FLORIDA (SNN TV) – An appeals court upholds Florida’s 2021 election law, overturning a lower court ruling.
The law imposed new restrictions on mail-in voting, voter registration groups, and banned people from giving snacks and drinks to people in line to vote. A U.S. district judge had ruled in 2022 that the law was intentionally designed to discriminate against black voters. But a Thursday ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling relied on “fatally flawed” analyses and doesn’t follow “our precedents.”
Voting rights groups say the appeals court “assisted Florida Republicans in silencing Black and Brown Floridians.”
The chief judge who upheld the law, William Pryor, was appointed by George W Bush. He faced criticism during his confirmation when it was brought up that he filed a brief in 2003 to uphold a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime. He was confirmed to the 11th Circuit in a 53-45 vote.
He was floated on a list by then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016 to fill the vacancy left on the Supreme Court by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
