Florida: Voting Rights Changes Would Not Impact Florida | NorthEscambia.com

A proposed overhaul of the Voting Rights Act that would essentially revive the process of “preclearance” would leave Florida out of the list of states that would have to get federal approval for changes to elections procedures, a scenario that concerns some voting-rights advocates. Voting-rights groups, many of which have been involved in recent legal battles over elections issues in Florida, largely support the bill, introduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. House and Senate members. But they note that the process in the bill for selecting which states are required to gain preclearance would not include Florida or several other jurisdictions that were included under an old formula. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as antiquated the formula Congress established in the 2006 version of the law to single out so-called “covered jurisdictions.” That formula, based on data from the 1960s and 1970s, was used to decide which parts of the country must submit almost any changes in voting laws or practices to the federal government for approval — the process known as preclearance.

Florida: Revamped voting roll scrub soon to begin | Tampa Tribune

The state will soon begin forwarding the names of suspected non-citizens on the voter rolls to local elections officials, formally kicking off the second version of Gov. Rick Scott’s controversial scrubbing program, Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Tuesday. “We’ll start shortly after the first of the year, on a case-by-case basis, reviewing files and then forwarding them down to the supervisors,” Detzner said after an event closing out the state’s recognition of the 500th anniversary of Juan Ponce de Leon’s landing in Florida. The state has been working to finalize a procedure for using a federal list to vet registered voters since 2012, when it first struck a deal with the Department of Homeland Security over the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database. Now, the final steps of putting that process in place are close. Detzner’s office has sent a proposed template for a “memorandum of agreement” to the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, the organization that represents county election chiefs. The organization is expected to respond to the state over the next week or two.

Editorials: Florida governor attempts hijacking of voter rolls | TriCities.com

Gov. Rick Scott’s latest purge of Florida’s voter rolls is lurching forward, despite the skepticism and outright opposition of many county elections supervisors. True to his “tea party” roots, Scott dreams of the days when most voters were cranky, middle-aged white people, his core constituency. Up for re-election next year, the governor fears a high voter turnout, because that would mean lots of Hispanics and African-Americans standing in line to cast their ballots. They tend to vote Democrat, grim prospects for a Republican who isn’t exactly beloved in his own party. Scott’s first voter purge was a debacle. Initiated ahead of the 2012 elections, the idea was to thwart President Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates by reducing the number of Hispanic, Haitian and other foreign-born voters. Screening drivers’ licenses, the Division of Elections produced a list of about 182,000 possible non-citizens who were registered to vote. Unfortunately, the list proved worthless because the data was outdated or flat-out wrong. County officials were left exasperated and angry.

Editorials: Absentee ballot suppression in Florida? | StAugustine.com

Florida’s Secretary of State Ken Detzner, set off political alarms and quick responses in late November when he ordered the state’s 67 supervisors of elections to stop taking absentee ballots at remote locations. Detzner is the chief elections adviser for Gov. Rick Scott. Detzner told elections officials not to “solicit return” of absentee ballots anywhere but an elections office or its official branches. Sen. Bill Nelson quickly came forward stating his concern that the new rule was an attempt at voter suppression. He told the press “This is so obvious that it’s making it harder to vote for the average folks, whether Republican or Democrat.” It has become conventional election wisdom during recent years that more votes generally translate into Democrat votes. A smaller election turnout generally favors Republicans.

Editorials: Florida elections supervisors need to battle to retain voting sites | Miami Herald

Yet another flap between state officials and Florida’s county election supervisors is in the news, raising new questions about the motives of Republican Gov. Rick Scott and his appointee, Secretary of State Ken Detzner. Are they committed to making it easier for all eligible Floridians to vote or is their real goal to make it more difficult? So wondered U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, before meeting with Tampa Bay area elections supervisors. “I just don’t understand why the state keeps making it harder for people to vote,” he said. Good question. First, the governor signed a bill in 2011 that restricted the hours for early voting, raising the ire of county supervisors. They warned of lengthy delays for voters during the 2012 presidential election. They were so right that some voters in South Florida stood in line for eight hours just to exercise their constitutional right. That’s unconscionable. Then-Monroe County Elections Supervisor Harry Sawyer famously fought Scott on the early-voting issue (losing when the federal government sided with the governor), becoming somewhat of a folk hero nationwide for those who believe in more opportunity to vote, not less.

