Chief Judge for the Northern District of Florida, Mark Eaton Walker, ordered 32 counties in Florida to also provide ballots in Spanish by the year 2020.
“Compliance with this Order is not optional,” the Obama appointee wrote in a Friday ruling.
Fox News reported:
Judge Walker noted that Section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act “prohibits English-only elections for those citizens — yes, citizens — educated in
Puerto Rico in Spanish.” (emphasis in original) Therefore, he ordered that the 32 counties in question must provide voters with ballots in Spanish starting with Florida’s primary election scheduled for March 17, 2020.This order follows a previous injunction in the case, which stated the counties must provide sample ballots in Spanish for the November 2018 election. Walker’s latest order called for similar sample ballots should there be any election between now and the March 2020 primary.
“Compliance with this order is not optional,” Walker wrote. “While the vast majority of supervisors of election are upstanding professionals who follow the law and court orders, do difficult but necessary work under tight timelines, and are often subjects of multiple bouts of litigation, there may be some who selectively interpret parts of this court’s orders or otherwise avoid compliance. This court will not hesitate to use every tool the law provides to enforce this order.”
Donald Trump won Florida, a large swing state with 29 electoral votes in 2016 and since then, the Democrats have been fiercely working to turn the state blue by any means necessary.
