The US District Court for the Northern District of Florida [official website] ruled [text, PDF] Tuesday that Florida’s near ban on early voting on college campuses violates the First, Fourteenth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments.

The lawsuit was brought by six University of Florida and Florida State University students, the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Adam Goodman Foundation. The allegations concern the Secretary of State’s decision, issued through the Division of Elections, to ban early voting on college campuses, even though as many as 43 percent of Florida’s college students voted early in 2016.

The question before the court was “whether the Secretary of State’s Opinion that categorically bars early voting on any university or college campus” is unconstitutional. In holding the opinion does violate college students’ voting rights, the court granted the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction as to the voting ban.

The court reasoned that college students have significant burdens that prevent them from voting on election day, including inability to wait in long lines due to school and work, and inability to travel long distances to vote.

The Secretary of State’s opinion concerning voting site locations, rendered it nearly impossible for college students to vote early, thus requiring them to suffer the harsh burdens inherent in voting on election day. The court called such burdens “not a mere inconvenience.” The court continued, saying:

The Opinion has the effect of creating a secondary class of voters who Defendant prohibits from even seeking early voting sites in dense, centralized locations where they work, study, and, in many cases, live. This effect alone is constitutionally untenable. … Admittedly, the Early Voting Statute authorizes early voting as “a convenience to the voter.” Constitutional problems emerge, however, when conveniences are available for some people but affirmatively blocked for others.