Expanding on the LuthorCorp Rick Scott voter purge in Florida that Betty mentioned, it seems that the GOP in the Ironically Named Sunshine State will see your “mass disenfranchisement” thing and raise you a giant vat of “Go screw yourselves.”
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.”
Of course there’s going to be more names. There are still people voting for the Blue team. That’s a problem they can fix, you know.
Moreover, the entire process of database matching to remove voters is problematic. The Fair Elections Legal Network, which is challenging the purge, noted that database matching is “notoriously unreliable” and “data entry errors, similar-sounding names, and changing information can all produce false matches.”
The first list was also created with information accessible to the state motor vehicle administration, which the former Secretary of State Kurt Browning considered so unreliable he refused to release. Browning resigned in February.
So yeah, at this point Florida is basically daring Eric Holder’s boys to do something about it. I really wish they would. Gotta purge them undesirables, ya know. Next thing you know, they’ll want things like “representation” and “equality” and before you know it, BOOM.
After all, you don’t have to rig an election if you can’t lose in the first place.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
They are indeed being proactive. Bastards.
Odie Hugh Manatee
But all Mitt said he needs is 50.1%!
If Holder steps in you can bet the screaming on the right will reach frequencies that will kill dogs instantly.
Worldwide.
Zandar
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Which is, of course, The Point.
wenchacha
What the fuck. And they call it democracy.
rlrr
“I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.”
— Hunter S. Thompson
rlrr
Is there actually any evidence of “ineligible voters” casting ballots in Florida (other than Anne Coulter)?
Mr Stagger Lee
Come on Holder has bigger fish to fry, people who are behind the Medical Marijuana movement, a couple of Black folk disenfranchised, really is not his problem, besides they might end up voting for Allen West
rikyrah
this nonsense needs to stop. need some arrest warrants for these mofos
David Hunt
@wenchacha:
Of course they do. Back in the day, lots of the old Communist puppet states (e.g. East Germany) had “Democratic” in their official names somewhere. North Korea still does. There was a time when a country having “Democratic” in its actual name was a sure sign of totalitarian dictatorship with only the barest veneer of democratic forms waved over the real power structure that the thugs maintained. What else could be expected from Lex Luthor?
PaulW
As a Florida resident I WANT the Department of Justice to intervene and stop this purge. Who do I call about this?
Redshift
The Republican definition of democracy (based on the evidence of Republican-supervised elections here and abroad during the Bush Administration) is: elections are held and the Right People win.
Will of the people ain’t got nothing to do with it.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Across the nation, Democrats shit their pants with terror, hoping that they’ll not be asked to take decisive, election-winning actions such as Scott’s.
They comfort themselves by thinking that it will just be a lot easier and far more civil to climb into the boxcars and go to the camps quietly.
Coffee is for closers. So are electoral victories.
Mudge
If I remember correctly, Florida has also made it much more difficult for groups to register voters. It may even be illegal for some organization to use those lists and seek to re-register the citizens.
It seems one of the reasons for requiring state IDs in order to vote may be to gather lists to help the purges.
Clime Acts
What’s awesome is how the Democratic Party has relentlessly worked to secure voting rights for ALL ever since the election theft of 2000, and how their resolve to keep the issue in the spotlight and write and pass corrective legislation has never flagged.
Awesome also is the powerful, consistent effort of the Obama White House over the last four years to prevent this entirely predictable development.
Oh wait…
shirt
“Across the nation, Democrats shit their pants with terror…”
Of course they are, fearing Lord Voldmort’s bain.
Wodwose
Off topic, my inner nerd would be remiss not to point out that Luthor’s corporation is LexCorp. Sorry. On topic, here in PA (the North’s FL) we’re doing the same crap. And no one seems to care. Sigh.
Redshift
@Mr Stagger Lee: Or, you know, challenging Florida’s voting law changes in court.
What the fuck is with the anti-Holder sneering around here? A Justice Department lawsuit doesn’t happen instantly, which may be why it hasn’t been announced yet on this particular matter, but the administration hasn’t been shy about pursuing them.
