Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) is pushing a controversial voter-purge scheme, ostensibly trying to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls, but the effort has relied on bad data and had the effect of targeting thousands of eligible citizens. The Justice Department wants the purge to stop; Scott doesn't care.
But on the ground, the decision isn't going to be made by Scott or the DOJ; it's going to be made by county elections supervisors. As Rachel explained this week, Scott can send purge lists to the counties, but it's up to the county officials "to actually do the purging ... and lately the county officials in Florida are not much in a mood for what the state is telling them to do."
As of yesterday, county election chiefs delivered a straightforward answer to the governor: No.
Florida's noncitizen voter purge looks like it's all but over. The 67 county elections supervisors -- who have final say over voter purges -- are not moving forward with the purge for now because nearly all of them don't trust the accuracy of a list of nearly 2,700 potential noncitizens identified by the state's elections office. [...]
"We're just not going to do this," said Leon County's elections supervisor, Ion Sancho, one of the most outspoken of his peers. "I've talked to many of the other supervisors and they agree. The list is bad. And this is illegal."
The Scott administration hasn't given up, but the purge agenda appears to be in deep trouble, whether the Justice Department brings Florida to court or not.
If you missed Wednesday's segment, including an interview with a Republican country elections supervisor opposed to Scott's scheme, it's well worth watching.
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Until and unless there are any electoral consequences for their actions, Republican pols will, with increasing shamelessness, continue to push the envelope for every radical idea they think they can get away with. And a few they never thought they could. And Citizens United is the thumb on the scale. Get used to it.
With Republicans controlling the house you can bet that polls and votes are going to be tampered with. They're trying to do it legally, but are now being investigated. If there is something to corrupt or a dollar that has been misplaced they will pursue it. They should post a list on this website siting all the past Republicans and their run ins concerning the law. You can't suppress the vote legally so they are going to do it illegally. Who is going to take the fall, is the question now. A law that should be changed though is not to call a winner until everyone that lived in that particular area was called to see if they were allowed to vote. Every means of communication to citizens should be attempted prior to counting votes. If there is any discrepancies the vote should not be counted until everyone who wanted to vote votes, even if that citizen was not made aware of a vote taking place, their vote should count even after the voting deadline if they were hindered in any way.
Well hooray for the Florida election commisioners, finally some people with the intestinal fortitude to say no,we're not breaking federal law on voters right's.If Rick Scott wants to talk about fraud,he should look inside himself,since he was in on defrauding the American people out of millions of medicare dollars.How the people of Florida ever elected this felonious criminal is hard to fathom.Sick "em"DOJ.
Rick Scott's brazen and truly evil strategy of literally throwing legitimate voters off of the rolls and barring them from polling places just because they are black, brown, independents or Democrats is the most insidious and anti-American thing we've seen since Jim Crow. I say to the DOJ, arrest Rick Scott if he does not stop his madness. This is illegal behavior that undermines our very democracy. THe Justice Department has a moral and constitutional obligation to stop Rick Scot by any means necessary, including locking him up... http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Mr and Mrs America , be forewarned . This is what a Republican super majority looks like .
If the Republicans get the Senate , House and Presidency they will be legislating for the 1% . I will take a wild guess and say that does not include any readers of this blog .
It will resemble a certain political party that gained popularity in the earlier part of the last century in Europe . You know the one that combines industrialists the financiers and the government into one party.
Pretty damn scary .
And they are getting an early start. The Republican party started in or around 100 B.C.They were first called the Publicans, they added Re when they regrouped after 20 A.D. They supported a group in Greece called the Hellenists who were the original tax collectors, the Publicans worked for them collecting money from citizens for no services rendered. Eventually this resulted in poverty for many and huge bank accounts for the Hellenists and thier friends the Publicans. History is trying to repeat itself, and you see how well that worked out for them. The origin of corruption, isn't it about time that it was ended. I wish someone could bring this History to the forefront. If Republicans needed to find out their roots, there you have it. Democracy was born out of desire to help the poor people who had given their life savings to the Republicans.
Ion Sancho's office is in the Leon County Courthouse just across the street from the Florida Capitol where Scott's office is. The thought of Sancho sitting there blowing Scott a a raspberry just tickles me no end
Democracy will NOT die, unless we let it.*
At the grass roots level, government officials (regardless of party) are refusing to go along with the RNC and their large corporate backers in purging voter rolls based on politics. Corporatism represents a very real threat to our Democracy. And one side is MUCH MORE CULPABLE than the other...
* NOTE: Yes, I know we live in a "Republic." Specifically, it's a "Representative Democracy," which itself is a form of a "Republic" (which in other forms, wouldn't even involve public elections). Beyond sharing a name, it's funny that it's Republicans that normally point out that we "live in a Republic, not a Democracy!"
"Republicans have never approved of Democracy, and they never will. It goes back to pre-industrial America, when only white male property owners could vote."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
An old Depression Era gonzo journalist sees more clearly than today's "news" outlets... even from the grave. ♥
This Scott fellow is just kind of wimpy and incompetent in the end, isn't he? What's he doing, auditioning for the losing VP job and hoping to parley it into a couple of books and some speaking engagements to dittoheads?
The Facebook caption is wrong.
"County elections supervisors tell the state of Florida that they want carry out a voter purge"
I believe it should read:
"County elections supervisors tell the state of Florida that they won't carry out a voter purge"
At least, that's what I am getting from the article.
"Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
This is a really long book that looks at history - from prehistory through current events touching on almost every part of the globe. It is a bit mind-numbing in detail - am really glad there is no test at the end. :)
Over and over, (and over and over), nations succeed when economic and political institutions are "inclusive". Nations fail when the economic and political institutions are "extractive". Inclusive means broad base of population shares in benefits of economy and responsibility in politics - think individual property rights and one-person-one vote. Extractive means economic benefit and political power concentrated in the top few - think aristocracy.
