After a court battle lasting more than two years, 31 Florida counties will now provide Spanish language voter information and ballots, including mail-in ballots and instructions, CNN reports.
The lawsuit, brought by voting rights and immigration advocates, alleged that the counties were effectively running English-only elections, a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which states Americans who were raised in schools where Spanish was the dominant language cannot be deprived the right to vote due to a language barrier.
Florida has a number of native Spanish speakers, which increased as people fled Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
“The right to vote is an empty right if you can’t vote in a language you understand and we are very pleased with the settlement that was reached,” said Stuart Naifeh, an attorney with voters’ rights group Demos, which represented the plaintiffs.
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. Charlotte County was also a defendant in the lawsuit, but it refused to join the settlement.