After years of violating the federal Voting Rights Act by providing English-only election ballots, thus denying voting rights to Puerto Ricans who attended schools where the predominant classroom language was not English, 32 of Florida’s 67 counties will now provide official election materials in Spanish.
The change did not come about because leaders of the counties were suddenly hit with pangs of social conscience. It happened because Faith in Florida, the faith- based social justice organization where I serve as deputy director, and others went to court to force the counties to comply with the law. We are now working to make sure that the new rules being written by the Florida secretary of state comply with the Voting Rights Act.
