DOJ Sends Letter to Florida Demanding It Stop Purging Voter Rolls

[Lunican]

The Justice Department sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner Thursday evening demanding the state cease purging its voting rolls because the process it is using has not been cleared under the Voting Rights Act.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/06/01/20130601.florida.letter.pdf

[Lunican]

Rick Scott responds to the DOJ, stating that they will not stop the voter purge.

Florida challenges Washington over voter purge effort

Reuters) - Florida on Wednesday disputed a Justice Department claim that its controversial voter purge efforts may be illegal and said it was the federal government that appeared to have run afoul of the law.

"The Florida Department of State has a solemn obligation to ensure the integrity of elections in this state," said Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner in a letter to the Justice Department.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/us-usa-voting-florida-idUSBRE85600J20120607

Fortunately, Rick Scott can't compel local elections officials to actually remove anyone on his list.

This should get interesting.

[finehoe]

The push to crack down on the way Floridians vote, and how they register to vote, is viewed by some as an effort to single out Democratic voters, many of them black and Hispanic. Florida has been accused in past elections of unfairly trying to remove from the rolls former felons who are eligible to vote.

    The new scrub of registered voters is no different, said Howard Simon, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

    “It’s a purging process that is based on what the state already acknowledges to be inaccurate information,” Mr. Simon said. “It really raises questions as to whether or not this is yet another partisan effort to scrub the voting rolls. We know it’s inaccurate because people from as far away as Pensacola to Miami have come forward to say, ‘I am a U.S. citizen. I am eligible to vote.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/us/florida-attempts-to-scrub-illegal-voters.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[copperfiend]

It's really sickening to be honest. Voter suppression at it's finest.

The story about the 90 year old WWII veteran born in NYC is probably the worst example I have seen so far.

[mtraininjax]

How is purging illegals from the voting rolls suppression? Scott cannot do anything 3 months before the election, hence the push now before his time runs out.

Lots of nothing, just filler before the Supreme Court rules on Healthcare later this month.

[fsujax]

^^exactly! Those evil Republicans! darn them.

[JeffreyS]

If the state were claiming they had solid information about who should be removed from the rolls that would be one thing. They are not even pretending that they are not removing many of our fellow citizens from the lists. 

[RiversideLoki]

The problem is not the purging of illegal aliens, the problem is the process by which they are going about it. They aren't verifying their data when they attempt to purge the records. They're just matching against a list of known illegal aliens and sending letters to anyone with that name.

San your name is Juan Pablo Escobar, but you were born here in Jacksonville. Does your name match? You're getting a letter, and if you don't get that letter, or you do and don't respond to it, you're automatically removed from the voter rolls. Even if you registered last month successfully.. you know.. by proving you're a citizen and resident when you actually register to vote.

It's bullcrap.

[mtraininjax]

San your name is Juan Pablo Escobar, but you were born here in Jacksonville. Does your name match? You're getting a letter, and if you don't get that letter, or you do and don't respond to it, you're automatically removed from the voter rolls. Even if you registered last month successfully.. you know.. by proving you're a citizen and resident when you actually register to vote.

Burden of proof is on the voter, I don't see anything wrong with that. No different than your social security check going somewhere else because of a US Treasury screw up, the burden of proof lies with the individual, not the state.

This process is much less costly than having to go see and verify and track down the individual. You get a letter, you can always clear it up with the state.

[If_I_Loved_you]

San your name is Juan Pablo Escobar, but you were born here in Jacksonville. Does your name match? You're getting a letter, and if you don't get that letter, or you do and don't respond to it, you're automatically removed from the voter rolls. Even if you registered last month successfully.. you know.. by proving you're a citizen and resident when you actually register to vote.

Burden of proof is on the voter, I don't see anything wrong with that. No different than your social security check going somewhere else because of a US Treasury screw up, the burden of proof lies with the individual, not the state.

This process is much less costly than having to go see and verify and track down the individual. You get a letter, you can always clear it up with the state.

"Burden of proof is on the voter" OK then lets take a thumb scan to vote? Anyone Republican or Democrat can get a fake ID. So lets do thumb print scans so if some Idiot votes in one place he or she can't go to another area because a thumb scan would show up that they have voted already!

[finehoe]

So lets do thumb print scans so if some Idiot votes in one place he or she can't go to another area because a thumb scan would show up that they have voted already!

Sounds like a solution in search of a problem:

But the “threat” [of voter fraud] is very nearly non-existent. Tova Wang, an expert in election law, told U.S. News and World Report in April that the number of people who have been prosecuted successfully for voter fraud is “ridiculously low.” A 2006 report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law found documented examples of voter fraud to be “extremely rare” and likened it to one’s chances of being killed by lightning.

The idea that voter fraud is epidemic stems from the occasional high-profile exception and from stunts like GOP activist James O’Keefe’s sending some guy into a polling place to vote under the name of Attorney General Eric Holder. But stunts and high-profile exceptions do not disprove â€" nor even address â€" the statistical reality Wang and the Brennan Center describe.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/06/03/2167207/a-ham-handed-solution-to-a-voter.html

[copperfiend]

How is purging illegals from the voting rolls suppression? Scott cannot do anything 3 months before the election, hence the push now before his time runs out.

Lots of nothing, just filler before the Supreme Court rules on Healthcare later this month.

Or purging 90 year old WWII veterans.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/01/493500/meet-archibald-the-second-90-year-old-wwii-veteran-targeted-by-floridas-voter-purge/?mobile=nc

[Adam W]

I don't agree with it at all. It seems a dangerous practice.

But I don't think we should spend our time trying to assign a motive to the Governor's actions - there simply isn't enough evidence or information to say for certain and our attempts to assign a motive (from any ideological perspective) simply reveals our own biases.

[vicupstate]

What words best describe this?

Irony?
Hypocrisy?
Poetic Justice?


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/14/us-usa-voting-florida-idUSBRE85D15R20120614

[Garden guy]

No one should be surprised..this is what right wing conservative republicans do..welcome to the great state of Florida...the nations leader in political idiots.