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It's hardly a secret that Florida, home to 29 up-for-grabs electoral votes, will be one of the key 2012 battlegrounds. It's the nation's largest swing state, and whoever wins Florida will have an inside track to winning the White House.
Republicans in the Sunshine State, however, aren't taking any chances, and are already taking steps to tilt the playing field.
Ari Berman has already documented many of the new voting restrictions approved by GOP policymakers over the last couple of years, including cracking down on voter-registration drives and limiting the number of days available for early voting.
But Florida Republicans, led by Gov. Rick Scott (R), aren't quite done yet. In the newest push, the state, just six months before the election, is trying to purge non-citizens from the voting rolls, but in the process, has cast far too wide a net.
The state was found to be using a flawed process to pinpoint noncitizens on the voter rolls by relying on an outdated driver's license database. Some of the people on an initial list of 2,700 possible noncitizens sent to county election supervisors were either naturalized citizens or were born in the United States. [...]
The push to crack down on the way Floridians vote, and how they register to vote, is viewed by some as an effort to single out Democratic voters, many of them black and Hispanic. Florida has been accused in past elections of unfairly trying to remove from the rolls former felons who are eligible to vote.
The new scrub of registered voters is no different, said Howard Simon, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. "It's a purging process that is based on what the state already acknowledges to be inaccurate information," Mr. Simon said. "It really raises questions as to whether or not this is yet another partisan effort to scrub the voting rolls. We know it's inaccurate because people from as far away as Pensacola to Miami have come forward to say, 'I am a U.S. citizen. I am eligible to vote.' "
That's not at all an exaggeration.
Judd Legum has been all over this story for the last several days, including this report yesterday on the GOP's "sloppy, chaotic and possibly illegal plan," which ties together some key threads.
According to data obtained by ThinkProgress, in Miami-Dade county alone, 1638 people were flagged by the state as “non-citizens.” Already, 359 people on the list have provided the county with proof of citizenship and 26 people were identified as U.S. citizens directly by the county. The remaining 1200 have simply not responded to the letter informing them of their purported ineligibility. Similar problems have been identified inPolk County and Broward County. [...]
A study by the Miami Herald found that “Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida’s voting rolls.” For example, Hispanics comprise 58 percent of the list but just 13 percent of eligible voters. Conversely, “Whites and Republicans are disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal.” [...]
“It will happen,” Mary Cooney, a spokeswoman for the Broward County Supervisor of Elections, told ThinkProgress. On or about June 9, anyone who hasn’t responded to the ominous and legalistic letter informing them of their purported ineligibility will be removed from the rolls. Some eligible voters won’t have been able to respond by that time due to travel, work obligations, family obligations or confusion as to the purpose of the letter. Some will forget to open it. Others may have moved.
Polls show Florida will likely be very competitive in November, and if 2012 is anything like the last few cycles, a tiny number of votes may well be the difference between victory and failure.
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But by then it will be too late BWHHAAAHA.
Oh we're so sorry...
Please stop putting Rick Scott's picture on the web site . It ruins my day.
Please put Rachel Maddow's picture on the web site. It will ruin everybody else's day.
He has evil eyes. I hope that they are going to be extra observant this year at polling booths. For some reason the fact that a lot of money is being thrown around ,like it was candy, is a reason each State should be extra vigilant in their attempts to make sure there is no hanky-panky at the booths, concerning counting votes. Remember what happened in Florida between Gore and Bush. I forget what they were called the "tabs"the blips I don't know.
Chads. Hanging chads.
Otherwise known as "proof positive that liberals are too dumb to vote"
m0d guy, it's not that liberals are too dumb to vote, it's that somehow the error prone devices were used in certain areas, and the less error prone devices were in other areas. Somehow, the folks who have to jump through extra hoops to vote are in certain areas.
Proof positive that the right wing will cheat to gain an advantage! Oh well, so much for their almighty morals!
There is a wonderful column on this subject by Steve Bosquet in The Tampa Bay Times you should read.
Thanks for the point to the article - it's rich that Scott is trying to remove felons from the voting rolls when he is one of the biggest criminals out there who bought his way out of an actual jail sentence. What's the matter with Florida - this guy ripped off taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicare fraud, then used his ill-gotten gains to finance buying a governorship - in Florida. Unbelievable.
They have successfully learned how to rig the votes. Obviously noone has looked into their fraudulent voting practices. When they started yelling voter fraud we should have taken that as a que that they thought of it first.
If Scott is deliberately targeting voters and denying them their right to vote, isn't that vote-tampering? Isn't that a prosecutable offense?
I agree, oh that's right, it's okay if you're a Republican.. Especially in the Dumbshine State!
The Republicans are allowed to do a lot of illegal things ever since they decided to get in bed with Wall St. and the Banks. If you are the chief, judge and juror of your own state you can get away with a lot of things.
I thought Elizabeth Warren, up in Mass, was the chief.
f*ck off @sshole!
Yup, it is OK if you are a Repuke! Not like some random woman said something true about Ann Romney -- THAT is a scandal!
Sorry for the dup. But seriously -- isn't it obvious that only rich people matter in this country?
Making sure all of our voters are properly registered and able to vote should be where Democrats spend all their time and money this summer. This is a test for the DNC. We will find out if Debbie Whatshername Schultz is able to effectively focus on GOTV. Most beltway political types are air warriors and after Citizens United everybody wants a piece of the billionaire ad money sloshing around, but this is a place where a good ground game could pay hugh dividends.
