Tuesday's US Supreme Court ruling, striking down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, drew praise from Florida's Republican leaders and a call to action from voting-rights groups.
"I want to make sure there's no racial discrimination in any of our elections", said Governor Rick Scott, "but any time that we have the opportunity to make our own decisions, I think that's great for our state."
And Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said the ruling would allow the state to run its elections "without the Justice Department having to look over our shoulder."
The ruling affects five Florida counties, for which the state spent half a million dollars last year getting voting changes approved in Washington.Now voting-rights groups that have spent years fighting election changes approved by Scott and state lawmakers said their efforts would be undermined by the court's decision.
Howard Simon of the Florida ACLU called Scott and the Legislature "walking advertisements for why federal oversight is needed."
"No state does a better job than Florida in taking away the right to vote from more people or frustrating the right to vote for more people than the state of Florida", Simon said.
Citizens can still sue the state for voting discrimination under another part of the Voting Rights Act, but those cases are harder to win and take longer.