They'll Do it Again in Florida

[paft.livejournal.com]

Why wouldn't they? It worked in 2000.

Via Crooks and Liars

The last time, the target was black voters and the rationale for removing names was the voters were convicted felons. This time the target is Hispanic voters and the rationale offered that they are “illegal immigrants”:

The full universe of potentially ineligible voters that state elections officials plan to check for possible removal from the roles is about 180,000, a spokesman for the Division of Elections said Friday, reports David Royse of the News Service of Florida.

Elections spokesman Chris Cate told the News Service that in all, when matching voter rolls against newly available citizenship data from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, officials found that number of possible matches, and began further investigating each one to see if they were likely to be wrongly registered to vote…

But earlier this week it wasn’t clear how many more names might eventually be checked. On Friday, Cate said the larger number was the total identified so far, but that it will take some time to further cull through that list to determine which names are most likely accurately identified as non-citizens.

(Emphasis added)

A list of “suspect voters?” Matching names to voter rolls? Anyone who remembers the 2000 presidential election, and is up on what happened in Florida is going to find this nastily familiar.

This news story was aired in Great Britain in the wake of the last election. It goes into devastating and well-documented detail about how the election was stolen in Florida. But one of the most telling moments, one that helps explain the mystifying inertia of Democratic leadership in the wake of that fiasco, comes near the end, at about the 11:35 mark, when reporter Greg Palast talks to Democrats at a $5,000 a plate fundraiser.

It’s back to champagne politics as usual. One Democrat, a big shot at the soiree, whispered they would have done the same as Katherine Harris [Florida Elections official who oversaw the purging of thousands of legal Democratic voters from the rolls] if they had the chance.

The Democratic Party Chairman, Bob Poe, who was apparently attending that fundraiser, does bitterly denounce the disenfranchisement of voters in this clip. But here in 2012, with our greater awareness of the divide between rich and poor, that unnamed Democratic fat cat whispering his contempt for the vote resonates painfully. For many Democrats back then, it was a shock to discover how little the integrity of the vote mattered to the people in power, Democrat or Republican. Those of us (like the Black Caucus) who objected too loudly and too persistently were essentially told to sit down and shut up. It was an sign of just how much big money had come to matter, and how little the rest of us did.

The Republicans plainly haven’t changed. Have the Democrats?

We’ll see.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

Comments

[paft.livejournal.com]

If you mean the 2000 election, sorry, but it's not a "theory" that several thousand legal voters, most of the Democrats were barred from the polls. It's a fact.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It is a convenient conspiracy theory that the Republicans "rigged" Florida as opposed to say, Ohio or another state where that might actually be feasible, as opposed to the Dems badly messing up. 2000 was just very unlucky timing in an odd place, not one bunch stealing an election from another.

[paft.livejournal.com]

U: It is a convenient conspiracy theory that the Republicans "rigged" Florida as opposed to say, Ohio or another state where that might actually be feasible, as opposed to the Dems badly messing up. 2000 was just very unlucky timing in an odd place, not one bunch stealing an election from another.

No, it is not a "theory." The manner in which the Republicans purged the polls is very well documented. Their history of doing this even before 2000 is so well known they were forced to sign a consent decree in the 1980s (which they promptly broke) promising not to do it again. Their 2000 shenanigans in Florida were so well-documented they settled the resulting lawsuit on behalf of purged voters out of court,

You plainly know nothing about voter suppression.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That they'd rig Florida at all is the difficult to swallow part. Florida is generally not a must-win for the GOP. Why would it rig that one state in particular?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And if you say "JEB Bush" then you're an outright conspiracy theorist as nobody when Bush and Gore began their general election against each other would have foreseen the election bogging down over Florida.

[paft.livejournal.com]

U: That they'd rig Florida at all is the difficult to swallow part. Florida is generally not a must-win for the GOP. Why would it rig that one state in particular?

Like I said, you know nothing about voter suppression. It's been taking place in non-swing southern states for decades.

Jeb Bush promised his brother Florida. That's not a conspiracy theory. It's a fact.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Oh, so this *is* conspiracy theory time? OK. Frankly put Gore was subject to that little-understood reality that POTUS just means winning the electoral college, not the popular vote. And frankly why would Jeb have made that promise at the start of a campaign season and expected it to matter? Nobody GOP loses Florida and with it an election. Ohio or Texas, OTOH......

