Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) recently launched an aggressive voter purge, ostensibly to remove non-citizens from the state's voter rolls. Scott's administration, however, used faulty data, targeted eligible voters, and ended up executing a voter-suppression scheme five months before an election.
Two weeks ago, the Justice Department told the Scott administration it's breaking the law and demanded it stop the purge. The far-right governor not only refused, it demanded that the Obama administration help Scott's scheme. The Obama administration said that's not going to happen.
Yesterday, as we reported on last night's show, the matter went to the courts, with both sides suing the other.
Scott's chief elections official sued first, filing a federal lawsuit in Washington that accused the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of unlawfully refusing Florida access to a federal database that could help the state spot and remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. [...]
Moments after the state filed suit, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez roared back in a sharply worded five-page letter from the U.S. Department of Justice, which ordered the state two weeks ago to stop the purge because it could violate two federal voting laws.
The state's program is too "faulty" and comes too close to election time to not endanger the voting rights of thousands of lawful U.S. citizens, Perez wrote. He said Florida has repeatedly ignored Homeland Security's warning that the department's database, known as SAVE, isn't designed for the noncitizen hunt on which Florida embarked.
Perez explained in his letter to the Scott administration that its problems in executing the voter purge "are of your own creation." The letter added, "Your claim that the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security have worked in concert to deny Florida access to the SAVE Program is simply wrong. Please immediately cease this unlawful conduct."
The governor, meanwhile, announced his lawsuit on Fox News, where, ironically, he said, "This is not a partisan issue."
And just to make this a little messier, the purge effort itself is largely on hold anyway, because nearly every county elections supervisor has said Scott's scheme is illegal, and they won't enforce it.
As Rachel explained last 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 Friday, the county election chiefs said they would not move forward with Scott's purge plan because they lack confidence in the integrity of the governor's list.
Taken together, it appears that Florida is once again home a systemic election year fiasco. Try to contain your surprise.
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This is perhaps the most breathtaking attempt to subvert democracy and disenfranchise Americans that we have seen in decades. Scott and the GOP cannot get away with this, no matter what it takes to stop them. If it takes federal troops occupying Tallahassee, they had better do it. These hateful, anti-American conservative dunces are taking dead aim at the basic rights of Americans enshrined in our founding documents. The GOP's master plan of making it harder to vote is bad enough. but 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 thev are black, brown, independents or Democrats is the most insidious and anti-American thing we've seen since Jim Crow. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
In Rick Scott's world, the ends justify the means. And in this case, the end is a State of Florida handed to the GOP on a silver platter this November.
If this (and the tidal wave of election cash facilitated by Citizens United), doesn't wake up Americans to the threat to democracy as we knew it, we are doomed as a nation.
"we are doomed as a nation."
I think it's a bit late for that. Our doom began with the invasion of Viet Nam, and has been accelerating ever since. There have been a few moments when it looked like things were reversing, but very few. Now the only thing left is for decent people who care about this country to do a delaying action.
The only surprise here is that it would happen in the state that completely gave up its credibility (and any confidence that they have the ability to hold a fair election) in 2000.
I gotta hand it to the county officials though, good job standing up to the utter nonsense and not blindly following on this. I hope those county officials are protected from any consquences from Scott's throne. I mean office.
It seems to me that to deny legal voters access to the polls is illegal. All the Feds would have to do is find one person that was denied their right to vote and then put the responsible people in jail. That means you, Scott.
Something that isn't really correlated much is how Rick Scott is like Mitt Romney, 1/8th the size.
Scott's been a venture capitalist and money-maker for a long time during the 90s, at the same time Romney was doing the Bain thing. During the course of things, Scott's gotten himself into a heap of trouble with the courts, eventually leading to fraud and corruption throughout everything he's done. He once plead the 5th amendment 75 times in one deposition to avoid any wrong doing (http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/scotts-pleading-of-the-5th-manipulated-legal-system/1128351)
You wanna know what a Romney presidency would look like? Take a look at the last few years of Scott's rule in Florida, with the attempted privatization of our prisons, drug testing everyone left and right before they can hit the safety net, selling off our state parks and rec for profit, and the rejection of a high speed rail system that's been in the works for over a decade before he came to power, just to name a few things.
