Federal District Judge Mark Walker has effectively ended efforts by voting rights groups to overturn parts of a 2021 Florida election law after an appeals court rejected Walker’s previous decision concluding the law violated the rights of Black voters.
Walker handed down the decision Feb. 8 in a case filed by the League of Women Voters of Florida against the state’s secretary of state. In the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Florida, the court found that the plaintiffs had not proved that provisions placing restrictions on drop boxes and third-party voter-registration organizations were unconstitutional.
Third party groups offer to deliver and turn over voters’ registration materials to election officials.
“When this court balances the burdens and interests at stake, the court finds that plaintiffs have not met their burden to prove the drop-box restrictions or the registration-delivery requirements unduly burden their First and 14th Amendment rights,” Walker said in his opinion.
But his decision also makes clear that Walker was not in sync with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2023 opinion reversing the judge’s initial ruling in the case or the appeals court’s decision to engage in its own fact finding. That fact finding included the conclusion that state lawmakers were reacting to past evidence of substantial voter fraud when they approved the election reforms in Senate Bill 90.
“In this case, the 11th Circuit was not so precise,” Walker said in his opinion. “Moreover, the court engaged in its own fact finding rather than remand with directions for further fact finding at the trial level. … But here, this court is faced with a blend of legal conclusions and new ‘factual findings,’ and it is unclear how this blended appellate ruling binds this court going forward.”
One group that has criticized the passage of SB 90 is LatinoJustice PRLDEF, formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. LatinoJustice characterized the law as an attack on efforts to build political power among voters of color and criticized the 11th Circuit for not dealing with barriers limiting the disenfranchised communities from voting.
But in a statement emailed to the Florida Record, LatinoJustice indicated that the court did give voting rights groups some favorable actions on some of the law’s more onerous provisions.
“Banning poll workers from giving food or drink to voters in line was found to be unconstitutionally vague in violation of the First Amendment … making it unenforceable,” Cesar Ruiz, associate counsel at LatinoJustice, said. “Also, the statewide disclaimer was rescinded, and third-party voters … do not have to give a mandatory disclaimer (explaining with alternative registration delivery options). We will continue the fight to make the vote in Florida and elsewhere accessible and fair for all."
Walker’s latest ruling made distinctions between restrictions making it harder to vote and “an absolute deprivation” like mismatched ballot signatures.
“The appellate court's factual finding that the state articulated legitimate and weighty concerns for the passage of the drop-box restrictions, coupled with the relatively modest burden the drop-box restrictions impose upon after-hours drop-box voters, means (the) plaintiffs have failed to prove that the drop-box restrictions unduly burden their First and 14th Amendment rights,” Walker wrote.
Florida state officials are now using statements in the judge’s Feb. 8 opinion in a bid to get Walker to recuse himself in another case involving a 2023 state election law, arguing that Walker “appears to have a closed mind.”