Chris
@wenchacha:
No, no, no. We’re a REPUBLIC not a DEMOCRACY.
eldorado
@Clime Acts: this is why i drink
kindness
I for one do not understand why the Justice Department isn’t going against these states hard. I mean, they should be very public about slamming the states & show how the states are lying. It has nothing to do with weeding out illegal voting and everything about disenfranchising the other team. It’s so blatant I just don’t get it.
Holder can go after medical marijuana but won’t go after Republicans trying to rig elections just as much? I don’t get it.
Redshift
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Fuck that. It’s not an “election-winning” action, it’s an election-stealing action. This is why I don’t have any sympathy for people who insist that we need people who will act more like the Republicans in election tactics.
Their goals aren’t the same as ours. They want nothing but to win and to rule, with no regard for how much damage they do to the country, and shitting all over the “little people” who don’t have any power but their vote, if they can keep it.
There is no separating these corrupt tactics from corrupt governing. The moment “our people” decide this sort of thing is something we have no choice but to use is the moment we have already lost.
ruemara
@Redshift: Ignorance is not just a virtue to Tea Publicans. Yeah, I went there.
Here’s what bugs me the most. This has been happening for years. The 2000 election most Democrats and liberals view as stolen. Yet they did not make it their business to build coalitions, turn out the vote and RETAKE LOCAL SEATS FROM REPUBLICANS. All this “oh why won’t the DOJ save us from the people we voted in” simply kills me. Why didn’t you punish the Republicans when they started this shit? Hair shirts and criticizing the DNC can happen when we control everything, why does it always become the main focus of liberals? Then as the shit really hits the fan, it’s all the fault of the national party, who, no matter what they’re doing, are both in collusion, ineffective and ignoring the problem-all at the same time. Shit man, even both of these threads will be 85% railing at Holder, the Obama Administration and the DOJ, maybe 5% actual constructive things people can do to help fight this and less than that of actual information.
Ash Can
And in other news, here’s a dandy little catch by commenter/diarist Gus at Little Green Footballs: Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister who flipped his shit over the term “Polish death camps” used by Obama yesterday — calling the president ignorant and incompetent — is a former National Review correspondent, AEI fellow, and adviser to Rupert Murdoch. No one could have predicted…
Clime Acts
@kindness:
Neither do I. But don’t ask questions. Odie doesn’t like it when you do.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Redshift Holder IMHO is 2nd only to Alberto Gonzales as the worst AG, in time of my life. Ball-less in going after bankers, goes after whistleblowers, wikileakers, quiet on the abuse of Occupy protestors, has no problems with the use of Drones spying on our citizens, quiet still on the high rate of racial minorities incarcerated(then again Holder is a High Yeller AA), Oh yes a governor, who if he suceeds, will put the AG’s boss out of business. But Hey we must keep the faith eh! Perhaps Holder will be the smiling dancing Stephen Fetchit for the Romney Adminstration, hell he is one for Wall Street Yassa Yassa Yassa!
ruemara
@Mr Stagger Lee: Way to jump straight into bigoted nonsense. And no, I could care less if you’re black, that’s some straight up bigoted bullshit you went to right there.
lol
@Redshift:
Get your god damn facts out of here. Clime Acts, Stagger Lee et al don’t want to hear about how the Justice Department has been filing suit after suit against states that have instituted voter IDs.
Much better to wallow in pity and purity before going to a giant puppet protest so they can pretend to be productive.
lacp
“Eric Holder’s boys?” You mean that Axis of Evil of Chicago thugs, ACORN, and the New Black Panthers that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is unleashing in his attempt to undermine fair elections and start a race war in Florida?
I suppose there are a few wingnut tropes I missed there. Hey, it’s tough to stay on top of this shit.
AA+ Bonds
Database matching, Christ, nothing EVER goes wrong with that
AA+ Bonds
It is pretty shitty that Obama and Holder try to bust weed growers though, I mean, that is a bunch of terrible bullshit right there
Accurate analysis will account for the re-creation of a permanent racially segregated underclass through drug busts/guilty pleas pushed by DAs
the Reverend boy
I have only lived on Florida for two years, so I would not be surprised to receive a letter questioning my right to vote especially since The Florida Keys will probably be redistricted out of Ros-Lehtinans district to something a little swingier.
