Election supervisors in 32 Florida counties say it's an "impossibility" to produce ballots and other voting materials in Spanish for the November general election.
They will face off in a Tallahassee courtroom Wednesday with several advocacy groups who say the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires those counties to produce bilingual ballots.
Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, Hispanic Federation and three other groups say federal law requires Florida to have bilingual voting materials and poll workers available to people who aren't proficient in English. The lawsuit claims there are at least 30,000 voters in that category in the 32 counties, including in Pasco, Hernando and Monroe in the Keys.
Those groups flatly argue that Florida is violating the Voting Rights Act and that Puerto Rican voters are "irreparably harmed" by the state's inaction.
The counties argue that they would have to buy, install and test new voting software and hire and train more bilingual poll workers, and that it's too late to revise their budgets. The fiscal year for counties begins Oct. 1.