Editorials: Stop restricting Florida voting rights | Miami Herald

Yet another flap between state officials and Florida’s county election supervisors is in the news, raising new questions about the motives of Republican Gov. Rick Scott and his appointee, Secretary of State Ken Detzner. Are they committed to making it easier for all eligible Floridians to vote or is their real goal to make it more difficult? So wondered U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, before meeting with Tampa Bay area elections supervisors on Tuesday. “I just don’t understand why the state keeps making it harder for people to vote,” he said. Good question. First, the governor signed a bill in 2011 that restricted the hours for early voting, raising the ire of county supervisors. They warned of lengthy delays for voters during the 2012 presidential election. They were so right — some voters in South Florida stood in line for eight hours just to exercise their constitutional right. That’s unconscionable. The governor and Mr. Detzner also tried to purge voter rolls before the presidential election — with disastrous results. The “purge” was so riddled with mistakes and misinformation that its instigators finally cancelled it.

Voting Blogs: Florida Secretary of State Faces Uprising by County Election Officials After Absentee Ballot Directive | BradBlog

At this point, the slogan for Republican Secretaries of State around the country seems to be: “If it ain’t broke, break it!” That’s certainly the case in Florida, where Sec. of State Ken Detzner — fresh off his and Governor Rick Scott’s embarrassing and failed 2012 purge of supposed “non-citizen voters” from the rolls (with another more recent attempt underway since then) — is at it again. And this time, Detzner seems to be facing a full-blown uprising from county Supervisors of Elections (SOE) refusing to carry out a new directive which would make it more difficult for absentee voters to cast their ballot. The elected SOEs are claiming that the new directive by Detzner, an appointee of Gov. Rick Scott (R), was neither asked for nor necessary under state law. They Supervisors have also denied Detzner’s initial claim that the directive was issued in response to requests by two SOEs. Last week, Detzner issued a directive [PDF] to county SOEs instructing them that they may no longer allow voters to use secured remote absentee ballot drop-off stations created at locations like public libraries and tax-collectors offices. Suddenly, according to Detzner’s new rules, all absentee ballots must either be mailed in, or dropped off at county election offices.

Florida: U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson charges Gov. Rick Scott’s administration with voter suppression | Sun Sentinel

Even as Gov. Rick Scott’s top elections official suddenly backed away from a plan to restrict the way voters can return completed absentee ballots, Florida’s top Democrat accused the Scott administration of attempting to suppress voter turnout. “It’s patently obvious. It’s an attempt to suppress the vote by people who otherwise might have difficulty getting to the polls on Election Day,” said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., at a news conference Wednesday at the Palm Beach County Elections Office headquarters. Americans’ right to vote is “precious” and guaranteed by the Constitution, Nelson said. “When you start making it more difficult to cast that ballot, that is interfering with that constitutional right.”

Florida: Scott’s administration eases showdown over Pinellas election | Tampa Bay Times

With furor growing over his surprise announcement of new restrictions on the handling of absentee ballots, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner did Tuesday what critics say he should have done in the first place. He talked to a supervisor of elections — in particular, Deborah Clark of Pinellas County. And later Tuesday night, Detzner followed up with a letter to Clark suggesting he is satisfied with her work to make sure absentee ballots will be secure in Pinellas County’s upcoming special congressional election to replace the late C.W. Bill Young. Detzner also signaled he has no interest in upping the ante on a controversy that is pitting elected officials from around Florida against Gov. Rick Scott’s administration. “I do not see the need for any further legal action at this time,” concluded Detzner, Scott’s top elections official. But neither did he suggest any change to the new statewide directive announced last week.

Florida: Pinellas supervisor bucks Secretary of State Detzner’s directive on absentee ballots | Palm Beach Post

With a special election for a Pinellas County congressional seat looming, the county’s elections chief has signaled she will defy a directive issued by Secretary of State Ken Detzner on where voters can deliver absentee ballots. The standoff, which once again pits Gov. Rick Scott’s secretary of state against independent county elections supervisors, could ultimately end up in court. The wrangling comes little more than a month before a Jan. 14 primary in the campaign to replace the late Congressman C.W. Bill Young, who died in October. The general election is slated for March 11. Detzner issued the directive Nov. 25, in response to what his office said are questions from some county supervisors about new language in the state’s voter-registration guide telling voters not to return their completed absentee ballots to early voting locations.

