All 67 election supervisors tell Rick Scott to pound salt:
Florida elections supervisors said Friday they will discontinue a state-directed effort to remove names from county voter rolls because they believe the state data is flawed and because the U.S. Department of Justice has said the process violates federal voting laws.
Late Thursday, the Department of Justice sent Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner a letter telling him that an effort launched by Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s administration last year to remove the names of people believed to be non-citizens from voter rolls appears to violate at least two federal voting laws. The federal agency gave Detzner until Wednesday to respond.
The Justice Department letter and mistakes that the 67 county elections supervisors have found in the state list make the scrub undoable, said Martin County Elections Supervisor Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections.
“There are just too many variables with this entire process at this time for supervisors to continue,” Davis said.
More of this, please.
(via the comments somewhere in another thread but I am too lazy to look)
Jeff Spender
This is excellent news, and it gives me hope that there is still sanity and loyalty left in these processes.
YAY DEMOCRACY!
karen
Does this mean that none of the names were officially purged now?
And yes YAY Democracy!
David Koch
ACORN strikes again.
Obama’s gangland thugs, led by Black Panther Eric Holder, have once again intimidated local officials into kowtowing to Dear Leader’s edicts.
This is serious worse than Germany 1939. Yes, worse. I mean, even the SS wouldn’t consider using computer worms.
Alison
My grandparents live in Florida, and while they’re both basically too sick to get very riled up about this, I am pleased on their behalf, considering I wouldn’t be surprised if they might have gotten swept up in this shit as absentee voters or whatever.
They keep insisting Florida is a nice place to live. I’ll let them hold onto their crazed fantasies in their ill, doddering old age.
PeakVT
The list was so blatantly biased I think the Sups said ‘this is a lawsuit we can do without.’
butler
I always thought it was “pound sand”. Whatever the case, good news.
David Koch
Obama should be impeached for this over reach and violation of federalism.
James E Powell
Can this be used to generate nationwide pressure against Republican efforts to reduce voting?
gluon1
I believe that should be “LuthorCorp” (or, perhaps, “LexCorp”) and I, too, had only heard the expression as “pound sand”. While pedantry is my main contribution, such as it is, that’s not because I’m not pleased to see such posts and this one in particular.
Baud
@James E Powell:
I for one am not interested in pressuring them. I’m interested in defeating them.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
this is a big fucking deal.
Brachiator
@butler:
Beat me to it.
But yeah, very good news.
I wonder if the Florida governor and the GOP will double down on their folly, or back away from the table.
Yutsano
@Brachiator: Scott doubles down. That seems to be his pattern so far. He didn’t give up on doing this after his first SoS resigned. He knows he needs to get the demographics worked or Willard has no chance in his state.
AnotherBruce
Arrest Governor Scott and send him to work in the sand mines!
West of the Cascades
@Brachiator: I’m afraid Scott and his corrupt Sec. of State will back away for a couple of months and then send out a new, “improved” list based on the efforts that appear to be underway to cross-reference the DHS citizenship database indirectly through another Florida agency. It’ll put the DOJ and counties election supervisors in a harder spot because it will be allegedly “accurate” citizenship information, but still would seem to be illegal.
My over/under for the new list is in early August, just outside the 90-day window prohibiting purges shortly before elections under the National Voting Rights Act and just before the GOP convention so they can scream about it there.
West of the Cascades
Evidently this is a more appropriate usage for this blog – from Urban Dictionary:
“go pound salt”
Often confused with ‘go pound sand’ but more refined and less vulgar. To pound sand infers ‘up an orifice’ but to pound salt has more to do with a useless activity.
When the religious nut came to visit my house, I told him to go pound salt.
quannlace
I’m sure it’s been observed before….But damn, Rick Scott looks like the Crypt Keeper’s younger brother, with slightly better skin tone.
Baud
@West of the Cascades:
Interesting. Rick Scott deserves a “pound sand.”
Redshift
@West of the Cascades: The DOJ letter says that under the VRA they have to stop efforts to purge the voter rolls 90 days before the primary until after the election, not that they can start again on voter rolls for the general election. Scott may try again, but that doesn’t look like an open route.
He’s on the defensive side now, which is not good for carrying out voter suppression. Previously, he was trying to get it done so that any challenges would come too late to help. If he’s having to fight for the legality of it before proceeding, time is no longer on his side, and he may decide he’s more likely to get away with some other method for stealing the election.
MikeJ
Just checked freeperland to see how they took the news. Nothing on the refusal yet, but there is a story, “If Obama is ousted in November thank Florida Governor Scott”.
