Today, Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning announced that the Justice Department approved part of a controversial new election law that is being challenged by Project Vote and the ACLU. The critical portions of the bill relating to restrictions on early voting and voter registration drives remain in question.
Browning took the most controversial elements of the law to a federal court in Washington D.C. instead of the Justice Department, a move that he claims was to avoid “outside influence” at the hefty expense of taxpayers.
“They will spend whatever it takes to suppress the vote in Florida,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida in an August 1 Associated Press report. “With the Aug. 8 decision looming, Rick Scott and Kurt Browning clearly thought they were going to lose so they’ve resorted to these last-second legal shenanigans.”
“Browning said in the press release Tuesday that the three-judge panel that will hear that request hasn’t been formed yet but the department expects to have an answer in advance of the presidential preference primary — a date that lawmakers still haven’t set,” according to Aaron Deslatte at the Orlando Sentinel blog, Central Florida Political Pulse.