Editorials: Another attempt to make voting harder in Florida | Tampa Bay Times

Once again Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner is carrying out Gov. Rick Scott’s mission to make it harder to vote. With little explanation, Detzner told the state’s election supervisors this week to eliminate all absentee ballot dropoff sites except for their offices. This is no more defensible than the administration’s continuing misguided effort to purge the voting roll of noncitizens, and election supervisors should ignore Detzner’s latest demand. The new restrictions regarding absentee ballots have gone over like a hanging chad among many of the state’s 67 election supervisors, all of whom are elected officials except in Miami-Dade County. They were not consulted about the change, and Detzner’s argument that restricting ballot dropoffs to supervisors’ offices ensures statewide uniformity in voting procedures is a weak rationale for making voting more inconvenient.

Florida: Is Special Election Imminent After Trey Radel’s Arrest? | Sunshine State News

U.S. Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., caused a commotion after word got out that he had been arrested in Washington, D.C., at the end of October for possession of cocaine. Radel was charged with misdemeanor possession of cocaine in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday. He pleaded guilty on Wednesday and was sentenced to one year of probation. Radel could have faced a maximum of 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.  Shortly after news of his arrest hit, Radel issued a statement apologizing for his actions. … Although Radel said he needed help, he did not mention resigning from the House in his statement. But his arrest could ultimately prove problematic for Radel, who has been in office for less than a year.

Florida: Special election for Bill Young’s seat will be complicated, expensive | SaintPetersBlog

Nobody said that replacing the late GOP Rep. C.W. Bill Young, who died last week at age 82, would be easy. A special election often means a radically shortened campaign schedule, with tremendous financial consequences. In addition, the race for Pinellas County’s 13th congressional district is sure to garner national attention as a seat uncontested for decades that now suddenly becomes a swing district. Both Democrats and Republicans are taking the struggle for the remaining 14 months of Young’s term as a sort of measure of the national mood, even before Gov. Rick Scott sets a date for the special election. “It’ll be a perfect storm of a special election,” GOP political consultant Sarah Bascom told Kate Bradshaw of the Tampa Tribune. “If you consider the time frame, if you consider the environment.”

Editorials: Florida voter purge a bad idea | Miami Herald

Here we go again. Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner want to conduct another purge of Florida voter rolls. Their attempt to purge the rolls of noncitizens in 2012 was a complete flop. Florida’s Division of Elections, which Mr. Detzner oversees, botched the purge, which was conducted in advance of a presidential election, raising justified questions about the timing, and with little evidence that a clean-up was needed. It alienated voters and angered most election supervisors who oversee voter rolls in the state’s 67 counties. Using Florida driver license information, state officials initially came up with 182,000 potential noncitizens who were registered to vote. That number was whittled down to 2,600 and then to a measly 198, with county elections supervisors finding many errors. Snagged as noncitizens were U.S. military veterans, including one who fought at the Battle of the Bulge. State officials finally backed down and suspended the effort.

Florida: Many questions, few answers on state’s voter purge plan | Miami Herald

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s mea culpa tour to tout the state’s revamped noncitizen voter purge led to a tense exchange Wednesday with an election supervisor miffed about the state’s botched efforts last year. Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher peppered Detzner and his staff with questions about the process and the accuracy of the data to be used in the purge. “Where does that data come from, how often is it updated: every 10 years or every 10 minutes? … I have a lot of concern that the people we got the database from are saying this is not comprehensive and definitive,” Bucher said during a meeting at Broward County’s Voting Equipment Center in Lauderhill. Bucher’s questions revolved around the federal SAVE database that the state will use this time to search for non-citizen voters. Detzner explained that state agencies currently use SAVE data to verify that Floridians are eligible for millions of dollars in entitlements. “This is the best database we have to deal with,” he said. “This is important to get it right…It can be done and it will be done correctly.” But Bucher wasn’t satisfied, nor were voting activists who egged her on at times in the audience. A Democrat elected to a nonpartisan office, Bucher continued to ask multiple questions.

