FL Voting Law Blocked In Part As Racially Discriminatory: Judge

FLORIDA — U.S. Chief District Judge Mark Walker granted a permanent injunction Thursday against portions of Florida's new voting laws on the grounds they are racially discriminatory.

Walker struck down several measures, including language involving drop boxes, "line warming," and a requirement that third-party voter registration organizations include a warning that their registration may not be turned in on time.

The judge blasted Florida's "grotesque history of racial discrimination," particularly in regard to voting, in his 288-page decision. He added that Senate Bill 90, which was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May 2021, was another attack on the voting rights of Floridians motivated by race.

The governor's office has not yet commented on the ruling.

The drop box provision limits drop box usage to early voting hours, requires security around them and imposes a $25,000 civil penalty on election supervisors if any drop box is left accessible beyond those hours.

A solicitation section in Senate Bill 90 criminalizes helping voters in line, even when handing out water or snacks, colloquially known as line warming.

The defendants "did not even try" to carry their burden, according to the judge, who ruled legislators would not have included the drop box requirements, solicitation rule or the registration return provision in the law without "an intent to discriminate against Black voters."

On the solicitation law, the judge said that banning "engaging in any activity with the intent to influence or effect of influencing a voter" is too broad and violates the First Amendment. Walker ruled that the added phrase be severed from the law since election supervisors still had the authority to define and enforce no-solicitation zones as well as remove disruptive people.

The decision enjoined election supervisors in Volusia, Bay, Broward, Palm Beach, Duval, Miami-Dade, Seminole, Pinellas, Orange and Osceola counties from enforcing the added language.

The lawsuit was filed by the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, Florida Rising and Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters, who argued the law "runs roughshod over the right to vote, unnecessarily making voting harder for all eligible Floridians, unduly burdening disabled voters, and intentionally targeting minority voters" in order to improve election prospects for Republicans, according to the decision.

Walker said in his decision that the right to vote and the Voting Rights Act in particular are "under siege," even by the Supreme Court. In the decision, he cited several decisions over the past decade involving gerrymandered congressional maps and those that he believed undermined the Voting Rights Act.