July 16, 2004
"Florida is absolutely committed to blocking voters"
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is meeting to investigate Florida’s failed felon purge list. They’re interested in finding out how the list ended up so error ridden, and they would really like to know what, exactly, is gonna happen now that each county is free to use the list or not as they go about scrubbing their individual rolls before election day. NYT:
Ms. Hood (Florida Secretary of State Glenda) declined an invitation to appear at Thursday's hearing, but sent a letter saying that county election supervisors would remove felons from the rolls without using the state list. Florida is one of seven states that ban felons from voting, unless they successfully petition to have their rights restored.Dr. Berry said she was concerned that Ms. Hood's new plan would be even worse than the original problem, possibly violating Bush v. Gore, the landmark case that stopped recounts in the 2000 presidential election because there was no uniform standard among Florida's counties for counting votes.
Representatives of civil rights organizations who testified said they were already planning lawsuits to stop county efforts to purge voters.
"Florida is absolutely committed to blocking voters," said Barbara Arnwine, director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "All of the civil rights organizations are in intense discussions, and we think there are three or four lawsuits that should be filed here."
Committed to blocking voters? Wouldn’t that imply that the errors on the list, errors like the absence of Republican leaning Hispanic voters, errors that overwhelmingly targeted Democrats, wouldn’t the implication be that these errors were not actually errors at all, but rather part of a plot to aid pResident Bush’s reselection campaign?
''If it was intentional, it may well have been a criminal violation of the Civil Rights Act,'' said Commissioner Christopher Edley Jr., a professor at Harvard Law School. ``It's not just about a sloppy database, it's not just about bureaucracy strapped for resources. It's about the deprivation of a fundamental civil right.''The commission, which met today in Washington to discuss the state's felon list and electronic voting issues, has a contentious history with Florida leaders. After the 2000 presidential election, commissioners released a draft assessment of the election in Florida that called state leaders ``grossly derelict in fulfilling their responsibilities.''
The language in the final report was toned down, but commission Chairwoman Mary Francis Berry made it clear Thursday that she has't forgotten about election problems in Florida.
Although the felon list now won't be implemented before the November election, commissioners say they're concerned about how individual election officers will handle the issue of removing felons from their voter rolls.
They fear the decision will result in inequities across Florida's 67 counties, since the state has now left it up to individual election supervisors to create their own system of removing ineligible voters. In the Bush v. Gore decision that decided the 2000 presidential election, Edley pointed out, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that different recount procedures in each county violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
'With all due respect to the secretary of state in Florida, it's simply not sufficient to toss up your hands and and say, `The counties will take care of it,' '' Edley said.
Posted by Norwood at July 16, 2004 06:32 AM
'With all due respect to the secretary of state in Florida, it's simply not sufficient to toss up your hands and and say, `The counties will take care of it,' '' Edley said.
It is if you are a partisan civil servant.
I wrote about this before. This is a hand granade that just blew up in Jeb Bush's face. The question that hasn't been getting enough attention is why would the White House want to block the publication of the list. Also keeping it secret is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
(iii) Documents shall be furnished without any charge or at a charge reduced below the fees established under clause (ii) if disclosure of the information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.
I am one of the people not allowed to vote
nine years ago I was offered a plea agreemment
to plead guilty to possesion of a controled
substance I wasn't even guilty I did this to
avoid a prison sentence I furnished a clean drug
test had testimony out of the church. Since
that time I managed to get three bachelor degrees
and a masters degree all fully accretied. I need
my civil rights to go to work. Their remains
a large difference in the way these cases are
handled. Look at how the upper class is handled.
