A federal judge denied attempts by Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd and other Florida election supervisors to keep the Justice Department from getting involved in a lawsuit regarding the state’s voting laws.
Judge Allen Winsor in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida ruled against the defendants’ motion to dismiss a “statement of interest” by the DOJ.
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Winsor, instead, allowed the defendants to respond to the statement of interest by July 29. Lawyers for Byrd and the other parties had offered this as an alternative to their motion to strike the DOJ’s statement of interest.
In the motion requesting the DOJ’s filing be stricken, the defendants argued that the DOJ did not have a right to insert itself into the case no matter what its interests are.
“Neither the local rules nor Section 517 permits the United States to do whatever it believes ‘the interests of the United States’ require. It cannot file briefs or motions, introduce evidence, examine witnesses, or initiate appeals whenever it pleases – no matter what ‘the interests of the United States’ dictate. Under its authority to ensure an orderly proceeding conducted in compliance with the rules, this Court should strike the filing,” the filing from the defendants said.
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The lawsuit, brought by Vote.org, the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, and Florida State Conference of Branches and Youth Units of the NAACP, seeks to throw out requirements for certain people to physically sign their name with a pen on a paper when registering to vote in the Sunshine State.
The defendants are seeking to have the case thrown out due to a lack of jurisdiction and a failure to state a claim in the lawsuit.
