Rick Scott's Early Voting Law Would Suppress Black Votes, Federal Court Rules

Also read "New Voting Laws Could Take Out Obama This Fall."

It's becoming a regular morning routine for Floridians: Roll out of bed, sip a cafecito, open the paper to read about the latest bananas Rick Scott law getting tossed out by a federal court. This morning's edition comes courtesy the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which ruled late last night that Scott's changes to early voting laws would dramatically reduce the number of black voters participating in the election.

To which Scott replied, "Yeah, that was kind of the point, guys."

The legislature, backed by Scott, passed new restrictions on early voting this year, including a measure outlawing voting on the Sunday before elections.

That Sunday just happens to be the very day that black churches all over the South vote en masse -- usually for Democrats. A brilliantly diabolical plan to win Florida for Romney this November, right?

Unfortunately for Scott, Florida's voting changes are still subject to federal review due to that whole ugly "Jim Crow" history down these ways.

And the D.C. Appeals Court was not amused by the new changes, which they found would unquestionably suppress minority votes.

"(It's) a common-sense judgment that a dramatic reduction in the form of voting that is disproportionately used by African-Americans would make it materially more difficult for some minority voters to cast a ballot," the three-judge panel wrote in its opinion.

Other parts of Scott's drastic change to voter registration had already been struck down by another federal court.

So it looks more and more like Romney and company may actually have to -- gulp -- win Florida based on their merits and not on suppressing the minority vote.

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