Florida: A new push to purge Florida voter rolls | Herald Tribune

Florida’s latest effort to purge noncitizens from the voting rolls comes to Sarasota today. Secretary of State Ken Detzner will meet with area elections supervisors and local citizens to talk about “Project Integrity,” which is aimed at identifying and removing ineligible voters from the rolls. The two-hour meeting will be hosted by Sarasota Elections Supervisor Kathy Dent. Project Integrity follows a controversial effort by Gov. Rick Scott’s administration to purge noncitizens from the voter rolls before the 2012 elections. But that move was widely condemned and proved highly ineffective.

Editorials: Why Florida’s renewed purge effort should stop | Tallahassee Democrat

The United States prides itself for its egalitarian democracy, a democracy inwhich the weight of one’s vote is the same whether you’re young or old, rich or poor, and regardless of race. No right is more fundamental to American citizenship than the right to vote. Yet if voting is a right for all eligible citizens, then it should not have to be earned, and re-earned, over and over again. This is exactly what Florida risks, however, with Gov. Rick Scott’s renewed call for categorically removing alleged noncitizens from its voter rolls. Secretary of State Ken Detzner is creating a new list of suspected noncitizen voters by cross-checking the Department of Homeland Security System Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) database with the state voter data. Given the long lines of citizens waiting to vote, Florida officials should know by now that voting is taken very seriously here. Yet this renewed call for another purge of alleged noncitizens shows the rest of the country that Florida is where rights become privileges.

Florida: Gov. Rick Scott delivers mea culpa on voter purge | Miami Herald

In a rare display of contrition coming to a Florida city near you, Gov. Rick Scott’s administration is acknowledging what civil rights groups and local elections officials had already been saying: Last year’s attempted purge of noncitizens from voter rolls was fundamentally flawed. “I accept responsibility for the effort,” Scott’s secretary of state, Ken Detzner, told the Herald/Times. “It could have been better. It should have been better.” Detzner, who serves as Scott’s top elections official, is repeating the mea culpa during a five-day road tour that concludes this week in Orlando, Sarasota and Fort Lauderdale. The apology is part of a sales pitch to the public and supervisors of elections that a second attempt to remove noncitizens from voter rolls, “Project Integrity”, will be better. “We learned from the mistakes we made,” Detzner said. “We won’t make the same mistakes.” But forgiveness is hardly automatic. While encouraged that the admission was made, some said they are hesitant to trust state officials.

Florida: Democrats say Scott’s latest voter purge driven by politics | Miami Herald

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Florida Democratic Party Chair Allison Tant said it was pure politics that was driving Gov. Rick Scott to push for a second purge of non-citizens from voter rolls. “What I say to Rick Scott is if your victory depends on a voter purge, then you’re not fit to govern and you don’t deserve a second term,” Wasserman Schultz said. “This is all about suppressing minority voters and shows how out of touch he is,” Tant said. The comments were made during a Thursday morning conference call with reporters about two hours before Scott’s Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, held the first of five public meetings with supervisors of elections and voters from around the state to discuss how the next purge will be conducted. A first attempt to remove non-citizens last year was impaired by faulty data that disqualified some eligible voters while identifying few actual non-citizens. The state’s list of suspected non-citizens shrank from 182,000 to 198 before supervisors suspended their searches, blaming shoddy data.

Florida: Detzner on next voter purge: “We won’t make the same mistakes” | Tampa Bay Times

Over the next week, Secretary of State Ken Detzner will visit five Florida cities to discuss a second attempt to purge non-citizens from voter rolls without repeating the mistakes from the first try. “I accept responsibility for that effort,” Detzner said. “It could have been better. It should have been better. We learned from the mistakes that we made. We won’t make the same mistakes.” Starting with a round table Thursday in Panama City, Detzner will try to convince Florida’s supervisors of elections that this time, the Division of Elections will get it right. An attempt made last year before the elections was marred by errors and led to lawsuits by civil rights groups that said the purge disproportionately targeted Hispanics, Haitians and other minority groups. “It was sloppy, it was slapdash, and it was inaccurate,” said Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards.

