Judge blocks parts of Florida's sweeping election law

July 4 (UPI) -- In a strongly worded repudiation of legislative efforts to constrain voting in Florida, a federal judge has blocked provisions of the state's sweeping new election law, ruling that they are unconstitutional.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker sided Monday with voting and immigrant rights advocates who had asked the court for a preliminary injunction against Florida's Senate Bill 7050 on the grounds that it unconstitutionally chills political speech and diminishes efforts to encourage civic engagement and democratic participation.

"Florida may, of course, regulate elections, including the voter-registration process. Here, however, the challenged provisions exemplify something Florida has struggled with in recent years; namely, governing within the bounds set by the United States Constitution," Walker said in his 58-page ruling.

"When state government power threatens to spread beyond constitutional bounds and reduce individual rights to ashes, the federal judiciary stands as a firewall. The Free State of Florida is simply not free to exceed the bounds of the United States Constitution."

S.B. 7050 was signed into law late May by Florida's Republican governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis after it passed both the state Senate and House along party lines a month prior.

The bill imposes restrictions targeting third-party voter-registration organizations, such as limiting when and what kind of work they can do and who can work for them under threat of hefty fines. The bill and its passing attracted condemnation and a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the Hispanic Federation and others.

The litigation focused on two provisions of the law: One that would impose a $50,000 fine on third-party voter-registration organizations for each noncitizen who collects or handles voter-registration applications on their behalf. And the other would make it a felony for a person collecting voter-registration applications on behalf of a third-party group to copy a voter's application or retain a voter's personal information, including the voter's Florida driver's license number.

In his ruling Monday, Walker said the first provision violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as it discriminates based on alienage. Concerning the second provision, he ruled that it is too vague and that it is unclear whom it specifically applies to as a possible reading of the law could mean anyone who works for a voter-registration organization who has collected applications could be prohibited from retaining certain information.

"The statute's text is so devoid of meaning that it cannot possibly give people of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what information they are allowed to retain and for what purposes they may do so," Walker wrote in the ruling.

In the court document, Walker added that this case before him arose from "Florida's latest assault on the right to vote" and that while the state is correct to seek integrity in its electoral system, its solutions "are too far removed from the problems it has put forward as justifications."

"Such shoddy tailoring between restriction and government interest presents a dubious fit under rational basis review, and it falls woefully short of satisfying the strict scrutiny this Court must apply," he said.

"And a provision as vague as the information retention ban ... can serve no end but arbitrary punishment."

The ACLU of Florida said that while this ruling is a step in the right direction it has more work ahead.

"People in our communities, including noncitizens, work tirelessly to assist in voter-registration efforts to empower Floridians to vote on issues that impact their daily lives," Daniel Tilley, legal director at the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement Monday.

"We applaud the court's decision, but we must ensure this harmful law is struck down altogether."