JThompstonDistrict4/Flickr
Ken Detzner is the one in the gray suit.
Florida Governor Rick Scott is defending his decision not to extend early voting, as Steve noted earlier. "I’m very confident that the right thing happened," he told Daralene Jones of WFTV Channel 9 in Orange County, Florida. As Jones reported, Scott dodged her question over and over.
Meanwhile, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner sounded a different note in an interview with local WOKV radio. Detzner suggested that his boss, Governor Scott, knows there were problems:
Detzner said Governor Scott asked the State Department to make recommendations to him to solve some of the issues "with regard to the enthusiasm for early voting."
"It's an administrative issue," he said. "I think we can address it and have it fixed for the next time and I think that's what people want and we're going to fix it."
It’s hard to tell from the story whether Scott, by way of Detzner, sees voter enthusiasm as being more at fault than the state’s failure to prepare. Given that Scott cut early voting in Florida almost in half and then, seeing long lines during early voting, refused to extend it, and now says he did the right thing, I could see where folks would be leery. Governor Scott himself compared the state's reaction to the election to that of a business reassessing its performance.
As for administration fixes*, Detzner tells CNN that Florida can alleviate lines by changing the law to allow for more polling places in more kinds of locations. See also: California, and remember, broken elections are not just Florida's problem.
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Well, his business of voter suppression did fail to perform as he'd intended...
Got Enraged and Engaged:
Mooched the Vote 2012!
;-)
Come on . . . be fair, guys . . . Cutting early voting days and hours and making it more difficult to vote was not the problem in Florida. It was all those Democrats that came out to vote. If they had just stayed home, there would have been no problem at all.
/snark off
By the way, thanks for identifying Detzner in the picture. Down here, it's not always easy to tell. (I would have guessed the short guy with the mustache.)
And there was all the other shhit that they pulled like the voter purges 6 weeks before the election that was shot down by the local election officials and the courts . Odious registration laws - shot down by the courts .
They only had one mission . To stop Dems from registering and voting and turn the election into such a clusterf*ck that if the election was close they could rig it like in 2000 .
They did succeed into turning it into a clusterf*ck , but so sad for them , it didn't matter . 4 days later and it's still not official.
Those Dali-esque handlebars are something, aren't they?
And, what's the deal with the guy on the far right (directionally speaking, that is)? I know the tea-types like playing historical dress-up, but just how far back do they really want to take this country? Sheesh!
Got Enraged and Engaged:
Mooched the Vote 2012!
;-)
It guess it's probably Ponce de Leon, and maybe Detzner has started trying to repair the republican relationship with hispanics and decided to start at the beginning.
Hey, this is Florida . . . who the hell knows?
Here's a fantasy:
Then all we need is to have each eligible citizen care enough to become engaged and informed and have candidates honestly debated the issues.
(This seems a loooong way off)
Three words, Detzner: VOTE BY MAIL.
I guarantee that there won't be any long lines at peoples' kitchen tables.
Re: #6
Seems simple.
When you have VOTE BY MAIL, how do you confirm the identity of the person casting the ballot?
If we can make the mail safe enough to send credit cards, social security checks, etc, it's safe enough for a ballot. Until recently, all you had to to was be able to match the signature on file in the polling books--and they didn't look that closely.
And no, Florida hasn't improved every election since 2000. They made CHANGES every two years, but it has basically be a disaster every time.
Meant to say--that's how they confirm any absentee ballot or mail-in ballot. They compare the signature on the ballot to the signature on file.
VBM It works ! But no one cares. Why? I don't know.
Oregon & Washington have done this long enough to know it works -- very well !
We love it. But in most every voting reform discussion we aren't even mentioned. If mentioned, it's a one sentence "yeah, those two states do it differently."
We have no lines. I can check online to verify that my returned ballot was received. There is a clear, permanent paper trail. There is no need to train volunteers or hire poll attendants. There are no expensive touch screens or hanging chad.
maphi . . . They confirm the signatures electronically. And, believe me, they look at each one. As my mother got older, she had more and more trouble signing things like checks. Her signature became harder to read. It was the county elections folks who first noticed that. They sent her a letter asking her to sign a new voter registration form so that they would have her new, harder to read, signature on file for purposes of comparison.
By cutting public access to a service which his business provides free of charge, he was hoping to improve his profitability. Since he can't assess a poll tax, maybe the dumbass will realize that government is not a business.
You think?
(No..I figure the GOP will bang their collective heads against the what-did-we-do-wrong wall for several years to come.)
Scott is not in denial, his is a strategy of voter suppression! Prove me wrong Scotty boy!
