More than 20,000 people have signed a petition to the Department of Justice, asking the federal agency to halt Florida’s voter purge.

The petition gathering was done by Democratic-leaning Progress Florida, ColorofChange, Florida New Majority and MoveOn.org.

The organizations have collected more than 22,000 signatures from Floridians, according to a statement Thursday. The groups have collected hundreds of thousand of signatures nationally, urging the Justice Department to stop the purge.

“Gov. Scott’s ill-conceived scheme to disenfranchise eligible Florida voters has already met resistance from voting rights advocates, the federal government and Supervisors of Elections,” Mark Ferrulo, executive director of Progress Florida, said in a statement. “Add the voices of these more than 22,000 concerned Floridians as well.”

State officials have said as many as 182,000 registered voters may not be U.S. citizens. State officials didn’t immediately release that list and instead sought access to a federal immigration database to verify matches.

-Naples Daily News

Tags | ColorofChange, Florida New Majority, Justice Department, Mark Ferrulo, MoveOn.org, Progress Florida