I have said the same things. Dems should be concentrating all their efforts to get as many people registered before the election. The precinct captains should be checking for voters and making sure that if they are not registered to vote, then help these people get registered. The Dems should also concentrate on colleges and universities. Finally, there should be federal lawsuits challenging these procedures.
Can the argument be made that Scott is using racial profiling against hispanics? I've got a great piece on this on my forum, in addition to what Scott's doing to quiet State elections officials against this illegal purge.
http://www.politikalculture.com/index.php/topic,1448.0.html
V-O-T-E-R
S-U-P-P-R-E-S-S-I-O-N
This guy is hideous. But also STUPID. Several reports I've seen are about his targeting US born citizens because they have ITALIAN last names. His moronic hit squad can't tell the difference between Spanish and Italian, it seems.
Or are they also against all those immigrants who came from southern and Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century?
Just the same old party of lie,cheat and steal. Until We the people decide to get off our butts the republicans will continue to destroy America and its democracy.
Aw what the heck have another sip of coffee and a twinkie. After all it isn't as if your way of life is being demolished.
See you at the polls---if they let you in.
We the people did, it's called "The Tea Party"
Ha ha ha. That was funny. A handful of lunatics sponsored by the Koch gang is not representative of We the people. Still though you did get my attention, now if I can stop laughing...
And I thought that the only true grassroots organizations (like the tea parties) were those funded by billionaires! Freedom of $peech!
Waiting for the news on when they send out the "please disregard" letters. Eric Holder, can you hear us?
No, he is too busy looking after "his people"
@m0derateGuy - the way it works is, you're supposed to use subltle "dog whistles" - not just out-and-out prove that the Tea Party is catnip to bigots.
Angel, they were called chads, but that's not what decided the 2000 election. It was voter purging, and a lot of it, that made the Florida vote even close. That day, there was one line that was longer than any other at my precinct, I was told it was people "having trouble with their voting status." They were all Black. All over the state of Florida they were trying to get through to one phone number to regain their right to vote... Even having thus cheated, they STILL had to use their Supremes to squelch the chad dispute.
Perhaps you could start by explaining just how did those thousands of noncitizens got onto Florida’s voting rolls.
Perhaps you can explain why people who were born here and have lived in the US all their life are being targeted by this purge of voter rolls.
Oh, that's right, they're only people who tend to vote for Democrats in the elections. And the Republican party sees the Democratic party as an 'illegal' party, it seems, if this voter purge has any validity.
So, no answer to how all those noncitizens got "registered", huh?
Please don't feed the trolls ... it only encourages them and this guy has the intellectual fortitude of a turnipsick-n-effin, I am just flagging him. :)
The 182k number was made up by the Republican Party to incite fear. In actuality, there's 2600 names on the list, 20% have already been proven to be citizens after just a few days.
This is pure racial profiling and voter disenfranchisement, not to mention unlawful since it's within 60 days of an election.
No way Obama wins Florida. Especially with the Republican voter suppression going on there. Florida really is a disgusting state. I lived there, and won't even go back.
Wouldn't history be made if in spite of the voter suppression President Obama wins Florida. I can see the headlines now. It could happen.
Especially since the Republican party has alienated the Latino vote, the Gay vote, the Black vote,the Woman vote, and the elderly who are subsisting on Medicaide and Social Security. Who is going to vote for the obstructionist party? Old White Men from New York?
Nothing beats people actually talking to other people. Scotts antics are unconstutional and he will be held accountable.
Well, but isn't the Latino population in FL significantly Cuban? If so, I would imagine that offsets any Latino advantage Obama has in the rest of the country?
I just don't see any way Obama wins FL. Northern FL is pretty southern GA, culturally and that's going for the Aholes. A significant number of Floridians are white retirees and that'll be selfishly Ahole territory. Add that in to the Republican voter suppression and just the general aholiness of FL and I just don't see Obama taking it this time.
Funny, Obama won in Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, California. Well over 50% of the Latino vote voted for Obama in 2008. I'm just sayin'.......hope I'm right.
ThinkProgress has been highlighting this business in Florida for some time now. So we've got kneecapping public-sector unions to tilt the financial advantage further toward Republicans in Wisconsin, and we have nullifying democracy in Michigan under the pretense of fiscal crises, and we have purging eligible voters from the roles in the name of electoral integrity in Florida.
I think we can say, without any degree of hyperbole, that Republicans hate democracy and want it dead.
So Gov Scott is trying to throw minorities off the voter rolls. Last year my wife renewed her drivers license, and they listed her address as 1910. Yes just 1910, no street name, no zip code. A mistake? I don't think so. Surely this would have disqualified her on election day. We only noticed the mistake a few days ago when she had an accident and had to show the license. I'm sure we can fix it in time for Nov 6th, but if you are a minority, check your license now and carefully. Any little mistake could disqualify you. Vote and make sure your vote counts.
I wonder how many on the list are registered Republican. It would be a good thing to know.
The Florida Republicans hand-counted to a win in one election. They want a quicker way this time.
There are probably some Republicans on the list of purged voters, but not many. Like I said above, ThinkProgress has been covering this for a while now.