U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether new voting laws passed by Florida and several other states this year, are the result of a coordinated effort to suppress voter turnout among millions of minorities, seniors and young people in next year’s presidential election.
In a letter dated November 3, to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., Nelson asked the feds “to determine whether nor not there was a broad-based motivation to suppress the vote – and, if so, whether any laws were violated.”
The Justice Department is already reviewing whether Florida’s new voting law violates peoples’ civil rights in five counties that were previously found to be out of compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act. But Nelson wants a broader probe across state lines into any possible machination leading to the various new limits on people’s access to the ballot box, implemented in more than a dozen states.
“These voting changes could make it significantly harder for an estimated five-million eligible voters in numerous states to cast their ballots in 2012,” wrote Nelson, citing a recent study by The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
In Florida, the new voting law makes it harder for people who move to stay registered to vote, cuts by half the early voting period and restricts voter registration drives. The non-partisan League of Women Voters said earlier this year, it was abandoning its voter registration drives after 72 years, citing the penalties for even unwitting mistakes or violations of the state’s new voting law.
Late last month, Nelson called on Governor Rick Scott to rewrite the new Florida election law and undo the changes, making it a top priority when lawmakers go into session in January.
On Wednesday, while making no promises, House Speaker Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park) said, there is at least a possibility that lawmakers may revisit the controversial set of election laws, passed by the Florida Legislature earlier this year.
Nelson has also asked a Senate Panel to conduct a congressional investigation of Florida’s new election law to determine whether it is linked to other efforts to pass similar voting restricting in 14 other states so far this year.
