Stand Your Ground Florida!!!

[SassyLady]

I'm hoping Florida sticks with this and prevails. Non-citizens have the same rights as minorities?




Feds to Florida: halt non-citizen voter purge


<fb:like href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/31/2826708/feds-demand-florida-cease-its.html#storylink=fbuser" layout="button_count" show_faces="false" action="like" font="arial" colorscheme="light" class=" fb_edge_widget_with_comment fb_iframe_widget" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; display: inline-block; "><iframe id="f188cd7668" name="f2c4861b7" scrolling="no" title="Like this content on Facebook." class="fb_ltr " src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?action=like&api_key=133847067760&channel_url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.ak.facebook.com%2F connect%2Fxd_arbiter.php%3Fversion%3D6%23cb%3Df3e6 4651bc%26origin%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.miamihera ld.com%252Ff171961808%26domain%3Dwww.miamiherald.c om%26relation%3Dparent.parent&colorscheme=light&extended_social_context=false&font=arial&href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miamiherald.com%2F2012%2F05% 2F31%2F2826708%2Ffeds-demand-florida-cease-its.html%23storylink%3Dfbuser&layout=button_count&locale=en_US&node_type=link&sdk=joey&show_faces=false&width=90" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; overflow: hidden; height: 20px; width: 90px; border-style: none; "></iframe></fb:like>
The Justice Department told Florida election officials that they must stop their non-citizen voters purge. Florida argues it is not violating any law.

BY MARC CAPUTO

mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com


The Justice Department ordered Florida’s elections division to halt a systematic effort to find and purge the state’s voter rolls of noncitizen voters.

Florida’s effort appears to violate both the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act – which governs voter purges – T. Christian Herren Jr., the Justice Department’s lead civil rights lawyer, wrote in a detailed two-page letter sent late Thursday night.

State officials said they were reviewing the letter. But they indicated they might fight DOJ over its interpretation of federal law and expressed frustration that President Barack Obama’s administration has stonewalled the state’s noncitizen voter hunt for nine months.

“We are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot,” said Chris Cate, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who was ordered by Gov. Rick Scott to conduct the search for potentially ineligible voters.

DOJ’s written demand came hours after the agency refused to comment on the matter to The Miami Herald. It also followed a federal court ruling Thursday that struck down a Republican voter-registration law that a judge found too onerous.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/31/2826708/feds-demand-florida-cease-its.html



Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/31/2826708/feds-demand-florida-cease-its.html#storylink=cpy

[DragonStryk72]

I'm hoping Florida sticks with this and prevails. Non-citizens have the same rights as minorities?




Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/31/2826708/feds-demand-florida-cease-its.html#storylink=cpy



Um, they're not citizens, and thus voting law protections do not apply to them since they can't vote to begin with.

[logroller]

Um, they're not citizens, and thus voting law protections do not apply to them since they can't vote to begin with.

Not exactly. Its purging the rolls of ineligible voters-- which includes the deceased, felons etc-- whom are or were citizens. What's freaking lame IMO is DHS wouldn't help Florida to confirm citizenship, so then the State asks the counties to have the registered voters in question respond by mail, and then a federal court says the law is "too onerous" upon the citizens. That's Obama's management style; does what he will, then busts those who try and do the things he won't-- its like an un-agenda.

[SassyLady]

Um, they're not citizens, and thus voting law protections do not apply to them since they can't vote to begin with.

Exactly! So, why the suit by the DOJ?

[logroller]

Exactly! So, why the suit by the DOJ?
Apparently there's a voting law that requires voter roll purging plans, when implemented within a certain time period about primary elections, to be submitted to the federal system for review and approval.

[SassyLady]

Apparently there's a voting law that requires voter roll purging plans, when implemented within a certain time period about primary elections, to be submitted to the federal system for review and approval.

Still doesn't explain why the DOJ is suing. How is getting dead people, felons and non-citizens off the voting records warrant a suit? Who are they afraid are losing out on voting.

[logroller]

Still doesn't explain why the DOJ is suing. How is getting dead people, felons and non-citizens off the voting records warrant a suit? Who are they afraid are losing out on voting.
If Florida broke federal law, the DOJ is the prosecutorial arm of the People. It's not that they want people on the rolls who don't belong there, its that there's a law dictating the procedure which must be followed. Same as if Florida decided to hold their election tomorrow instead of November.

