Tweet
We’re starting to see more interest in the voter purge campaign happening down in Florida, where hundreds of thousands of voters are getting notices in the mail about their imminent cancellation from the voting rolls, based on a flawed comparison of data between those rolls and DMV data. This has already resulted in hundreds of known false positives just in Miami-Dade County alone, and an analysis of the purge lists shows that Democratic voters and particularly Hispanics are disproportionately targeted by it.
The New York Times has been the only national newspaper to really cover the situation in Florida, which Think Progress has scrutinized in detail. But the local papers in the state are raising awareness of the controversy. This has been helped by some attention to the issue by local Democrats. The Florida Democratic delegation for Congress urged Governor Rick Scott to stop the voter purge, saying that the process “fails to meet the basic standards of accountability.”
In particular, the Democrats used the spectacle of a WWII veteran being targeted for purging:
Bill Internicola was born in Brooklyn 91 years ago and received a Bronze Star for fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, but, according to the state of Florida, he may not be a U.S. citizen.
Internicola received a letter in May from the Broward supervisor of elections stating that it received “information from the State of Florida that you are not a United States citizen; however you are registered to vote.” The letter was part of a controversial state-led effort to rid the voter rolls of noncitizens. Similar letters were sent to 259 Broward voters [...]
Any effort to remove names from Broward’s voting rolls draws particular scrutiny because it is the most Democratic county in the state. It has more than 500,000 registered Democrats and could play a pivotal role in the outcome of a close presidential or U.S. Senate contest in November.
Deutch called Internicola an “American hero” and described him as “the face of Gov. Scott’s request to purge our voter rolls.”
(This could actually relate back to our previous discussion about Chris Hayes’ comments on Memorial Day weekend. Why is it somehow worse when a veteran gets targeted for voter suppression, rather than any other American? It’s a subtle symbol of this deification of the military, and all that attends that.)
In response to this, a spokesman for the Division of Elections boldly announced that there would be more names added to the purge lists:
Chris Cate, a spokesman for the state Division of Elections, defended the state’s actions. “It’s very important we make sure ineligible voters can’t cast a ballot,” he said in an email to the Herald on Tuesday.
He said the state continues to identify ineligible voters, saying the state Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has agreed to update information using a federal database that the elections division couldn’t access directly.
“We won’t be sending any new names to supervisors until the information we have is updated, because we always want to make sure we are using the best information available,” Cate wrote. “I don’t have a timetable on when the next list of names will be sent to supervisors, but there will be more names.”
The Scott Administration wants to make this entirely about voter integrity, as if the most important role for elections officials is to guard against a non-existent problem of voter fraud. In actuality, the statistics on who this impacts argue in favor of this being a voter suppression scheme, designed to make Democrats ineligible and give Republicans a better chance in November.
…the national progressive group CREDO has a petition out about this, calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to use the Voting Rights Act to shut down what they consider to be an illegal voting purge. Lawsuits are working through the courts on this as well.
20 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL News Desk
Signed.
It would be a shame if people in Florida weren’t able to choose between the candidate who wants to protect wealthy corporations, reduce civil liberties, and radically increase oil-drilling, and the candidate who wants to protect wealthy corporations, reduce civil liberties, and radically increase oil-drilling.
If these letters are going to people identified as not being citizens, shouldn’t ICE be delivering them?
I am hoping I get one of these letters. I would like to ask for relocation expenses to the country of my choice.
“It’s very important we make sure ineligible voters can’t cast a ballot,”
Yet they do intend actually having an election, don’t they?
Thanks for highlighting this important, but typical, story.
OTOH, I’ve long believed that our votes don’t count anyway, esp when the likes of Diebold are “counting” the votes.
Nonetheless, this information should be publicized. Sadly most of the voting public won’t give a rat’s patoot, even if it’s a Vet and most esp if the Vet happens to vote “Democrat.”
No love lost on my part with John Kerry, but he is a true “war hero.” Yet conservatives lost not moment of sleep villifying him and breathlessly repeating the most scurrilous lies about him.
Frankly the whole diefication of the Military-thing only works if you happen to be currently serving or a Vet AND you’re: a) a conservative, b) a Christian or Jew (only, but of course, Christian is “better”), c) not a homosexual, d) not born in a different country (despite being naturalized), and e) it’s better if you’re male, not female. Otherwise, all bets are off… as this situation proves.
Speaking of “noncitizens,” has Mittens thrown his own daddy under the bus? On the birth certificate he supplied Reuters for birtherpaloozaTrumpopolis in Vegas, George Romney’s birthplace is clearly listed as Mexico.
Yet George Romney was a candidate for president. Why do the Romneys hate Amercia and our Constitution? /s
AND add to that (reading between the lines): It’s not all that important to ensure that elligible voters actually GET to vote.
Eric holder – who’s he and does he really give a shit other than to collect his salary.
I look at Scott’s picture and I see something out of an Ingmar Bergman nightmare. Interesting that Scott seems to believe it’s a good picture.
Of course he cares look at the mary jane people his put away then that crazy guy that went to the land sale action a bid up the prices and poof his in jail. Then there are the whistle blowers trying to do the right think for Amerika and it’s citizens and what do you know there little eric screwing them over. eric cares but not to much about the citizens of this nation and please remember he takes orders from 0.
Holder is – again – failing the American people and shirking his duty. Why in hell do we need a petition to prod the AG of the country to simply do his job? Guess he is too busy prosecuting all those criminal bankers.
We have seen this movie before. The 2000 election in Florida was stolen long before the first vote was cast. When Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush purged 94,000 “felons” from the voter roles using a list they were told by the hired consultants would result in thousands of people being wrongly disenfranchised, they got the desired outcome. More than half those purged were African Americans.
Scott is one of our Reptilian Overlords. He is just not as good at shape shifting as most of his kind. ;)
I agree. People keep referring to this guy like he was some big shot. He don’t do shit. Who is he???
Well, if anybody can fix an election its the dastardly, despicable republicans from Florida.
Holder would do something if Obama would turn his eye on America again instead of figuring out how many more countries he can attack.
It’s almost like……they’re trying to help the Republicans turn this country fascist……..no THAT couldn’t BE! not here!
Scott does have that Voldemort look to him, doesn’t he? Perhaps he IS one of the alien shape-shifting lizards ruling the world?? heh… these days I’m close to not counting anything out of the equation… ;-)
“Why is it somehow worse when a veteran gets targeted for voter suppression, rather than any other American?”
In this case, I think the intention was to use that example to drive home the point that even an elderly person who had laid his life on the line for his country was being denied his voting right. Republicans are more likely to take notice and realize this is shameful and harmful to our (putative) democracy.
And yes, I think it is worse than, say, denying a college student because they had recently changed their address. The 91-yr-old man probably won’t get many more chances to exercise his voting right, and the fact that he served makes it more deplorable IMO.
Ya’ know. It’s really a shame. Lizards are basically good animals. They eat a lot of bugs. Keep the garden free of pests. I just don;t know how exactly they got associated with republicans and other seemingly slime-ball politicians. They nmake good boots and belts too.
The Old Testament did in reptiles. Joseph Campbell noted that a friend from India was reading the Bible and after slogging thru a good part of the Old Testament asked Campbell where it got to the religious part.