Florida Governor Rick Scott and his Secretary of State, Ken Dentzer, really don’t like it that minorities can vote in their state. They’re also incompetent.
In late 2011, Scott ordered a statewide purge of all “non-citizens” from the voter files. Despite questions about the accuracy of the purge list, Dentzer ordered local elections supervisors to mail letters to thousands in 2012, informing them that they appeared to be ineligible to vote. Hundreds of these letters went to U.S. citizens who were indeed legitimate voters, including a 91-year-old WWII veteran. After seeing the high error rates, even in a pared down list of “sure-fire” non-citizens, election officials of both parties spoke out and called a halt to the efforts. The U.S. Department of Justice also demanded an end to the purge, deeming it illegal under the Voting Rights Act.
Dentzer pared down the initial list to just 198 names of people he deemed non-citizen voters. Even that turned up almost no non-citizens who had actually ever voted — just 39 of the state’s 11 million-plus registered voters. And even that small list included some documented U.S. citizens. Still, Dentzer called the purge effort his “passion” and “moral duty.”
Despite this pathetic record of failure and the nakedness of their effort to purge Democratic voters off the voting rolls, they just kept going.
Once again, Ken Dentzer, Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) handpicked Secretary of State, has unsuccessfully attempted to mount a massive purge of Florida’s voter rolls. And once again, he has been forced to abandon this effort due to his lack of an accurate list of who is and is not eligible to vote.
In a memo, Dentzer told the state’s local election supervisors that the purge would be postponed until 2015. He plans to utilize a new federal database which he believes will be up and running by then and will provide more accurate data on who is and is not a U.S. citizen.
Until the Republicans began hyping non-existent in-person voter fraud, I never thought that the American people would tolerate such an affront to our democracy. If you’d asked me, I’d have predicted that people were so committed to the sanctity of the right to vote that they’d rise up and hang anyone who tried to purge the voting rolls of people who are completely entitled to vote.
It turns out, Republican voters are mostly fine with these tactics, and most every one else doesn’t give a shit either way.
Except, black folks. They happened to notice that these purges were aimed entirely at people of color, and they voted at a higher rate than whites in the last election.
It turns out, Republican voters are mostly fine with these tactics, and most every one else doesn’t give a shit either way.
Because the TradMed doesn’t report the truth and too many people still have faith/trust in them.
Want the GOP to start to jump up and take notice and start to care. Every state should push bills identical to the voter ID suppression bills focusing on ALL voters must provide a list of needed documentation.
When they are inconvenienced or the mere threat of it they will rise mightily. Then point out how this is only fair and just, if required of others.
Since Florida (like most states) requires you to register witb party affiliation, I don’t see what could possibly go wrong. They started with the assumption that anyone with a (D) by their name was ineligible to vote, and then worked to pare the list down as little as possible from there. What could go wrong?
“I never thought that the American people would tolerate such an affront to our democracy”
I never thought the USA would torture people or invade a country that didn’t attack or even threaten us.
Wrong on all counts. And the Republicans are always looking for a new sewer to wallow in.
“committed to the sanctity of the right to vote…”
Well, you are an idealist, Booman, nothing wrong with that, except it’s a tough row to hoe in the era of Late Conservatism…
Embarrassing admission: as the “conservative” campaign to steal the 2000 election got underway, I assumed that Bush and Gore would be able to easily agree on how to conduct a Florida recount, since certainly no one would want to be president if they hadn’t actually been elected, not to mention being the first electoral college prez in 113 years. SURELY Repubs wouldn’t want to have a prez perceived to be illegitimate from the start!
Ahem…. Nor was I that young. But I was foolish.
Far from being concerned about having a prez who lost the popular vote (and who never had to demonstrate he won even the electoral vote!), Repubs celebrated their phoney prez and his psychopathic VP. And their 5 “federalist” and “restraint” loving justices showed the level of their intellectual dishonesty, abject results-oriented partisanship, and commitment to protect the republic as well.
The five “conservative” activists masquerading as “justices” bent over backwards to ensure that the nation was saddled with an electoral college prez. Precisely what political scientists had for decades thought “modern” 20th-century Americans would never accept. Completely counter to the precedents and practical jurisprudence of the Supreme Court in voting cases for decades. And in doing so these “conservatives” justices wrecked the faith of any thinking person in the objectivity of a (Repub-controlled) Supreme Court, and showed that the Court is now as deeply corrupted as the Repub party.
So not exactly what an idealist would expect, ha-ha. 2000 was a tough year for idealism! But the Stolen Election of 2000 merely set the stage for the coming anti-democratic drama.
And now, fifteen years into a committed nationwide Repub campaign to suppress Dem-leaning voters, we can see the Stolen Election wasn’t some sort of aberration or fluke. We can see just how “committed” Repubs and “conservatives” (and their base) are to democratic principles like the right to vote and majority rule. The reality is American “conservatives” despise democracy and revile the idea that every citizen should register a vote. Not every citizen is equal, after all. Instead, the only principle “conservatives” revere is The Ends Justify the Means.
It is looking increasingly clear that democracy is not possible here. It is not wanted. Another “victory” for patriotic “conservatives”—protecting the right of (“Traditional Americans”) to vote! And you know who you are!