And another pointing out Obama is up 5 in Florida, so if they want to win they’ve got to get the disenfranchisement going.
SuzieC
This is great news. Apparently the 67 supervisors actually care about democracy and fair elections. Who knew that such people existed in Florida?
SuzieC
This is great news. Apparently the 67 supervisors actually care about democracy and fair elections. Who knew that such people existed in Florida?
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
I’m interested in destroying them.
Jeff Spender
@Villago Delenda Est:
We need to build a time machine to create a temporal paradox that will do something involving chronotons and then we scoop them in the Bussard Collectors and use the Rassilon Imprimatur to protect us while these cretins are erased from time when we release them through the main dish along with tachyon bursts at three different points in time that converge on one another.
It’s foolproof.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
They’ll double down. The crazies are fully in command.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeff Spender:
OK, we need to get Scott, LaForge, O’Brien, and Torres on this, stat!
That, or get the MIB on it, or talk to that Doc Brown fellow. He knows something about time machines.
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, and it should be “LexCorp”.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Wow. And not one dissent. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I did not expect anything like this in FL, at all.
Are these election officials elected, or appointed?
I just wonder if Gov Scott has the means or method to replace or otherwise pressure them…
Marc McKenzie
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick:
Exactly! Why call this a “minor hiccup”? This could very well avert a possible repeat of the 2000 imbroglio.
Seriously, what’s with these GOP goons that they have to keep stealing elections (or making sure the turnout is damned low)? And if anyone complains about how “voting doesn’t matter”–the hell it does! Obviously the GOP thinks so, since they’re trying to take away your bloody right to vote!
muddy
It’s not to the point, but I think John could have searched his own site archive about as fast as he typed that he was too lazy to do so. The original comment was not mine, but if it were I’d be annoyed not to get credit. Jeezum John, it’s not like you are too busy in the comments or something, that’s just rude.
This bothers me because I usually hear the “too lazy to look it up” from wingnuts.
Marc McKenzie
@Jeff Spender: Yeah, but we’ll also need to generate a static warp shell to protect us too.
muddy
@Marc McKenzie: I have a bumper sticker phrase for this phenomenon:
Republicans: They love rights so much they want to take yours.
lacp
Hah, you foolish libtards think the Kenyan Usurper and his minions can defeat Governor Bat Boy? Wait until he unleashes…RALPH NADER1!11!!!1
Citizen_X
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m interested in crushing them, in seeing them driven before me, and in hearing the lamentations of their women.
Roger Moore
@SuzieC:
Or at least about not being sued by USDOJ. I’ll take it either way.
Jebediah
@Jeff Spender:
For a lower-tech alternative, we use Bastard Collectors, aka wooden wagons. From there it’s nice trip to the Lop Lop Shop.
rikyrah
I have to admit that I’m stunned by this. pleasantly stunned, but stunned nonetheless.
I still want the DOJ to arrest Scott -for anything would be good..LOL
Bostondreams
Interestingly, a good number of them are themselves Republicans. I appreciate that they care about their jobs and the rights of citizens than being blindly loyal to Luth…err..Scott.
Ash Can
@muddy: Meh. I’m a mom and housewife. I’m used to it. ;)
ETA: Thanks, though.
Chris
From the article.
Ding, ding, fucking ding.
The son of a bitch has been Governor since 2010. There is a reason why he didn’t start the voter purge until this close to the election – and, as it turns out, an equally good reason why the law says he can’t do that. Game, set and match, cocksucker.
Yeah, but if you prevent even one legal vote from being cast, well, that’s just the cost of doing business! Can’t make an omlet, etc.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
I’ve never looked all that deeply into how the Columbia/HCA thing played out. It’s not implausible that he traded his resignation as CEO and the company’s agreement to a $600 million fine for avoiding indictment.
In any event, the statute of limitations has long since run.
Cacti
When I think of the new rash of “reasonable” Voter ID laws I think of my grandmother.
92 years old, never learned to drive a car so she never had a driver’s license in her adult life. Severe arthritis, so going to the DMV for a photo ID would most definitely be a hardship, even if she arranged transportation, and has voted in every election since age 21.
Oh yeah, and she’s a lifelong Roosevelt Democrat…just the sort of person the GOP wants to keep from voting.
feebog
So when is Eric Holder going to get off his dead ass and do something about this outrage, oh wait…
mothra
Last night I reread this post about every thirty minutes. I have been sick about the prospect of another Florida 2000. Apparently the county supervisors felt the same way-this is wonderful news.