Florida challenges federal voting rights law

[JURIST] Florida submitted a request to the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] Tuesday seeking declaratory judgments regarding recently-enacted changes to the state’s Election Code [materials, PDF], four sections of which require Section 5 [DOJ backgrounder] "preclearance" under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) [materials]. Relying heavily on patterns of past discrimination to determine which state, county and local governments must obtain preclearance for election changes, the Section 5 rules require covered jurisdictions to clear…