In order to prevent Blacks and Latinos from voting in the 2024 presidential election, a collection of civil rights organisations are fighting a new Florida voting legislation that they allege violates the Constitution.
According to two lawsuits filed on Wednesday and Thursday in federal court in Tallahassee, the bill, supported by Governor Ron DeSantis, unlawfully limits the operations of third-party voter registration organisations that have assisted hundreds of thousands of Floridians register to vote since 2018.
The organisations claim that the regulation would stifle their operations by prohibiting non-citizen volunteers from processing registration forms and imposing severe penalties for late returns. According to the lawsuits, it also makes “routine voter information retention” illegal.
In one of the complaints, the organisations claim that persons of colour in Florida are five times more likely than White residents to register to vote with assistance from a third-party organisation, adding that “there is no question which Floridians will be most affected by these efforts.”
On Wednesday, DeSantis officially announced his intention to run against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2024 election. He then signed the legislation into law. Similar laws have been passed by Republicans around the US in an effort to prevent election fraud, but opponents claim they are really intended to make it more difficult for Democrats to vote.
An inquiry for comment from the governor’s office went unanswered.
Numerous county election officials are included in the case, along with Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Moody’s spokesperson Kylie Mason said in an email, “We have not been served. An inquiry for comment was not answered by Byrd’s office.
The charges assert that Senate Bill 7050 violates the First Amendment rights to free expression, association, and the federal Voting Rights Act and are backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Democrat-aligned Elias Law Group LLP.
NAACP Florida State Conference of Branches and Youth Units v. Byrd, 4:23-cv-00215, US District Court for the Northern District of Florida (Tallahassee), is the case at hand.