“I am extremely disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling,”
Hastings said. “They have put at risk the right to vote for millions of
Americans. For decades, the Voting
Rights Act has stood as an essential safeguard against racial discrimination in
our political system. Unfortunately,
voter suppression and discrimination still exist at the polls, and today’s
announcement undermines our nation’s efforts to create an open and transparent
electoral process for all.”
Section 4 established standards to determine which states
must seek federal government approval in order to change their voting procedures.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that the standards are unconstitutional. Chief
Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy,
Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito made up the majority. Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan all dissented.
Brown said that Florida’s recent election history proved
that Section 4 wasn’t out-of-date as the Supreme Court claimed.
“Let us recall what took place in my home state during the
elections in 2000,” Brown said. “27,000 ballots were discarded, simply thrown
out in my congressional district (Florida’s third at the time) because of
faulty voting machines. And it should come as no surprise that these machines were
placed in precincts in African American neighborhoods (7,8,9 and 10).”
Brown added: “In addition, during the 2000 elections,
Florida Governor Jeb Bush had spent $4 million of taxpayer money to purge a
list of approximately 40,000 suspected felons from the voter rolls across the
state, giving zero consideration to the accuracy of the list. Later press
reports, supported by senior staff e-mails from within the Florida Department
of State, revealed that many of those removed from the list were, in fact,
eligible voters, who were wrongfully removed and subsequently, denied their
lawful right to vote.”
According to Brown, current Gov. Rick Scott is continuing in
the direction that Bush set.
“In 2011, Florida Governor Rick Scott implemented HB 1355,
which eliminated early voting on the last Sunday before Election Day, and also
decreased the number of early voting days from 14 to 8,” Brown said. “These
restrictions were significant contributing factors as to why many Florida
voters had to wait in line for three to four hours or more simply to cast a
vote on Election Day. There is ample
evidence demonstrating that African Americans and Hispanics vote on Sundays in far
greater numbers than whites. In fact, statistics show that in the 2008 general election
in Florida, 33.2 percent of those who voted early on the last Sunday before
Election Day were African American, while 23.6 percent were Hispanic.”