The Justice Department has signed off on Florida’s plan to implement an early voting schedule that would keep the polls open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. over an eight-day period that ends three days before the election. DOJ said in a court filing on Wednesday evening that it would not object so long as each of the five counties covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act were required to keep those hours.
A panel of federal judges ruled last month that Florida’s plan to limit the number of mandatory early voting days could not be implemented because it would have an adverse impact on minority turnout. DOJ said the newly proposed hours “would provide for 12 hours of early voting on Sunday that were not previously offered, and it would more than double early voting opportunities on weekends by increasing weekend hours from 16 hours total to 36 hours during the early voting period.”