Ash Can
And back on topic, I hate to interrupt all this wonderful Holder-bashing, but this might be a big part of the reason it seems like the feds are doing nothing about this. If Scott’s actions are met with cricket chirps from the national corporate media, of course it will look like Holder doesn’t care/isn’t paying attention.
In the meantime, based on this Miami Herald article that the ThinkProgress article links to, I have to wonder if the federal lawyers have enough to be able to act on at this point. Since the purge process is ongoing, does the DoJ have to wait and see more results before it can act? (I welcome input from people actually familiar with elections law.) Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that thus far, no one has been technically disenfranchised. These people have only received letters informing them that they will be disenfranchised in 90 days or some such, if they don’t produce proof of citizenship in the meantime. Can the DoJ step in if, technically, nothing has actually happened yet?
Also, the fact that the Florida DMV, with its access to the national drivers database, has only recently gotten involved seems to indicate a new wrinkle. Yes, we have this mope from the Dept. of Elections claiming that there will be more names, but now we have an additional actor in the process, one that appears to be a gatekeeper of sorts. Keeping in mind that even some Republicans in FL have been speaking out against the purge, and that the purge has already resulted in demonstrably eligible people being threatened with disenfranchisement, I’m going to be waiting to see if there’s some kind of announcement in the upcoming weeks to the effect of, “The national database and state database have a bazillion discrepancies, we can’t work with either one, we have to scrap the program and start over, blah blah” — in other words, a stall tactic, a monkey wrench of some kind getting thrown into Scott’s scheme. Not that I’m holding my breath waiting for anything good to come out of the FL state government, but if I were on Scott’s side I’d be loathe to see anyone else get involved.
Mnemosyne
@lol:
Well, to be fair, it’s not like it’s publicly available information that’s easily accessible on the DoJ website or anything.
I mean, you have to Google “Department of Justice” and all of that. It’s hard work!
lacp
OT, but here’s another heartwarming story from the Sunshine State:
http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/05/29/teen-punished-stopping-bullies-harassing-special-needs-girl
jo6pac
@Mr Stagger Lee: Dont forget whistle blowers pointing waste by govt. and it’s vendors. Then there that govt. arm known as ice helping Amerika with getting jobsback away from those people;)
Origuy
@PaulW:
Looks like it’s the DOJ Civil Rights Division.
I didn’t see anything about Florida, but I did see this:
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Redshift: I refuse to defend the Democratic Party from such demeaning names such as “Surrendercrats” when this kind of self-emasculating tripe is the prevailing mindset.
Politics is about nothing but who wins and who has the power. That means you have winners and losers. When one side is willing to do whatever it takes to win, and one isn’t, guess who will win?
Enjoy President Romney. The party has surely earned it.
Mnemosyne
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Ah, so in your opinion we should be giving federal money to the banksters so they can have their multi-million dollar bonuses. After all, they proved that they’re “winners” by making millions of dollars for themselves, and it makes no difference how they did it. The only thing that matters is that they won and they have the money now, and looking into how they got it is just being a sore loser.
ETA: Also, too, free Roger Clemens!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@AA+ Bonds: A President Romney is too terrible to contemplate, but I will be voting for Obama this fall with a large helping of bitter resentment, driven largely by what he’s allowing the DEA to do here in California.
I’m not asking for the moon, I’m just asking for a break from the DEA kicking down the doors of cancer patients. I don’t think that’s too much to ask from a goddamned Democratic president.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mnemosyne: Where did I say anything about banksters? Or federal money?
Look, this is not rocket science. You have one party willing to use dirty tricks to get what it wants. You have one that does not. The law has shown plainly that they will not get involved – and can’t, because they’re too sandbagged with Republican operatives to function.
Who will win?
Provide me a plausible path to victory for the party that is unwilling to use dirty money and dirty tricks, a path that does not rely on a legal system that has done everything but post a full-page ad in the Times saying they won’t get involved in enforcement of voter suppression, and I will send Cole an email and beg him to front page my apology.
Elias
I am only glad that California doesn’t pursue voter purges with as much zeal as our Republican neighbors. I don’t think I’d have a snowball’s chance to vote in the next election.
