Breaking: Federal District Court Strikes Down Restrictive Florida Voting Rules, Imposes Requirement

[elleng]

25. Federal judge blocks Florida restrictive voting law.

In a stinging ruling, Judge Mark Walker wrote that he agreed with the plaintiffs, who had argued the law "runs roughshod over the right to vote."

A federal judge barred Florida from enforcing the bulk of its new restrictive voting law on Thursday, siding with opponents who said the law was discriminatory and needlessly infringed on Floridians' voting rights.

The ruling, which will likely be appealed, is the first major invalidation of a spate of restrictive new election laws passed in Republican-controlled states last year, fueled by voter fraud anxieties and President Donald Trump’s stolen election lie. . .

In a stinging 288-page ruling, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark Walker declared the bulk of the state’s new voting rules unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction barring their enforcement. . .

The judge also ordered Florida to submit to a process known as “preclearance," using Section 3(C) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a part of the law that allows courts to force jurisdictions to get pre-approval on election law changes. . .

The ruling is in many ways a hearty defense of the Voting Rights Act and a call for federal courts to firmly enforce it. Repeatedly quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., Walker's decision defends judicial branch power to police discrimination in elections, while acknowledging that other, higher courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — have declined to do so.

“This is an opinion that full throatedly reads the Voting Rights Act in the expansive way that Congress intended it to be read, and essentially dares the higher courts to overrule it,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine.'>>>

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/federal-judge-overrules-florida-restrictive-voting-law-rcna22432