Judge ready to weigh elections law - WPEC

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (News Service of Florida) — After more than two weeks of testimony in a case that’s drawn national attention, a federal judge is poised to decide the fate of a sweeping state elections law that plaintiffs maintain was designed to make it harder for Black and Hispanic voters to cast ballots in Florida.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker will weigh more than 1,600 exhibits, tens of thousands of pages of documents and testimony by dozens of witnesses in combined lawsuits that challenged a 2021 law imposing new restrictions on mail-in voting and third-party voter registration organizations.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers pushed the election-law changes after former President Donald Trump and his supporters hammered on unfounded allegations of widespread fraud in Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The law passed after DeSantis and other Republican officials praised the relatively smooth election in Florida, which Trump won by a comfortable margin.

The law also came after the number of Black and Hispanic Floridians who voted by mail doubled amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The 2021 legislation (SB 90) included restricting election supervisors’ use of drop boxes; requiring voters to request mail-in ballots more frequently; and forcing third-party groups to provide a disclaimer informing potential voters that their applications may not be turned in within a 14-day window imposed by the law.

The League of Women Voters of Florida and a number of Black and Hispanic advocacy groups filed lawsuits challenging the measure, alleging that it was the state’s latest effort to restrict minority voters from accessing the ballot. Walker began a trial Jan. 31 and finished hearing testimony Wednesday.

The plaintiffs’ case included testimony from myriad voting experts who detailed the post-Reconstruction history of Florida lawmakers’ efforts to make it harder for Black people to vote and from elections officials who argued that the changes would have a disproportionately negative impact on minority voters and voters with disabilities. Plaintiffs’ witnesses also included legislators, state and local elections officials and university professors.

Defendants, who include Secretary of State Laurel Lee, county supervisors of elections and national Republican organizations, maintained that the law wasn’t intentionally discriminatory because it applies to voters of all races.

The state’s lawyers also disputed plaintiffs’ arguments that the measure was rushed through during the 2021 legislative session, and they relied on a lobbyist for the Florida Elections Supervisors association to discount allegations that county officials’ input was ignored in crafting the bill.

Lobbyist David Ramba testified last week that, although supervisors opposed some parts of the legislation, they did not ask DeSantis to veto the bill.

“There’s a big difference between opposing a bill, asking for a veto and not supporting something,” Ramba said, suggesting that supervisors wanted “to continue our good working relationship” with the Legislature.

“It’s not a real good idea to, if you were a farmer, use your silo as the outhouse,” Walker told Ramba. “So is it fair to say, when we start talking about the distinction between asking for a veto and slamming it versus not supporting it, part of that calculation is you can’t offend the very people that, I don’t know, do things like include a $25,000 penalty if you screw up with the drop boxes?”

Supervisors widely used drop boxes in 2020 amid the pandemic as a way for people to drop off completed vote-by-mail ballots. Under the law, supervisors who violate new restrictions face a $25,000 penalty.

The law also required voters to request mail-in ballots each election cycle, rather than every four years as was previously allowed, and imposed new restrictions on third-party groups engaged in voter registration.

University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith, a plaintiffs’ witness, said his research showed that Black and Hispanic voters are five times more likely to register to vote through third-party organizations. Black voters also doubled their use of mail-in ballots in 2020, according to research offered by plaintiffs.

While plaintiffs’ attorneys tried to demonstrate that lawmakers were aware of the voting-related racial disparities the new law carried, lawyers for the state and the national Republican groups disputed that legislators intentionally targeted Black and Hispanic voters.

“Would you agree with me that Senate Bill 90 applies to all Floridians, regardless of ethnicity?” Mohammad Jazil, who represents Lee, asked University of Florida political science professor Sharon Austin.

“Yes, sir,” Austin said.

As the plaintiffs laid out their case, Walker at times appeared skeptical of the argument that the law was designed expressly to target people of color.

“Rather than discriminatory intent when there’s no substantial evidence of fraud as a justification, isn’t it just as easily the justification that the law was passed to keep the former president happy? And what am I as a fact finder to do when I’m looking at the context and the surrounding facts to pick and choose between the nefarious racial or pernicious racial intent versus, it’s done to keep a political figure happy?” Walker probed.

Lawyers for plaintiffs and defendants wrangled over documents, witnesses and experts.

For example, defendants fought to introduce a Miami-Dade County grand jury report from 2012 that included legislative recommendations to combat absentee-ballot fraud in the region. Walker on Wednesday said the report could be submitted for limited purposes.

Plaintiffs attorneys, meanwhile, tried to include a decade-old statement by then-Sen. Mike Bennett, a Bradenton Republican who is now the supervisor of elections in Manatee County.

Debating a 2011 bill that did away with voting on the Sunday before Election Day – a day that African-American churches use to galvanize voters – Bennett raised the issue of voting practices in Africa.

“The people in the desert, who literally walk two (hundred) and three hundred miles so they can have the opportunity to do what we do, and we want to make it more convenient? This is a hard-fought privilege. This is something people die for,” Bennett, a Vietnam War veteran, said. “Why would we make it any easier? I want them to fight for it. I want them to know what it’s like. I want them to go down there and have to walk across town to go over and vote.”

Walker on Wednesday ruled that Bennett’s statement was “marginally relevant as it relates to the historical background considerations that factor into several of the plaintiffs’ claims” and said he would consider it “for that purpose only.”

Walker repeatedly rebuked attorneys on both sides, berating them for what he called “lazy” work and chiding them for making the case drag out longer than necessary.

Walker on Wednesday snapped at a lawyer representing the Republican National Committee who began to question one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys as he was going over final documents being submitted to the court.

“I don’t know where everybody went to law school, but a court proceeding is not for two lawyers to have a dialogue,” Walker groused. “It is incredibly grossly disrespectful for a lawyer to act like a judge isn’t present and just to start chatting about things. Don’t ever again conduct yourself in my courtroom that way. It’s rude, and it’s offensive.”

source: https://cbs12.com/news/local/judge-ready-weigh-elections-law-florida-mark-walker

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