Florida elections law draws criticism
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09/17/07
Mitch E. Perry
WMNF Evening News Monday Listen to this entire show:
The NAACP and other groups claimed in a federal lawsuit today that thousands of legitimate voters were prevented from registering to cast ballots in Florida because of a state law that should be thrown out.
The law prevents residents from signing up to vote if the driver's license or Social Security information in state databases does not match what is on the registration form. The groups who sued said state databases contain numerous errors.
Justin Levitt is counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of law. His group is one of several involved in the case.
The lawsuit claims that more than 20,000 people had their voter registration either slowed down or denied because of difficulties in matching registration data with information in Florida in 2006.
The NAACP and the other groups are asking a judge to prevent the law from being enforced and to do so by the end of the year because Dec. 31 is the registration deadline for the 2008 presidential primary.
