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Voting conditions were awful in a wide variety of states this year, but arguably none was as bad as Florida. The state's Republican governor, Rick Scott, and Republican legislature imposed new restrictions intended to make voting more difficult -- narrowing the early-voting window, for example -- and the result included indefensibly long voting lines.
Yesterday, Scott's predecessor, Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee to condemn -- and at times, even mock -- Florida's recent fiasco.
[Crist] called for a possible federal law to prevent a repeat of what happened in Florida in November. Crist said the law Scott signed was designed to give Republicans a "partisan" edge.
Crist pointed out that, when he was governor, he tried to give more former felons the right to vote and that he also issued an executive order in 2008 that kept the polls open longer for early in-person voting, which is heavily used by Democrats, independents and minorities, a Miami Herald analysis showed.
Factoring in Crist's executive order, Florida in 2008 had a cumulative 120 hours of early voting over 14 days. Four years later, Scott insisted that the number of early voting hours be held at 96 over eight days.
Crist, who may very well be running against the Florida governor in 2014, told senators, "As Gov. Scott refused to take action to ease the lines, in some cases, those lines extended to six and seven hours.... The outcome of these decisions was quite obvious. Florida, which four years earlier was a model for efficiency, became once again a late-night TV joke."
For context, it's worth noting that there have been a series of allegations, including some levied by the former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, that GOP policymakers imposed voting restrictions deliberately in the hopes of blocking Democratic voters' access to the ballot box.
As for the governor, while Crist going on the offensive yesterday, Rick Scott was clearly on the defensive.
Immediately after Election Day, the far-right governor defended his election-related actions, insisting, "The right thing happened.... We did the right thing."
Yesterday, Scott sang a very different tune, telling CNN the state may need to improve its voting process. "We've got to go back and look at the number of days of early voting we have," the governor conceded. He added that he's also open to preventing unnecessarily long ballots, and giving "our supervisors more flexibility on the size of our polling locations."
It's hard to gauge Scott's sincerity, and no one knows whether and to what extent the governor will consider election reforms in advance of 2014. That said, the fact that he's gone from "we did the right thing" to "we've got to go back and look" is probably evidence of progress.
As of the Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) of Iowa, pushed back against Democratic arguments about unnecessary disenfranchisement. "Fraud does exist. It's a fact of life. And it will get worse if the only response is denial," Grassley said.
Given reality, we can add this to the list of issues about which Grassley is confused.
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Thank you for not including a picture of Scott on this post.
Haha! I can never decide if he looks creepy or goofy. Maybe it's both.
Felonious comes to mind.
Scott was a horrible choice for gov. and he is proving it consistently. He will walk back his BS like his clone Scott Walker but if the people follow the slime trail, they will see the same BS hidden in some other bill when people aren't watching.
It wasn't just the number of early-voting hours. It was the length of the ballot and the number of machines as well.
The math is pretty simple. If the rate-limiting step is the ballot reader, and it can read X pages of ballot per minute, and you have Y machines and Z minutes of total open polling, then the total number of votes will be no more than XYZ. All the long lines do is to force the polls to stay open (increase Z). Meanwhile the long lines discourage people from staying to vote.
I have never had to wait more than 20 minutes to vote. But then, I've never tried to vote in an urban area under GOP voting rules.
Sorry that should be YZ/X.
In Virginia, state law requires one voting machine for every 750 voters. The polls in Virginia are open for 12 hours. If it takes 5 minutes to read the ballot and vote, what percentage of Virginians can actually vote? 19%
There were 12 proposed amendments to the Florida Constitution on the ballot, placed there by the Republican Legislature. Citizens have a much more difficult time getting proposed amendments on the ballot and citizens' ballot summary, as I recall, is limited to 75 words. In contrast, the legislature's amendments have no word limit and they took advantage of that. In addition to deceptive titles on the amendments, the descriptions were terrible. Nonetheless, only 3 passed but the apparent purpose, force people to read so much garbage that they will take forever to complete their ballot, worked, as the long lines showed.