Florida: Scott’s Voter Purge Part II hits the road in October | Miami Herald

Gov. Rick Scott promised that he would once again hunt for non-citizens on state voter rolls, and on Wednesday afternoon, his top elections officials released public details about taking the first steps toward another pruning effort. Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced in a statement that he would begin a roundtable discussion with the state’s 67 supervisor of elections in a series of five public meetings across the state in October. (Sorry Tampa Bay and Miami-Dade, the closest meetings are in Sarasota and Ft. Lauderdale.) Called “Project Integrity”, the meetings will be an opportunity for Detzner to hear from supervisors about how to conduct another purge. “I am embarking on the Project Integrity roundtable tour to collaborate with Supervisors to protect the integrity of our voter rolls,” Detzner said in the statement. He’s creating a new list of suspected noncitizen voters by cross-checking state voter data with a federal database managed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Florida: Supervisors wary of a new voter purge | Florida Today

Secretary of State Ken Detzner will take his pitch for a revived voter scrub on the road next month, but supervisors of elections and voting-rights advocates remain skeptical. Detzner’s office announced this week that he would meet with supervisors in five cities to get their input into another attempt to identify and remove non-citizens from the voting rolls. “Through transparency and the statutory due-process protection afforded to every voter, we can ensure the continued integrity of our voter rolls while protecting the voting rights of eligible voters from those who may cast an illegal vote,” Detzner said in a press release announcing the “Project Integrity Roundtable Tour” of five cities beginning Oct. 3. But despite the spin put on “Project Integrity” by Detzner’s office, his announcement immediately drew fire from Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley, who tweeted: “There is no greater ‘voter advocate’ or ‘voter roll integrity advocate’ than a Supervisor of Elections!”

Florida: Election chief wants support for voter purge | Associated Press

Florida’s top election official, stung by criticism that the state previously relied on flawed data, wants to win support from skeptical election supervisors about a coming effort to remove non-U.S. citizens from the state’s voter rolls. Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Wednesday that he will hold five meetings with county election officials in October on what he’s calling a “Project Integrity Tour.” Some critics have charged that Florida’s voter purge is an effort by Republicans to intimidate naturalized citizens who are likely minorities. But Detzner made it clear in a statement that Florida has no plans to back away from its already announced plans to identify potential non-U.S. citizens and remove them. This time around, though, state officials want to discuss the process they will use prior to distributing any lists of potentially ineligible voters to county officials. County election supervisors are the only ones with power to remove a voter. “We can ensure the continued integrity of our voter rolls while protecting the voting rights of eligible voters from those who may cast an illegal vote,” Detzner said. “Our elections process must uphold the integrity of local voter rolls.”

Editorials: Latest Florida voter purge scheme threatens immigrants’ voting rights | Facing South

It seems Florida just can’t resist the urge to purge. Last year, Gov. Rick Scott (R) went toe to toe with the federal government and civil rights groups for the power to needle thousands of Floridians — mostly Latinos — about their citizenship under the threat of voter roll expulsion. Scott lost that battle thanks in part to the Voting Rights Act. But not long after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelby v. Holder that the VRA coverage formula was unconstitutional, Scott began planning how to reinstate his purge program. This week, Floridians of color are speaking out against those purge plans as a class of people who are most likely to be challenged by the Florida government about their citizenship. The Florida organizations LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Florida New Majority and the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, along with the national civil rights organization Advancement Project*, are speaking out against Scott’s plans and calling for county elections supervisors to reject the call to interrogate those the state has determined as possible “non-citizens.” The groups fear that Scott’s revived list maintenance scheme may unduly burden new naturalized citizens, most of whom are Latino and Haitians.

Editorials: Florida leaders wasted time on phantom voter fraud | Orlando Sentinel

It’s time to face reality: There’s no significant problem with voter fraud in Florida. If it did exist, highly trained investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would’ve been able to find it. Late last month, the law-enforcement agency quietly closed two high-profile cases, having found no fraud of any significance. Only one arrest was made. While other cases are pending, there’s nothing to suggest the epidemic of voter fraud hyped by Gov. Rick Scott and Republican lawmakers in advance of the 2012 presidential election. They played on fears at the time to pass a law that reduced early voting days from 14 to eight and restricted voter-registration drives. Both changes made voting harder — especially on groups likely to back Democrats. After Florida was embarrassed by hours-long lines on Election Day, some of those “reforms” were undone in last spring’s legislative session.