As for Detzner? He and his boss should have the sense to realize if they insist on putting their cart before their horse, they won't get anywhere, and their horse will merely have the agony of a bruised nose! -Kevo
The people of Florida can fix this themselves by voting Scott out.
Is impeachment a possibility?
No impeachment statutes in the Florida constitution ;-(
We must all agree that a problem exists. The evidence of this comes from the fact that Obama was re-elected even after all of our attempts to suppress the vote in key democratic areas.
As to how we once more manipulate the polls so that we have a more conservative outcome, let us just say "we have yet begun to fight".
Republican legislatures will make it illegal for unwed mothers and single non-virgins to vote.A "whites only" line at every poll will be installed (and will be the only votes counted).English only policies will be enacted for all ballots. Tea Partiers will "count the votes"(and yes we know they are illiterate).
We will survive and go on to victory! Sieg H.......
Great snark!
Ah yes. this is the party of business. when American business puts its' mind to any problem they can solve it. that is except voting. er and except mining coal without destroying the environment and polluting everything. or for 40 years improving gas mileage standards, or crashing the financial system and the economy - oops!
You can't tell me that Larry Ellison at Oracle can't create a secure online voting system.
The Fed should take away the management of voting in FLA, Ohio and any other state where voters took abuse because of incompetence. Period.
FL clearly has a problem named Governor Scott. The GOP in FL has always been dirty, but it is worse under this Governor. He should be prosecuted for voter suppression.
FL needs to do what Oregon has done: have voting by mail. When you get a drivers license you get a voter's registration and ID. If you don't drive, you can go anytime during the year, at your leisure, and just get a voters ID. Then you begin mailing in your ballots, say a month before the election. Have a set date they need to be in.
Think how convenient this would be for the elderly in FL, for young mothers with babies and toddlers, for working men and women, for the handicapped! There would be a great cost reduction, a well. Inexpensive, no hassles, no lines.
Ballots arrive in the mail 2 weeks before election day. One can return by mail, or there are ballot boxes positioned around and about -- a drive thru at the courthouse, a box in the library, etc. In Oregon, we like it. It works.
Think of the cost savings in a state the size of Florida. No need to pay for poll workers, maintaining voting machinery and other expenses of the polling places, or paying elections officials for working overtime.
County elections officials can be checking signatures and tabulating ballots as they come in during the two week voting period.
I believe officials can compare signatures when ballots are received but aren't allowed to tabulate until election day
Maybe? People in line Tues. night until 2AM after early voting several days for hours and hours? Ya think?
The was an effort to purge votes, as well. Now, don't you have people whose job it is for that without T.P, "patriots" trying to say you must spend time checking THESE people we are contesting.
Sad. This is America, foundation built on "representation of the people".
I have to add, the people need to vote in the mid terms just as important to get the folks we really want to represent us.
India LeCarre #12 -- As for those of us who have difficulty getting out of our homes, much less finding transportation to the required site, why not have vans that bring the registrars right to our home?
Until you are disabled, or old, or both (or are involved with someone who is) you really don't know how difficult the little things in life can be. Like getting an official ID.
I am registered to vote and I have a driver's license, but I am lucky.
You are spelling this all wrong. The phrase is Right Thing. They did the Right Thing. The Thing that the Right does. You know, opposing actual democracy.
"I’m very confident that the Right Thing happened."
See how that makes sense of it?
Detzner said Governor Scott asked the State Department to make recommendations to him to solve some of the issues "with regard to the enthusiasm for early voting."
"It's an administrative issue," he said. "I think we can address it and have it fixed for the next time and I think that's what people want and we're going to fix it."
Reading the above quote, someone could easily infer that the problem they intend to fix is "enthusiasm for early voting," not making voting more accessible to accomodate the enthusiasm. Given their history, that's my take on it.
Spot On!!
They will not be intimidated by fact checkers and cheating is just a way to run a good campaign.
Carl Rove doesn't think there is a problem. He's so proud of his hate machine. He's shown the whites that all the problems are due to the socialist, the communists, the liberal media, the poor, Moslems, blacks, latinos and feminists.
He is the orchestra leader of hate.
Most Americans likely missed it, but in a post-election analysis on Nov. 8, 2012 in the Miami Herald (which incidentally endorsed Mitt Romney for President) Mr. Brett Doster, Florida Republican Party operative and advisor for the Mitt Romney campaign, made the following statement (direct quote):
"We thought based on our polling and range of organization that we had done what we needed to win. Obviously, we didn't, and for that I and every other operative in Florida has a sick feeling that we left something on the table. I can assure you this won't happen again."