Sure, I live only a few blocks away from the address I’m registered at. But I’ve lived in two different counties since the last election and I probably have the most convoluted database entry in the books. Oh well, the nice folks over in provisional ballots will do their best to update my info.
lacp
@Mnemosyne: No, we certainly should not be giving millions to the banksters, but since nobody in power from either of the two parties that run things gives a shit, our options are a tad limited.
kindness
@Elias: Are you forgetting Jerry Brown? Democrats as a public office holding group don’t do this. Reichtwingnutz do this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Well, shit then. Let’s put armed gangs of party loyalists in the streets. What could go wrong?
There is a difference between fighting hard and breaking laws and ethical rules.
Slamhole
I just moved(reluctantly)to Florida from San Francisco. I feel as if I was dropped into some insane reality show. Whereas before, batshit crazy people and politicians were safely in news articles and blog posts and not my neighbors and co workers. Thank you unfettered deregulation of financial markets
Why am I in moderation if I already posted under this name and IP address?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, there is. The Republicans have chosen the path of breaking laws and forgetting that there is any such thing as ethics.
The legal system is hamstrung at best, aiding the thieves at worst, and has made it clear that they are not going to help.
As I asked Mnemosyne above: please give me a plausible path to electoral victory given these circumstances.
grandpa john
@ruemara: Lets hear a big AMEN, anyone here remember Howard Dean and the 50 states strategy, where instead of simply concentrating on national level elections , the dems would actually set up a party organization on the ground to contest state and local elections, the level at which control of the governing processes start. But no the current leadership thinks that conceding state control to the repubs is perfectly acceptable procedure.
How intelligent do people have to be to understand that you must control the state governments if you want to insure the fairness of laws governing who can vote or who can register or who gets to count the votes and especially when it is known that your opponent plays by rigged rules and has no moral objection to vote stealing of any other kind of cheating, whose only objective is to win , to hell with rules , integrity,morality, win at all cost is the motto
AA+ Bonds
Are “banksters” like “crony capitalists”, i.e., something Erick-Erickson-like that people say when they’re scared to publicly criticize capitalism
I mean you can still knock “bankers” and “banks” and “capitalism” and “capitalists” in print (so to speak); it’s hasn’t gotten that bad
AA+ Bonds
@Omnes Omnibus:
The left could refrain from doing so while the right does so, or we could expect non-affiliated people to fight back without any locus of resistance
Those are two things that could go wrong right there
I will never understand the liberal mentality that blames the rise of fascism on the Reds in Europe
Omnes Omnibus
@Forum Transmitted Disease: GOTV. Get enough people to the polls that it overwhelms the suppression effort. (Over 60% participation is expected next Tuesday in Wisconsin.). Once you win, fix the laws. I think it is plausible; YMMV.
Mnemosyne
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
You said that any illegal activity is A-OK as long as you win. It would be ridiculous for you to simultaneously call for Democrats to openly break the law and for lawbreakers to be punished, so obviously you’re not interested in actually having a country that’s run by laws and a justice system.
Though I do love how you can read a story that includes the details about Republican party officials quitting their jobs rather than carry out Scott’s scheme and come to the absolute conclusion that of course all of these schemes will succeed. The scheme is already failing, and yet you’re running around in circles tearing your hair out because what if it works despite Republican opposition? OhmigodohmigodohmigodTHESKYISFALLINGRUNRUNRUN!
The plausible path is massive voter turnout for Democrats. It can be done, if people will actually get off their asses and do it instead of curling up in the fetal position in their living room.
So tell us, what have you done to ensure the result you say you want in November? How many voters have you registered? How many calls have you made? How many hours have you volunteered? Or are you content to bitch and moan on the internet and watch it all slip away because you were too fucking lazy to fight back?
Omnes Omnibus
@AA+ Bonds: 1. The question was snark.
2. Your segue to blaming Reds for the rise of Facism lost me. How was I doing that? Hint: I wasn’t.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@AA+ Bonds:
Standing up to bullies is uncivil.
Which, of course, leads to strong repercussions. Such as being called ‘uncivil’ by Wolf Blitzer or Chuck Todd on the TeeVee.
Can’t have that now, can we?
