A lawsuit against Florida’s efforts to remove suspected non-citizens from the voting rolls has been dismissed following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to throw out a key part of the federal Voting Rights Act.
The lawsuit, filed by voting-rights groups and two citizens, argued that the state should have waited to begin the purge until it first won “preclearance” of the change from the U.S. Department of Justice under a provision of the Voting Rights Act requiring state or local governments with histories of racial discrimination to get approval for major voting changes.
The Supreme Court ruled last month that the formula used to select states for “preclearance” was antiquated and unconstitutional. The decision by a three-judge federal panel Wednesday to dismiss the case followed a request from both Secretary of State Ken Detzner and the groups challenging the purge.
Read more here.
