Associated Press
After the 2010 elections, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and his Republican allies in the state legislature took a series of steps to restricting voting access in advance of 2012. The results were ugly -- including voters waiting in lines up to eight hours long.
Asked to defend the voter-suppression efforts, GOP officials in the state generally argue that the measures were necessary to combat imaginary voter fraud. Democrats have long assumed that the real reason was to block Democrats from voting, and there's new reason to believe those assumptions are correct.
Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer says he attended various meetings, beginning in 2009, at which party staffers and consultants pushed for reductions in early voting days and hours.
"The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates," Greer told The Post. "It's done for one reason and one reason only. … 'We've got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,' " Greer said he was told by those staffers and consultants.
"They never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue," Greer said. "It's all a marketing ploy."
As we talked about in July, it's not unreasonable to question Greer's veracity. The man is facing felony corruption charges and very likely carries a grudge against his former colleagues -- the state GOP quickly kicked him to the curb when his legal troubles began.
But Greer isn't the only one addressing Florida Republicans' motivations. Former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican turned Independent, has also said GOP officials only implemented voting restrictions to tilt the playing field in Republicans' favor.
Two veteran GOP campaign consultants also told the Palm Beach Post that Florida Republicans saw Democratic turnout in 2008 as a problem that needed fixing, and embraced voter-suppression tactics as a partisan solution.
A Republican consultant who asked to remain anonymous specifically said, "I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that's a big day when the black churches organize themselves."
We now know that these efforts were largely a failure. President Obama won Florida for a second time; Sen. Bill Nelson (D) was re-elected; and the Florida GOP generally had a pretty bad day on Election Day. But that's not the point -- rather, what matters here is that we have a series of Republican insiders who are admitting, out loud and on the record, that GOP officials took specific, deliberate steps to disenfranchise African-American voters.
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WHY Aren't ALL of these Goofballs Including Judges being Tried for Treasonous Behavior for Illegally Thwarting and Manipulating the American Voting Rights of OUR Constitution ??? OUR Forefathers Must be Rolling Over within their Graves !!
THIS IS NOTHING NEW. Pennsylvania's Mike Turzai(R) bragged months ago, on camera, that the Pennsylvania voter ID laws would deliver Pennsylvania to Romney (;-[ ) and Jon Husted(R) said that the "inner city voting machine" was not a valid reason to suspend all of the many and varied voter suppression measures he openly used up until the courts made him- no, FORCED him to stop. (can't make an emoticon with a tongue stuck out). Florida, the punchline to so many election jokes since hanging chads in 2000, did so much to suppress democratic leaning voters that it was patently obvious to everyone, especially after the polls closed and it became apparent that their tallying apparatus was only designed to handle a small, suppressed turnout.
The administration faces a delemna. If it goes after these officials, all Republicans, the officials will claim it's retaliation for their opposition to Obama, and all the RWNJ's in Washington will have a new justification for not compromising and not passing any legislation. The only hope of dispersing Teahadists obstructionism in Washington is to let these crooks get away with what they did. Sickening as it is, this might be the lesser of two evils.
;-Þ
"...what matters here is that we have a series of Republican insiders who are admitting, out loud and on the record, that GOP officials took specific, deliberate steps to disenfranchise African-American voters."
And so now what can the Justice Department do with this information? For that matter what do ordinary citizens do when they realize that the traitors that they've voted into office are really trying to disenfranchise voting for certain groups because the GOTP politicians are traitorous dogs?
Should we start getting our pitchforks, torches and guillotines together, because that's what it look like it's coming to! Someone once said "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" - these people are absolutely corrupted and need not be put back into positions of power again, until they can "play well with others"!
The fabulous author Frank Herbert had a different take on that...
'Power attracts the corruptible.'
Zora, I am coming to believe there needs to be a tighter linkage between blogger- social media writings like those you post and and organization much like Organizing for America.
For example say (with participant approval) postings are cross collected to an OFA like site and tagged according to relatedness to particular issues and policies. If you write or favorite a posting, then OFA has rich textual data on the views and issues of concern to its members. With such an information base, when OFA takes a collective action on one of those issues, they have a body of interested and motivated citizens on that subject. Technically this involves statistical clusterization of text, something I know a little bit about.
It would link word and political action in a feedback loop. The media org reports a story, citizen scribblers like us write up our fabulously insightful solutions to fix these problems perfectly, then a progressive organization we are a member of alerts us to planned action on the issue, asking for our assistance to push it through.
Minor stuff like Single Payer, Dream Act, Wall Street reform. Actions like showing up at town hall meetings en Mass pummeling opponents on these issues with rude questions. Actions like raising huge amounts of money for candidates running against obstructionists of these policies.