Mnemosyne
In Forum Transmitted Disease’s world Thaddeus McCotter shouldn’t be barred from Michigan’s ballot just because he turned in illegal signatures since laws and rules don’t apply to Republicans anymore.
ornery_curmudgeon
@ruemara: The 2000 election most Democrats and liberals view as stolen. Yet they did not make it their business to build coalitions, turn out the vote and RETAKE LOCAL SEATS FROM REPUBLICANS.
Whoa there! To be fair, many Democrats DID blame Ralph Nader and attacked his supporters; it’s not like they sat on their ass and did NOTHING about coalition building.
The Dems cleared the way for new vibrant coalitions by destroying the ones at hand, and created a new shiny online habit for engaging in circular firing squads. That has to mean SOMETHING doesn’t it?
pseudonymous in nc
Making sure that eligible voters can cast a ballot? Not his fucking problem.
pseudonymous in nc
@Ash Can:
Also: Mr Anne Applebaum.
Omnes Omnibus
@ornery_curmudgeon: Circular firing squads like the one you are looking to start now? As soon as someone says “Well, Nader started it by running,” the fight begins. Well done.
AA+ Bonds
@Omnes Omnibus:
Then more power to you and my apologies – I have really gotten sensitive with the lack of support liberals have shown for Occupy recently
Specifically, I have gotten a lot of “but do you really want the left out confronting the right in the streets like in Weimar Germany” from liberal locals to which my response has been “of course I do and if the liberals had been out there too things might have been different”
Lord knows what the schools are teaching kids these days
lacp
@Omnes Omnibus: At least Democrats know how to multi-task, since they can engage in circular firing squads and flog Ralph Nader at the same time.
AA+ Bonds
There is nothing wrong with shaming other people on your side of the aisle as long as it goes along with an even higher level of auto-critique
Jesus said something about motes and beams worth reading
To me even talking about 2000 through criticism of the left wing is weird, because the pragmatism of protest votes and the Democrats’ failure to retain the left vote under Clinton are pretty small debates compared to, say, the theft of the Presidency
It’s way easier to criticize each other than it is to confront the rupture in American liberal democracy, and I say, hey, live a little
gluon1
Thanks to @Redshift: and @Ash Can: for pointing out the the Ds in government aren’t exactly doing nothing. To repost my comment from the earlier thread with a few other pieces:
Thank you, @boss bitch, for saying that. The Dems in the House released a bill that would prevent lots of the tricks Lex Luthor d.b.a. Gov. Scott and others are using. And the top Democrat on the Elections Subcommittee did condemn the Florida purge, while the Ds in the Florida delegation wrote directly to Lex. DOJ has numerous lawsuits going on, in Florida and other states, as Boss Bitch said. We can wish they were more effective or in more places, but we can’t claim that they’re not doing anything.
floridafrog
We are fighting back here in blood-red north Florida. The local Obama offices have been up and running hard for months. We are having intensive training on the new voter registration laws and are hitting the streets now. The local supervisor of elections has agreed to share the list of proposed disenfranchised voters with our local county chair so we can help the disenfranchisees (?) get their vote back. Federal help would be nice but we are not waiting around for it.
Disappointment regarding lack of pony notwithstanding, we are working here not whining.
gene108
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
NO. NO. AND HELL NO!
Politics – when you are dealing with the peaceful transfer of power to opposing factions, as opposed to the winner killing the loser – does not mean win at all costs.
In short, if you want peaceful transfers of power you have to respect the process that transfers power to your opponents, because once that becomes suspect the winner loses a certain amount of legitimacy, which can lead to unrest.
Republicans should be punished for their desire to grab power at all costs, because if you can’t impress people with your agenda and have to cheat to win, you won’t have the good will of the people for very long.
http://saintpetersblog.com/2012/04/rick-scotts-approval-rating-mired-at-34-17-points-lower-than-obamas-in-florida/
Marc McKenzie
@Redshift:
Shhh!! Don’t say anything that will show that the DOJ is actually looking into things like this! It will prove that the Administration is doing something and not crapping their pants like Forum Transmitted Disease says!
Marc McKenzie
@ornery_curmudgeon:
Well, I didn’t see Nader trying to build any new coalitions either….
And he didn’t give a rat’s @$$ that Gore lost.
xian
@political co-rectumtime to move those goalposts again: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/justice_department_demands_florida_stop_purging_voter_rolls.php