For myself, it was easy. If something is proposed by the Florida Legislature, vote NO. Makes it much faster to vote and to be sure you are doing he correct thing.
Standing in long lines is bipartisan, so the genius who thought he could deliver Florida by mucking the process sure looks bad now, bipartisanly. Rank and file conservatives would rather have different election-stealing schemes designed for next time so they can make it home to listen to hate radio...
Not exactly. If you control the voting process, it is easy to "adjust" the "anticipated turnout" and have too few polling stations in urban (liberal) areas and plenty of polling stations in suburban and rural (conservative) areas.
Ah . . . It's great to be a Floridian, where in 2014 my choice for governor may be between a political wind sock and a republican sock monkey. Sometimes I get so tired . . .
This last election cycle was so brutal and so LONG that I've been very reluctant to even think about the next one...until this article. I'm already excited about the idea that Charlie Crist might run for and become Governor of Florida again. VOTE GOV CRIST 2014 and take the DUH out of Floriduh.
I don't understand why all the video of GOP leaders in key swing states admitting they were trying to rig polling in favor of Republicans has not brought charges of violating the Voting Rights Act. Story after story this election season of men recorded stating their primary goal was to reduce likely Democratic voting by a variety of means with no consequences, as if it meant nothing. This should not be viewed as a "failed tactic" as though it was OK, just a "bad idea" that didn't work as planned.
"It's hard to gauge Scott's sincerity,..."
No actually it's not - what he said the first time is exactly what he meant; what he said to CNN was to cover his @ss in the light of Crist's testimony - and he's not going to do a dayum thing to change it unless it makes it worse!
As for Grassley isn't it time for him to retire - he's another old, cantankerous, batcrap crazy desperately holding on to his seat in Congress!
As for Grassley isn't it time for him to retire - he's another old, cantankerous, batcrap crazy desperately holding on to his seat in Congress!
As a life-long resident of the GREAT state of Iowa, I couldn't agree more! He used to be benign, harmless, really and skated by each election cycle because he didn't say or do anything overtly controversial. However, for the past 2 years, he's revealed his true colors - out of touch with America. He's not called "Grandpa Cornpants" for nothing.
Grandpa Cornpants. Wow.
We have a convicted felon as a governor and you can shoot people dead with impunity while insisting you were just standing your ground! Come to Florida!
- failed Florida Tourism brochure
Then there's Florida's Governor Scott,
Thinks drug dealing's a Democrat plot,
'Fore elections, his fame's
Faking Medicare claims.
You think this guy's a con man, or what?
The laws that they call "Stand Your Ground"
Make the NRA think they're profound,
But they're turning our best
Into the Wild, Wild West,
And our nation to a burial mound...
Being a Florida resident and having lived through the 2000 election fervor, right here in Palm Beach County (the center), I am embarrassed at the way our elections were run this year. There is NO doubt in my mind that the Republican controlled state government took a system that worked well (indicated by no nation coverage) in 2008 and turned it completely backward. Most don't know, but there were other initiatives designed to suppress the vote. For example, all third party voter registrations had to be turned in within 48 hours. That pretty much eliminated any weekend voter drives and almost landed a high school civics teach in jail for registrations taken on a Friday that weren't turned in until the following week.
Now Rick Scott is backpedaling because his poll numbers have completely tanked.
Yeah for Crist! Now, get Scott and those turds out of Florida.
We have the right to vote!
Is the Gingrinch's space station built yet? We could send Scott there with the rest of the crazies in his party!
Good one Loren. :)
Grassley isn't confused. He's a @!$%#ing moron. See @chuckgrassley if you have any questions.
Was Scott also responsible for cutting the NUMBER of polling places? I know that he cut the hours, but I was wondering if he was also responsible for cutting the number of polling places, or if this decision was left in the hands of each county's election officials. Does anyone know?
Also - for a good time, check out True the Vote on Facebook. They're claiming that voter fraud was widespread in the 2012 election, and that the President's win can ONLY be attributed to voter fraud. Their Facebook page is full of lulz.