More good news out of Florida, where a judge has tossed out an outrageous anti-voter law which, critics charge, could well have disenfranchised thousands of Sunshine State voters (again) just in time for the 2008 Presidential Election. We spoke just last week with Ion Sancho, Leon County (Tallahassee)’s legendary Supervisor of Elections, who expressed grave concerns about this very law, even as Republican’s promise to appeal the judge’s decision, and continue other anti-voter related efforts about the country.
According to the Miami Herald’s breaking coverage this morning…
About 14,000 people have not been able to register because of Florida’s ”no match” law that requires a citizen’s name on a voter registration form be matched with a Social Security number or driver’s license number. The law has been challenged by the NAACP and other groups that say the law unfairly blocks blacks and Hispanics from being able to register to vote.
…
U.S. District Judge Stephan Mickle rejected arguments from the state that the law is needed to deter possible voter fraud, pointing out that the state has not been able to prove that the 14,000 voters now in limbo engaged in voter fraud. He said the requirements put in place by Florida lawmakers apper to conflict with federal voting rights laws.
”The disenfranchisement, however unintentional, causes damage to the election system that cannot be repaired after the election has passed,” Mickle wrote in the order.
The article goes on to report that FL’s appointed Republican Secretary of State, Kurt Browning, says the state will appeal the ruling, about which he says, “in my view the Legislature appropriately enacted this important anti-fraud provision as part of Florida’s Election Code.”
Browning’s comments, unfortunately, come as little surprise for a number of disturbing reasons…
In an arguably related point, Browning, the former Pasco County, FL Supervisor of Elections, was one of the state’s most ardent supporters of unverifiable, inaccurate, easily manipulated touch-screen voting machines, until forced by his new boss, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, to support Crist’s largely successful campaign to rid the state, once and for all, of such unreliable touch-screen voting systems.
For his part, Tallahassee’s Sancho (one of the good guys, as seen in HBO’s seminal documentary Hacking Democracy) told us last week that he was gravely concerned about the law which would have given anybody the right to challenge a voter’s legitimacy, without recourse for the voter.
“We’re gonna have problems in Florida. We’ve gonna have major problems next year” in regard to the law which was reversed today, and which Sancho told The BRAD BLOG he sees as part of a “continuing conspiracy to suppress 3% of the vote across the entire country” in next year’s election.
Florida’s law is one of several recently enacted by Republicans around the country making it harder to register legal voters to vote, and for registered voters to be able to cast their legal vote without obstacle on Election Day.
The Republican legislature in Ohio recently enacted a similar law to Florida’s, while the DoJ’s now-thankfully-former voting section chief, John Tanner, had recently upped the ante by sending notices to 10 different key states, threatening them with lawsuits if they did not carry out draconian and immediate purges of their voter registration databases.
More recently, the DoJ filed an amicus brief in the upcoming Supreme Court battle over draconian Photo ID restrictions at the polling place, meant largely — in the absence of any notable evidence of voter fraud — to keep Democratic-leaning voters from being able to cast a vote at all. Needless to say, by now, the Bush Administration’s DoJ came out in favor of the Indiana law which will be coming before the high court in January.
Here’s the truth something missing from this post.
click on this link for the whole article.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/349812.html
Which says this
Among their complaints: that the process may be prone to error because Hispanics sometimes use two surnames, which could throw the process off, and that many blacks use nontraditional spellings for their names.
U.S. District Judge Stephan Mickle, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton
followed by this-
Mickle granted an injunction to the NAACP and other groups that blocks Browning and state officials from enforcing the law while the suit is still pending. But Mickle also said in his ruling that the NAACP’s attorneys had not proven that the intent behind the law was discriminatory or showed racial bias.
What is not clear from his order is what will happen to Floridians who have already had their voter registration forms rejected under the no-match law.
”What needs to be decided is, is it prospective or does it goes back?” said Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Lester Sola.
Many of those whose registrations were rejected are from South Florida. The groups that filed the lawsuit told the court that 35 percent are from Miami-Dade County and 8 percent from Broward.
A spokesman for Browning’s office said state officials are still trying to figure out what to do about those previously rejected. Under the law, election supervisors are supposed to tell voters their registration forms don’t match other database information.
Voters who do not correct the discrepancy are to be given a provisional ballot on Election Day and then given three days to prove their identity.
Republicans– if they don’t cheat, they can’t win.
if the republicans are soooooooo against voter fraud why havent they gone after ann coulter that could be there signature case dont ya think
#2/ Martin, I agree. Not only do they have to cheat to win, they also need the media to cover-up the cheating for them. Sadly, the “liberal” media does just that.
A few months ago Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning wondered aloud if spending time trying to prove to the public the voting machines are accurate and secure is worth the effort, when he should be spending time running good elections. Hmm. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12586276).
Now Browning balks at a federal judge’s ruling that blocks Florida’s “no match – no vote†law and grants Florida residents their lawful right to vote.
Is no one outraged that Browning has been in office for a year but has not had time correct the process/clerical errors that disenfranchised 14,000 voters?
An article assessing what Browning could have done is posted on OpEdNews titled, “Is your vote worth 10 minutes? 20? An hour? Apparently not in Florida.â€
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_lani_mas_071219_is_your_vote_worth_1.htm
Lani Massey Brown
A MARGIN OF ERROR: BALLOTS OF STRAW, featured on http://www.VotersUnite.org
Cheating is an easy, vague way to put it… but changing the rules of the game in their favor under the noble falsehood of protecting the process from voter fraud… that’s more accurate.
Unlike the Supreme Court Challenge that we had to face in 2000 (where the highest Federal Court the land issues a legal decision about STATE election laws, in which they have no jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution, and helped to install an illegitimate president) The GOP is using the issue of voter fraud, in order to deny those who may have incomplete or inaccurate identification.
To vote in the state of Florida, the following terms must be met.
• Be a citizen of the United States
• Be a legal resident of both the Florida and of the county in which you seek to be registered
• Be 18 years old (you may pre-register if you are 17)
• Not now be adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting in Florida or any other State
Many of those affected will be voting Democrat, based on statistics of minorities and poor being the most disenfranchised in the voting process with these laws.
Which, incidentally, often favors of the GOP by silencing those voices that do not have the power of recourse against accusations that their votes are invalid. Coincidence.. I think not.
By denying these citizens their right to vote, they are in essence, illegally influencing the outcome, by legal means.
The mere accusation of illegitimacy can now ‘take someone’s vote.” Which is far easier and more preferable, than getting the US Supreme Court to disregard is jurisdiction and change an entire state’s vote… AGAIN!
Deny, deny, deny and misrepresent the truth is the true meaning of liberal. Every democrat who won in 2006 should be shown the door because according to the uneducated easily manipulated democratic liberal sheep the voting machines don’t work properly. You liberals know Hillary and Barack don’t have a chance of winning and your starting the BS early so that you can cry foul again. BOO HOO BOO HOO. I’m sure will delete this post because only he and liberals are allowed to make such attacks.
So then if there is no cross match system in place, how do we ascertain that the person is an American citizen and is who they swear by affidavit that they are?
What stops someone that is not a citizen from voting? What stops someone from voting multiple times?
What stops someone that is not a citizen from voting?
The inability to register to vote.
What stops someone from voting multiple times?
The fact that they will be arrested for it.