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A federal judge has temporarily halted Florida from enforcing a two-year-old law that requires election supervisors to verify a would-be voter’s identity.  Voter registration applications require a driver’s license or the last four digits of someone’s social security number.  A coalition of voter’s rights groups, including the NAACP and other minority groups, sued.  They argued that the law disproportionately disenfranchised about 14,000 voters, many of whom used two last names, which is common among Hispanics and Haitians.

“Whoever created this database obviously had no connection to the Hispanic community, because they wouldn’t have created this kind of a problem if they were aware of this exact match became a vehicle, really, to not match people instead of to match people,” said Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho.

Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said the state plans to appeal the ruling.