[paft.livejournal.com]

U: Frankly put Gore was subject to that little-understood reality that POTUS just means winning the electoral college, not the popular vote.

The electoral college is tied to the popular vote.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In theory, in practice it's perfectly feasible for electors to vote against the will of the population of a state. And in reality if Gore knew what he was doing, he should have asked for a statewide recount, not selecting four individual counties. But if Gore knew what he was doing the election would not have come down to four counties in one state. That Americans are spineless and resort to conspiracy theories to explain events with perfectly prosaic, mundane causes, well......

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I forget the specifics, but George Will recently mentioned the possible this nightmare scenario where the electoral college would be effectively tied and the House of Representatives would have to decide it. I don't think it would ever get that far though. The party out of power in the House (in this case, the Democrats) would seek a recount in one of the key states in such a way to bypass such a House decision. This map is really not that out of the bounds of possibilities (just a few states flipped from Kerry in 2004 and OBama in 2008 would cause it):

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Texas?
Dems haven't won Texas since 1976, and then it was a slim margin.

[tangaroa.livejournal.com]

That they'd rig Florida at all is the difficult to swallow part. Florida is generally not a must-win for the GOP. Why would it rig that one state in particular?

Because they could. The Secretary of State (the person in charge of elections), Katherine Harris, was George W. Bush's statewide campaign manager. Greg Palast does a poor job of justifying all of his claims, but he does present a good case that Harris called for such aggressive purging of "felons" that the process removed from the voter rolls other people whose names were the same as felons and who lived in communities with a high Democratic constituency (i.e. black neighbourhoods). These people were not informed that they had been removed, so they showed up to vote and were turned away. As I recall, the company that did the purging was controlled by Republican activists so motivation would exist there too.

Harris also certified the election and called a halt to counting the votes as soon as Bush was ahead and the law permitted her to do so. No conflict of interest there, eh? The voters of Florida rewarded her with an election to Congress. I suppose that's one reason why Florida has its own Fark tag.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except that if they did, nobody would have predicted that this would happen in Florida, the moreso since having a brother of one candidate as the governor of a key state would be a major element in any conspiracy theories that arise out of such a situation.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

your comment makes no sense whatsoever

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Much like the conspiracy theory he's describing.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It makes perfect sense. If the GOP wanted to do this kind of conspirawhatever they would not have chosen a state where GWB's brother is governor. Why? Because that might be rather too easy to detect by the Rorschachs of the world bravely probing the realms of fringe thought. They'dve rigged and ensured things happened somewhere like Ohio or Illinois.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

That's some backwards thinking.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No, no one was "barred" from the polls. The voter rolls were cleaned up as they will be again, and the appeals process will be put in place for people to get reinstated in the event of an error, same as before.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Several thousand legal voters were barred from the polls, as the resulting NAACP lawsuit demonstrated.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Which was settled (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-250_162-520754.html) as opposed to ruled in their favor.

[paft.livejournal.com]

It was settled because the state did not want too many details of what they'd done to be made more public than they already were. And from that link:

"The most significant part of the settlement is how the central voter database will be set up, restoring to the rolls the people who were wrongfully purged," said Anita Hodgkiss, a plaintiffs' attorney with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights."

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure the NAACP thinks they're in the right. The case was settled, so no wrongdoing was levied.

[paft.livejournal.com]

The fact that the case was settled does not magically undo what the Republicans did.

The NAACP didn't merely say "we're right" (which seems to be your method of argument.) They brought forth witness after witness, legal voter after legal voter, who'd been denied the right to vote.

You have nothing but your own denials.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The fact that the case was settled does not magically undo what the Republicans did.

"The Republicans" didn't do squat. The individual counties, per Florida law, swept the voter rolls to clear felons who could not vote from the rolls, and offered an appeals process to anyone who was improperly removed.

The NAACP didn't merely say "we're right" (which seems to be your method of argument.) They brought forth witness after witness, legal voter after legal voter, who'd been denied the right to vote.

Yes, they did. But that doesn't mean "The Republicans" did anything to them, or that the were not responsible for their own voting status. Unless you're saying that minorities cannot handle that sort of responsibility, right?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Hey Jeff,

Let's say I go to vote this year. But I get turned away because SOMEBODY ELSE WITH MY NAME COMMITTED A FELONY.

How the FLYING FUCK is that my responsibility?
And yes, I'm angry at you for your complete lack of disgust at a dishonest election.