New Florida laws that place harsh restrictions on third-party voter registration groups and limit the early voting period may have been passed with a discriminatory intent, lawyers with the Justice Department\u2019s Civil Rights Division suggested in a court filing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
DOJ told the court that the federal government\u2019s position was that Florida \u201chas not met its burden of proof\u201d in demonstrating that \u201cthe proposed voting changes neither have the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.\u201d It singled out the provisions of Florida\u2019s new voting law that place restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, shorten the early voting period and make voters who move to a different county cast provisional ballots.<\/p>\n
Several counties in Florida are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states with a history of racial discrimination to have changes to their election laws precleared by the Justice Department or a panel of judges in D.C.<\/p>\n