A coalition of voting rights organizations that claim Florida’s new voting law “racially discriminates” against Black and Latino voters filed a lawsuit in federal court.
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The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida suspended all in-person interviews in March in deference to health concerns arising from the global pandemic. At the same time, however, the program launched the Pandemic Oral History Project as a virtual research initiative in order to offer working-class people, elders and students in the Gulf South the opportunity to tell their own stories of survival, civic engagement and labor on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19.
As national health experts have demonstrated, African American and Hispanic communities have been grievously impacted by the global pandemic. The Pandemic Oral History Project spotlights community leaders serving racial and ethnic groups whose vulnerability to the newest coronavirus is exacerbated by histories of barriers to equal citizenship and lack of political representation.
Under the settlement, 31 counties will be required to provide more robust assistance, including Spanish versions of their mail-in ballots and secrecy envelopes for all of their elections, Spanish translations on their elections websites, Spanish signs and a hotline to assist Spanish-speakers if bilingual staff members are not available, said Kira Romero-Craft, an attorney at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, which is one of the groups behind the lawsuit.
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Those counties are: Alachua, Bay, Brevard, Citrus, Clay, Columbia, Duval, Escambia, Flagler, Hernando, Highlands, Indian River, Jackson, Lake, Leon, Levy, Manatee, Marion, Martin, Monroe, Okaloosa, Okeechobee, Pasco, Putnam, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Santa Rosa, Sarasota, Sumter, Taylor, and Wakulla. The county of Charlotte, which was named in the lawsuit, did not join the settlement.
Press release Voting Rights Advocates Secure Spanish-Language Voting Materials in Settlement of Case on Behalf of Puerto Rican Voters Living in Florida
February 2, 2021 By ensuring that voters with limited English proficiency can access ballots, vote-by-mail requests, and other materials in Spanish, today’s settlement is one more positive step in the pursuit of a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy.”
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Today, voting rights advocates entered into a 10-year agreement with 31 Florida county supervisors of elections to help ensure Spanish-dominant voters educated in Puerto Rico can vote effectively.
The settlement is a result of the August 2018 lawsuit by civic engagement groups Faith in Florida, Hispanic Federation, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, UnidosUS, and Vamos4PR, and individual Marta Rivera Madera, a Puerto Rican, Spanish-speaking voter living in Alachua County.The plaintiffs are represented by LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Demos, SEIU and Altshuler