The United States was based on inclusion (OK - at the time it meant only white male land-owners but this changed over time to include more). At the time it was an INCREDIBLY radical notion. We must not forget how special and precious - exceptional - our country is.
But human nature - greed for wealth and power - is a constant force that must be resisted if we are to maintain "inclusion".
If you look at what is happening now - Citizens United, voter suppression - in this light, you could say, in the words of the authors, we are at a "critical juncture ... a double-edged sword that can cause a sharp turn in the trajectory of a nation".
Which was are we going to go?
Let's all think about this for a minute....What is really insane is that specific demographics are targeted. Blacks, Hispanics, last names that sound foreign and democrats...not the white joe smiths or johnsons. If you really think about it how did an illegal alien register to vote in the first place and why would they even try to do it???? They are trying to fly under the radar and not get caught so why are they going to fill out a form with all their info so they can be deported? I can just see an epidemic of that can't you? (sarcasm) You have to give your Driver's License Number or last 4 of your social in TX to register. How did an illegal get a license or a social? They didn't b/c they are scared to get caught and deported. Doesn't make sense and all the more reason to be appalled at the Republican Party. Voter fraud is non-existent but voter suppression is at an all time high!
This is the Republican politician's response to the electorate's "throw all the bums out" sentiment: "Oh, yeah? We'll throw you out!"
Heathens! If God wanted you to vote he would have made you a WASP!!!
By hook or crook. Florida 2012!
What I haven't figured out is what Gov. Scott is up to. Day one he made it impossible for convicted felons to get back there voting rights (something only a few states do). He pushed and passed a voter registration surpression law (that the courts have stopped) and he's trying a repeat of exactly what happened in Florida in 2000.
What I don't get is I can't believe he is so delusional to think that while we was able to self-fund in Florida and buy the Gov. seat, (it cost 73 million for the Gov. seat if your interested) he's not Romney rich where he could buy a national office. I know he has bigger plans, but I've yet to figure it out. I'll have to keep watching Rachel, I'm sure she'll figure it out.
"What I don't get is I can't believe he is so delusional to think that while we was able to..."
The fact is that even after his shenanigans were brought out into the light Floridians voted him into office. The GOP has never paid a "price" at the voting booth, whether it is the rallying cry of "G-d, guns, gays, freedom, liberty" - they have not had to pay a price. At this point they have the GOTP so riled up against President Obama - a Kenyan/marxist/socialist/communist/America hating/anti colonialist - in other words he's BLACK so therefore he has NO business in the "White House", period!
This has nothing to do with the Presidents ideas or policy as he has bent over backwards to be "bi-partisan" and offering to incorporate REPUBLICAN ideas into the policies that have been put forth - policies that were REPUBLICAN ideas - and still you GOTP types still vote for the very people that are trying to turn America over to the Corporations.
Maybe if you GOTP types would actually start voting these bums out and replace them with less draconian idiots - WE as a nation might be able to start moving forward, beginning with FLORIDA.....
would anyone here have an issue with purging the voter rolls using an accurate list of non-citizens? or is any purge at all seen as a bad thing?
and, if possible without anger, can anyone explain in a reasonable and level-headed way why showing ID to vote is a bad thing? keep in mind two things: no one who is serious about this is opposed giving free ID to anyone who might need one, and don't most poor people (commonly cited as a reason not to require ID) have some sort of ID that they needed to apply for govt assistance?
Yes. Names are notoriously inaccurate identifiers. Algorithms like Soundex, Metaphone, NYSIIS and dozens of others routinely mismatch different individuals. The goal of a successful purge is to, well, purge people. That's the whole concept. How about an effort to register every eligible voter? Ahhh, that's very different...
IDs can be faked (ask any teenager), and only keep honest people honest. IDs are not free in all states (my new driver's license just cost me 20 bucks), and someone still has to pay those state workers to take all those pictures (and have you ever wondered who has access to all those digitally stored photos?). And your concept of "poor people" all being on "govt assistance" is rather telling.
And then there's the ability to commit voter fraud even with a valid ID.
i wonder why FL voters, the majority of which are retirees, are voting for someone who would take away their ability to hire low-paid workers who assist them with daily living and who are actually from the demographic group Scott is trying to get rid of?
more importantly, why didn't Scott et.al. start this 'clean up' of the electoral d-base when they first got into office? did these 180,000+ "illegal" voters actually vote for Bush in 2008 and why weren't they purged from the FL voter d-base back then? if the 'illegal' voters were on the voter roles for the Bush and Scott elections, then those election results should be DIS-counted and the elections reversed--too late to prosecute Bush but not too late to prosecute Scott for voter fraud.
Rachel, in addition to the voter purging(y'know, ever since this began to be reported on, the thought item that came to mind was that this was kinda like the medical technique, which was too disgusting to even think about any futher), there are a couple other things happening in the state that perhaps you should look into, with the view in mind of asking nosy questions even further.
One thing is that if you are going to vote, you are supposed to use your driver license for identification. However, if your license is even expired one day, you are refused, and I'm not sure that if you go and renew your license, if you are able to vote after all, or are banned from voting on that particular voting day.
Another thing is that if you can't find the polling place where you are supposed to vote in your particular precinct, and stop at another polling place to ask for directions, any and all of the workers there will not be able to help you out. If any of them do, they are fired.
I didn't hear this as a wild internet rumor, but from my sister who lives in the Tampa-St. Pete area, and happens to be a registered Republican. She also despises Governor Scott, and we have many long conversations about that bald headed idiot.
Does anyone know if there were any republicans on the purge list. It seems to me if there were any they would be waving them around to show it was not a bias list.