Friends and supporters of Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old Florida woman who waited hours to vote, sent over these pictures today. Ms. Victor got invited to the State of the Union this week, as an example of the endurance test faced by thousands of people trying to cast a ballot in November. When Ms. Victor got back to Miami, a crowd of friends and supporters was there to greet her.
That same day, Florida Governor Rick Scott did a press conference about new jobs, and while there he got asked what he was going to do to improve voting in his state. Scott said he thought the state needed to limit the size of the ballot, give elections supervisors more authority to increase the number and size of polling places in their counties, and one more thing. From Orlando Sentinel video:
Third, we need to look at the number of early voting days. I proposed that we give our supervisors the option of between eight and 14 days, up to 12 hours a day, and allow them to do the Sunday before the Tuesday election. Because let's think about it: All of us want people to come out vote. We want them to vote. We want them to feel comfortable -- of course we want their vote to be counted. I’m proud that I fought last year to get the SAVE database*, to know Florida citizens' votes are not going to be diluted by somebody that never had a right to vote in our state.
But look, this is what we proposed. I'm optimistic that the legislature will pass this, and hopefully pass it early in this session.
And with that, the reporters were thanked for coming and the conference was over -- no time for asking why it was that Governor Scott cut early voting from 14 days to eight in the first place, then refused to extend the time despite the eight-hour lines.
*See: Governor Scott's voter purge.
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What an awesome lady.
Had next year not been his turn he would have continued his business as usual agenda,, block the vote. Rick Snyder is also up, "Get Out The Vote"!!!
Given the choice of 15 days of voting 7am to 1pm or 11am to 5pm or however you get about 6 hours a day of voting as it was OR 8 days of 6am to 6pm voting, I'd choose the latter.
"In 2011 Republicans, who had super majorities in both chambers of the legislature, passed HB 1355, which curtailed early voting days from 14 to eight; greatly proscribed the activities of voter registration organizations like the League of Women Voters; and made it harder for voters who had changed counties since the last election to cast ballots, a move that affected minorities proportionately more than whites.
The law was intentionally designed by Florida GOP staff and consultants to inhibit Democratic voters, former GOP officials and current GOP consultants have told The Palm Beach Post."
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/early-voting-curbs-called-power-play/nTFDy/
I love this lady. Governor Scott, not so much. The last thing we need is more local partisan control over voting.
For the sake of the Mrs. Victors of the various states, why can't we just implement vote-by-mail (automatic absentee ballots) across the county?
It works well in Oregon and Washington. No lines, no polling places to manipulate, high voter turn out...
... oh yeah, I forgot the GOP is terrified of high voter turn out. My bad.
Florida already has vote-by-mail, and in the past, the Supervisor of Elections in Pinellas County (St. Petersburg/Clearwater) really pushed absentee ballots in lieu of early voting. The drawback to vote-by-mail is that if the Supervisor of Elections decides that your signature doesn't match the one on file, then the ballot gets thrown out--and reportedly, legitimate ballots get thrown out in the process.
It is my understanding that in Oregon, if signatures do not match, the authorities are proactive; they contact you to resolve the situation. Here in Florida, however, if the Supervisor of Elections decides that you are not John Hancock, then you are not John Hancock, end of story. Florida law provides no remedy for voters who get disenfranchised because of signature problems.
And as for Gov. Scott: as Laura points out, he himself refused to veto the legislation that enacted the very things he is now complaining about.
One more datum: according to a recent Public Policy Polling (PPP) poll, Rick Scott's approval rating is a whopping 33% among all voters--and is at 49% among Republicans.
One more point: I have frequently seen Rick Scott compared to the cartoon character Skeletor. Personally, I'd vote for Nosferatu (either Schreck or Malkovich) as a better pop-culture lookalike. Just my opinion. . . .
PPP poll results: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_FL_116.pdf
Here is another option - voting online.
I work at a "Big Box" store. Often a customer calls in an order. They give me their credit card number, the expiration date, the 3-digit security code, the name on the card, and the zipcode of the billing address. I have never heard any customer complain of CC fraud.
It seems to me that any online voting system could use some combination of ID numbers, eg. driver's licence, SS#, home address, etc., that positively identify that person as being a registered voter.
In my home state, Minnesota, if I wanted to see a sample ballot, all I had to do was go to a government-sponsered website and type in my home address. A sample ballot appeared that was specific to my city, township, school district, whatever.
It doesn't seem to be that dificult. We should just do it. The easy part is that the Fed. government can mandate this for all federal elections, which pretty much decides it for all elections (except maybe schoolboard, if it is completely separate from any other election.)
the gop is sitting in one of their secret meeting rooms. how do we win elections when the majority of americans don't like us? the answer is you cheat. you lie. you steal. you redraw districts. you shorten voting hours. you add identification procedures. you make the ballot harder to understand. you do everything you can to get poor americans to not cast a ballot. you get judges to throw out huge blocks of inner city votes. and then you stand up on a stage and tell everyone how hard you have worked trying to get everyone a chance to vote. when are some of you people ever going to wake up!