Editorials: What voting fraud problem? | South Florida Sun Sentinel

It’s time to face reality: there’s no significant problem with voter fraud in Florida. If it does exist, highly trained investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have been unable to find it. Late last month, the law enforcement agency quietly closed two high-profile cases, having found no fraud of any significance. The first case involved a group called Florida New Majority Education Fund, which sought to sign up voters in under-represented groups that tend to vote for Democrats. In this case, no arrests were made. The second case involved Strategic Allied Consulting, a vendor for the Republican Party of Florida. In this case, one arrest was made. A man admitted to stealing the identify of a former girlfriend’s ex-husband and filling out two false registration forms. While other cases are pending, there’s nothing to suggest the epidemic of voter fraud trumpeted by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature in advance of the 2012 presidential election.

Florida: Voter fraud investigations come up empty again | Miami Herald

The looming potential for fraud in the 2012 Presidential Election was how Republicans justified strict measures in Florida that made it tougher to register voters. So nine months after the ballots have been counted, where exactly are the culprits of voter registration fraud? Keep looking because the the Florida Department of Law Enforcement hasn’t found them yet. On Friday, the agency released the results of two more cases involving allegations of voter registration fraud. In a probe of the Florida New Majority Education Fund, which aims to increase voter registration among under-represented groups, the FDLE concluded it could make no arrests. In a second probe, involving Strategic Allied Consulting, a vendor for the Republican Party of Florida, an arrest was made of a man who stole the identity of a former girlfriend’s ex-husband. He admitted to fraudulently filling out two voter registration forms. And that was it. Read report here.

Florida: Scott Takes Political Gamble With Renewed Voter Purge | Businessweek

Republican Governor Rick Scott is restarting his high-profile purge of suspected noncitizens from Florida’s voting rolls in a move to appeal to core supporters that risks losing the backing of key swaths of the electorate. Scott, seizing on the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a main element of the Voting Rights Act, has revived one of his administration’s most contentious missions: rooting out noncitizens from Florida’s list of 11.8 million voters. While the move to fight fraud may burnish Scott’s appeal to Republicans, strategists say, it risks reviving memories of polling-place snafus in 2012 and alienating the state’s growing Hispanic population. The purge, which began before the 2012 election, stalled when several U.S. citizens were targeted and a Latino-advocacy group sued, claiming discrimination.

Florida: Florida is already making it harder to vote, thanks to the Supreme Court | The Week

In June, the Supreme Court struck down a central piece of the Voting Rights Act, a move that Democrats warned would lead to a resurgence of restrictive, state-level voting laws. And indeed, since that ruling, a handful of Republican-led states have already renewed such efforts. As a quick refresher, the court nixed Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which established a formula to determine which jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination had to get “preclearance” from the Department of Justice before revising their voting laws. The DOJ still has that preclearance power, but without Section 4, that power is largely toothless. In response, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) this week asked state officials to resume scrubbing “noncitizens” from the state’s voting rolls. Scott launched that effort before the 2012 election, but his plan was held up by legal challenges from critics who claimed it was a blatantly partisan attempt to purge poor and minority voters, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic. “Governor Scott seemingly is bent on suppressing the vote in Florida, with his latest move coming as an unfortunate result of the recent Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act,” Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D) said.

Florida: Ruling Revives Florida Review of Voting Rolls | New York Times

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, newly empowered by the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in June that struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, has ordered state officials to resume a fiercely contested effort to remove noncitizens from voting rolls. The program, which was put in place before the 2012 election, became mired in lawsuits and relentless criticism from opponents who viewed it as harassment and worse — a partisan attack by a Republican governor on Hispanic and Democratic voters. In a federal lawsuit filed last year in Tampa, an immigrants’ voting-rights group charged that the attempt to scrub the voter rolls disproportionately affected minority voters and that the state had failed to get Justice Department clearance as required under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.