Take that, and magnify it by 100. Congrats, you have a preview of the Romney presidency. Scary, isn't it?
Luckton , Thank you . I have been saying that all along. Rick Scotts biggest campaign contributors : Private prison firms . Evaporate the safety net , more people turn to crime , more customers for the prisons . He vetoed a bipartisan law to divert no violent drug offenders to treatment programs ...less customers for the prison . He is an evil Kochsucker.
The high speed rail - 24 Billion that went to the northeast and could have provided jobs. Again it had bipartisan support but was rejected on ideological grounds to look good to the Teabaggers
Not to derail the discussion here, Steve, and you're doing a great job of covering this issue, but you might want to tell whoever the webmaster is for this blog that there's a pretty egregrious typo on the front page right now:
Well, Europe is known to be more sexually free than we are, so maybe it's not a typo...
Rick Scott is nearly the perfect example of how the typical Republican thinks and acts. Pushy, belligerent, obnoxious, and completely unconcerned if the results of his actions take victims who are completely innocent. In fact, that's the objective. This is the kind of feeling human being that Paul Ryan is, that Eric Cantor is, that Mitch McConnell is, that John Boehner is, that Mitt Romney is.
Rick Scott is the man who lead the biggest Medicare fraud scheme in history. Understand that, he defrauded the government as head of a health insurance company and did it better than anybody else. Now, he's in the government doing everything he can to help those who will kill the government.
And Florida elected such this piece of shhit. If you're into tawdry, vulgar, cheap, creepy cheesiness, Florida's where you need to be. It happens there first.
It's always amazing (somewhat) that after the GOP attacks a group, any group (women, Latino's, LGBT, et.al) - they feign "righteous indignation" and say it's not a war against......! Yes, snotty Scotty it is an attempt to disenfranchise those people that you believe might vote democrat, and it is voter fraud.
Of course the FAUX NOISE sheeple watching crowd are already lambs being led to the slaughter, but must the GOTP Taliban take US all down with them?
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voter-registration/voter-reg.shtml
Can someone, anyone point out to me where in the above voter registration form for Florida, one has to verify that he/she is actually a citizen of the United States?
It might be kinda hard to read if you are looking at it from inside a bubble.
@Frosty - in reading the application, it does require government ID, which can be checked to verify citizenship status:
(ID) Requirements: If you are a new applicant, state and federal law require you to provide a current and valid Florida driver’s license number (FL DL#) or Florida identification card number (FL ID#). If you have not been issued a FL DL# or FL ID#, you must then provide the last four digits of your Social Security Number (SSN). If you have not been issued any of these ID numbers, check “None” on the application. If you do not provide any number or do not check “None,” your registration may be denied. See s.303, HAVA and section 97.053(6), Fla. Stat.
Special ID requirements: If you are registering by mail, have never voted in Florida, and have never been issued one of the ID numbers above, you must include with your application, or at a later time before you vote, one of the following:
A copy of an ID that shows your name and photo (acceptable IDs) U.S. Passport, debit or credit card, military ID, Student ID, retirement center ID, neighborhood association ID, or public assistance ID; or
A copy of an ID that shows your name and current residence address (acceptable documents) utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document.
----------------
If you're willing to risk $5,000 / 5 years in jail, I guess you could fudge on those last requirements - however the registration form does state up front that your application "may be denied" if you can't provide any government-issued ID.