Real stuff.
For starters, they could print 9 copies of articles like this and send them to the Supreme Court. I'm deeply concerned that the SCOTUS will take the stance that the Voting Rights Act served its purpose and is no longer necessary. Given what we saw in Wisconsin and Ohio, I'd argue the opposite, that the Voting Rights Act should be expanded to cover all states, not just those in the South.
Of course there was voter fraud:
Old, white men weren't the only ones voting!
How dare people in a democracy have the gall to think that they deserve to vote?
Obviously We are No Longer Within a Democracy , the gop teabaggers are attempting to shift America into a Corporate-Controlled system ! Where Is OUR DOJ on this Disgrace of and Toward America and the American People ? ALL of these Anti-Americans Need to Be Thrown Into the Prison System !
Repubs are working toward a plutocracy, leaning toward fascism. The social conservatives have a sizeable portion of folks who would love to see the US become a christian theocracy, (search for Dominionists for more information). Democracy hasn't been a guiding concept for repubs for decades, and won't be again until they can clean out the vipers nest of corporatists and christian Taliban that have seized control of the party.
What are we going to do about it. Why aren't these people being investigated and tried. The heck with pitchforks call out the drones.
Will legal action be taken?
and the next thing you're gonna tell me is that water is wet.
OF COURSE IT WAS DONE TO SUPPRESS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S VOTERS!
If voters in Florida did not have the privilage of early voting, then the lines on Election day would be longer. Another point I would like to make is that the only reason why early Voting is shunned by the Right, it's because they have less chance of stringing up our seniors and others that may turn out; giving them more time and the chance of what they so Often call Democracy. Certainly sounds like a Stringing to me.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step...
In California (may it ever be blue) we do not have early voting. What do we have?
Huge numbers of voting centers, one to every 300-500 registered voters.
One day voting.
Absentee ballots.
Provisional ballots. As an election day volunteer, I was told that NO ONE was to be turned away without voting. Wrong precinct? Changed address? Lost absentee ballot? No problem--cast a provisional ballot.
--end rant--
But those provisional ballots are more likely than not to be discarded and never counted.
They are more interested in power for themselves than in conducting "the people's business".
They were not sworn into office to protect the Constitution only as it relates to themselves and people that they like!
They should be held accountable for the abuse of their position. If not criminally, then at least by the voters at the next election.
Naturally, this will be of no consequence when the repuke Supremes overturn the Voting Rights Act as no longer being necessary.
honestly you believe that
In the wake of the fiascos of the 2012 repression tactics, long lines, and excessive times to confirm results in Florida and Arizona, it is any surprise that the GOP voted to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission in the House, and have refused to nominate any commissioners? There are currently no commisioners and it is unable to take any actions.
Barbara Boxer for example has called on the GOP to be responsible. (rollcall)
Florida had a multi-faceted game plan to disenfranchise certain voters. One tactic was the culling of registration forms, seeking to invalidate applications based on a purely political agenda.
Targeting registered voters from demographic groups which traditionally vote for the opposition party candidates -- under the guise of eliminating non-existent voter fraud -- is the wrong side of history.
Florida's bout with electoral bulimia is a policy desperately in search of a justification.
My father voted in Florida and he was one of the lucky ones. He was able to vote in about 30-60 minutes and they provided him a chair (he is 80 with hip problems) while he was waiting.
By contrast, in Ann Arbor Michigan, I walked right in and voted.
But I was asked for Photo ID even though legally it was not required (I had my voter ID card on me) and the Governor voted down the requirement going against his own party, which the repubs in the state tried to ram through.
I presented my Driver license because I had one and there was no problem.
But it seems like Michigan's Secretary of State who also tried to get a citizen check box requirement on the ballet and was stopped in the courts might have pushed polling places to still ask for Photo ID.
if this is true and they have video why not put it with the story why is it that stories like this never come with facts just i heard them say this and that just yesterday i saw a video on msnbc about some guy saying this law is going to help us win the white house but then cut off you can look at that two ways one he is trying to supress voters to win or two he believes there is so much voter fraud that eleminating it will help romney win and the ideal that voter fraud has never happend is absurd not that i will say it is done by everybody but some people cheat and lie its inevitable my ex tried to send me her food stamps card when she moved out of state and i told her no i did not need it cause i have no problems paying my bills thank the lord. but there are people who do this here is my solution free goverment id's for everyone who can prove citizenship and well take you to the dmv to get them if you cant get there that way no one can say its voter disenfranchisement