Note here what he is talking about - not reforming the Florida election process to make it more fair and even-handed, but going even further with the Republican dirty tricks than they did this time.
Truth be told, the Florida Republican Party didn't actually "leave much on the table":
--they conducted voter purges of bona fide U.S. citizens who profiled as likely Democratic Party voters;
--they hired and paid several million dollars for consultants to register voters at supermarkets and malls around the state, but only filed with the Registrars the forms of those who listed their party of preference as Republican, and actually threw our the forms of citizens listing themselves as Democrats - their forms were found in dumpsters;
--Republican governor Rick Scott, a Tea Party darling, cut back on early voting places, days and hours because in the last election it was observed that people voting pro/Democratic made use of these early voting opportunities;
--they intentionally mis-allocated resources by over-staffing Republican-leaning neighborhoods, while massively short-changing Democratic-leaning neighborhoods with personnel and equipment; for working people, minorities, and the poor, this resulted in lines around city blocks and waits of 4, 6, and 8 hours to cast a vote. Voters with a health condition, or workers needing to show up for the evening or night shift were forced to leave the lines without casting their votes;
--poll workers reported that thousands of absentee ballots were dropped off at the polling stations just before closing time, raising the question of stuffed ballot boxes and forged/fraudulently filed absentee ballots;
--a concern everywhere was the proliferation of unregulated electronic voting machines, unregulated software and software patches to those machines, and insecure data lines, leaving the voting tabulations open to "man-in-the-middle" hacking to falsify election results coming from those machines.
So what does Republican operative Mr. Brett Doster really mean? Is he telling us that he feels sick because he and his organization didn't carry out enough election fraud and manipulation? Is he telling us he and his Republican Party operatives intend to double down on such illegal voter fraud activities in the next elections? Is he telling us he is prepared to do, without hesitation or inhibition, anything and everything necessary to throw the next elections to the radical extremists in control of the Republican Party of Florida, no matter how badly outvoted they are by the people of Florida?
When someone who is responsible for all the Republican Party has done to manipulate this election comes out and says "I can assure you we will never fall short again" - I want to know where is the United States Justice Department, the FBI, the US Attorney for Southern Florida and the State Police, and Miami-Dade CSI? Do we live in a country where criminals can freely announce their crimes in advance, after having already committed crimes before everyone's eyes, and yet no one will hold them to account, charge them, arraign, prosecute, or sentence them to terms in jail?
A democracy that does not defend itself against those who would destroy the foundation of our freedom - fair, and open elections, and the guaranteed right of every citizen to cast his or her vote, that democracy is doomed to fail. Voter fraud and election fraud are criminal offenses, and must be prosecuted.
If the Party in Charge in Florida, the Republican Party of Rick Scott, the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature, and Miami-Dade Republican Mayor Carlos Gimenez, cannot be expected to bring charges against themselves, then the Federal Government must step in here and bring justice for the citizens and voters of Florida. Doesn't it seem quite clear from this election that nothing short of serving time in a state or federal penitentiary can stop these criminal election fraud activities?
Exactly , you can read the same thing from the top romney guys , they come right out and say they thought they would specifically win EVERY PLACE THE GOP SUPPRESSED VOTES , their own gop numbers said they would win in those places , and you can bet it was because they thought local gov messing with voter turn out would help them win , these people are anti democratic , anti american , and slimey , they will wage a war on all early voting next time , along with mail in ballots , unless your a republican of course
One additional point, they "thought did what they needed to do to win".
Not just what they DID was completely evil and anti democratic, it was not a good strategy as that made people want to vote even more.
It showed poor judgement and tactical incompetence. They will say next time we will say it differently and put more women and brown skinned people in front of the camera. If someone says this or that word, we will taze them immediately. But that is just more window dressing. Think of it as they will hire advertisement teams to sell us their b.s. enrobed in a glossier Febreeze sprayed wrapper.
They show themselves as having an evil agenda, having a false reading of how to accomplish their agenda, having a non democratic, but authoritarian and proprietary view that they are divinely entitled to force the "riff raft" into submission is completely wrong.
This has been the way things have been for them, they don't like any disruptions of their grand plans.
I don't think they will get it, it's not in their make-up. They are the folks that pushed the indigenous peoples out of the places (nearly wiped them out) they thought they were entitled to dominate.
I applaud all my fellow Florida voters who stood in line, even after the election was called, to have their vote counted. THOSE are the votes that mean the most. I'd stand in line from now until 2014 to have my vote against Rick Scott counted.