiny when people have to register a party affiliation, as is the case in Florida.

There is no requirement to put anything at all in the party affiliation line, and whatever you put there is meaningful only if you choose a "party" that holds primary elections.  Many Floridians select  NO PARTY AFFILIATION or leave it blank.  If the line is left blank, that will result in being placed in the No Party group statistically.  Of the near 13M registered voters in Florida, 3.5M choose No Party. None of the political parties in Florida allow unaffiliated voters to vote in their primaries.

 

[Trivet]

I would feel more confident in the fairness of the case-by-case scrutiny if identifying information were redacted--things like name, age, party affiliation.  But I doubt that's going to happen.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

I hear ya, Trivet. Between party politics and department politics, the chances are that a lot of voter registrations are going to get tossed out.  Only the purest are likely to survive the audit this time around.

My hope is that enough stink is raised that the legislature or the FL State Department will make a cleaner path for RVers and yachters to register to vote.  Florida has always been accommodating to its many semi-residents and I'm fairly confident there is no statewide intent to disenfranchise those people.  A somewhat similar hassle several years ago resulted in clarifications (some of the documents cited here), but more is needed.

 

[Dragginourbedaround]

We just received our Clay County primary election nonpartisan ballot. Unsolicited. This is the first time in four years they have sent us a local election ballot.  : ??? :-\