{mosads}The purge drew the ire of civil liberties and Hispanic advocacy groups, who say it disenfranchises Hispanic voters.
The purge was halted when a Hispanic civic organization and two naturalized citizens filed a lawsuit to block the practice. They argued that, under the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act, the purge had to be cleared by federal authorities before it could go forward.
But the Supreme Court struck down the preclearance requirement earlier this year, paving the way for the purge to go forward.
Florida officials began last year comparing driver’s licenses with voter registration data and produced a list of 180,000 voters who potentially lacked citizenship.
That list was ultimately pared down to more than 2,600 registered voters due to be removed from the voter rolls, but after the accuracy of the list was questioned, many county officials didn’t move forward to withdraw the names.
Ultimately, the list was cross-checked with a federal immigration database, which further limited the names to nearly 200, some of whom did admit they weren’t U.S. citizens.