Great points June. What I find interesting about this whole voter thing, especially regarding voter ID is the fact that you pretty much need a "government-issued" ID to register, yet for some reason a lot of people do not like the idea that you may also have to have the same ID you used to register on hand when you show up to vote. Granted it may be years since you registered, but it does highlight the fact that a person - regardless of their demographic (student, poor, elderly, etc)- did have to have that dreaded ID at one time and that they took the effort to get it to register to vote. So my question has always been why at voting time the government ID thing seems to be more difficult than at registering time. And, if there is a big push nationally to make it much easier to obtain an ID, there would be no chance that this would result in voter suppression - since everyone would have an ID
@Skip Hoffman - I take your point, and if the notion of "voter suppression" stopped there, it might be fair to say, okay (although it would still especially target those who may never, for one reason or another, have had a proper government-issued ID, along with targeting those registering to vote for the first time).
However, the second part of what GOP governors are doing in conjunction with making voter ID regulations stricter is truly the heart of their voter suppression effort -- sign off on stricter voter ID regulations and then, at the same time make it harder to obtain the required ID or meet the requirements -- for example:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/07/25/277592/walker-closes-dmvs/
and
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/05/494926/republicans-disenfranchise-wisconsin-college-students/
and just out-and-out deny constituents the right to vote, willy-nilly:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/03/06/439324/86-year-old-ohio-veteran-cant-vote-after-government-issued-id-is-rejected-at-poll/
and as outlined in this DoJ letter to Rick Scott, just blatantly violate all manner of federal laws in order to keep people from voting:
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/florida.pdf
So, if it were really just about - look, just show the ID you registered with - "voter suppression" might be hyperbole - but, of course, the GOP effort to disenfranchise voters goes a long way beyond that.
Point taken on most of your comments and links regarding some ongoing suppression it seems, especially in Wisconsin. The link/article about the Ohio veteran though I don't think can be something the "evil" Republicans did. For one, the poll worker is just following his instructions under the current Ohio state law - and we do not even know the poll workers political leanings (Dem or GOP). I'm not sure when that law in Ohio requiring address along with name began, but again this may or may not be done by Republicans AND you would think that if that law has been in place for some time that the VA would put an address on their ID's for this reason as well as the more important reason of contacting relatives in case of emergency should something happen to this honorable 84 year young war veteran.
I am also a little confused on you comment on suppression in your second post:
target those who may never, for one reason or another, have had a proper government-issued ID,
In you first post you detailed the regulations for registering in Florida (I think) and my guess is that is similar in most states. Yet in you second post you state the above which means those folks would have never been able to register.
@Skip Hoffman, fair enough - I had added the link about the Ohio veteran not to prove so much what the "evil Republicans did," but to demonstrate how not every elderly person is going to have the same ID they may have registered with - and how these folks are getting caught up in the GOP's "voter fraud!" crusade. The VA representative did say that because VA benefits are essentially portable nationwide, they didn't see a need to put the address on the cards, BUT, given GOP governors' shenanigans now, it seems like it would be a good time for them to revisit doing so.
Agreed on the VA address thing. With all the shenanigans, I think the Democratics at the state level - especially in those voter ID states - should introduce legislation that would streamline and make getting access to an ID fairly simple including "ID on wheels" programs. If you can bring food to folks unable to get out you could easily have some kind of portable ID system where you could use smartphone technology to get into the state's database and take photo and laminate right at a person's home. Just a thought. :)
He is insane, look at his eyes. He is trying to start a war on Florida soil. They oughta barge right into his office and arrest the son of a scratcher.
No, no...Scott is evil.
Why would a state need help determining who its own citizens are? And wouldn't asking for such assistance from Federal amount to "more government"?
http://www.bradblog.com/?page_id=4380
Anyone remember the 1976 low budget horror film BLUE SUNSHINE, where a bunch of hippies took a bad batch of LSD in the 60's and 10 years later it turned them into insane BALD, homicidal lunatics?
That's what comes to mind every time I see Florida Gov. Rick Scott on TV
Here's the trailer for the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC23RzhrH5Q