[logroller]

As I said earlier, what's suggestive of some agenda is the DHS being asked to assist, and not doing so. That's like callin the fire dept, asking them to put out a fire and having them not show up; then writing me a ticket for using the hydrant.

[Voted4Reagan]

Um, they're not citizens, and thus voting law protections do not apply to them since they can't vote to begin with.


I love how Liberals always try and bypass the Constitution.

Illegal Immigrants are NOT COVERED by the VOTING RIGHTS ACT.

That legislation extends only to US CITIZENS.

End of story.... The Liberals will fail with this...

[revelarts]

Florida has the right to purge non citizens. But It's been caught before and gone unpunished for Purging Citizens it claimed were "felons". Plain folk in FL need to get off their partisan cracks and reign in Florida's corrupt voting mess.


I post stuff on this before but since it was against Bush it couldn't be true. And never happened. the people who siad it did are crazy and just wanted to write a book.



<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ClTxaY8Uy5U?version=3&feature=player_embedded" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="360" width="640"></object>



http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...0_felons2.html (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/election2000/election2000_felons2.html)

Felon purge sacrificed innocent voters
Election 2000: Fla. Vote
May 27, 2001
By Scott Hiaasen, Gary Kane and Elliot Jaspin
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers

While millions of Floridians spent Nov. 7 casting their votes for president, Clarence Mayville was fighting, and failing, to clear his name.

Mayville went to his precinct in Polk County's Auburndale that Tuesday morning to cast his vote for George W. Bush. Poll workers told him he was on a state list of suspected felons, making him ineligible to vote.

Mayville, 50, a diesel mechanic and Army veteran, said it was a mistake. But a day of haggling with election workers failed to clear up the mess.

"I'm madder than hell," Mayville said. "I called them over there (at the elections office) and I raised hell. ... You can't get an answer from them."

Finally Mayville tore up his voter registration card and stomped out without voting. It wasn't until March that he received a letter from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement telling him what he already knew: He had no criminal record. By then, the damage was done.

In the months since the election, no one has been able to say with any certainty just how many legitimate Florida voters like Mayville were turned away from the polls.

But a Palm Beach Post computer analysis has found at least 1,100 eligible voters wrongly purged from the rolls before last year's election - the collateral damage from an aggressive and ill-conceived state plan to prevent felons from voting.

With Bush winning Florida and the presidency by a scant 537 votes over Democrat Al Gore, these voters - some wrongly identified as felons, and many more wrongly turned away based on felony convictions in other states - could have swayed the election had they been allowed to vote.
And while the state's attempt to police the voter rolls victimized scores of legitimate voters, it still failed to prevent thousands of felons from casting their ballots. In Florida, felons are banned for life from voting unless granted clemency.

State lawmakers decided to weed out felons and other ineligible voters in 1998 after a Miami mayoral election was overturned because votes had been cast by the convicted and the dead. Election officials subsequently hired Database Technologies Inc. of Boca Raton to help with the daunting task of scanning the state's massive database of registered voters for felons and dead people. They paid DBT $3.3 million during the past two years.

The company, now a subsidiary of ChoicePoint of Atlanta, produced a list of 82,389 "probable" and "possible" felons before last year's election. The list identified thousands of legal voters as criminals, forcing them to prove their innocence before they could cast a ballot.

But that was just one of many damaging consequences of the state's anti-felon campaign - an effort born of an unwieldy law, founded on less-than-reliable data and made worse by decisions of elections officials, The Post found. For example:

At least 108 law-abiding people were purged from the voter rolls as suspected criminals, only to be cleared after the election. DBT's computers had matched these people with felons, though in dozens of cases they did not share the same name, birthdate, gender or race. One Naples man was told he couldn't vote because he was linked with a felon still serving time in a Moore Haven prison.

Florida officials cut from the rolls 996 people convicted of crimes in other states, though they should have been allowed to vote. Before the election, state officials said felons could vote only if they had written clemency orders, although most other states automatically restore voting rights to felons when they complete their sentences. This policy conflicted with a 1998 court ruling that said Florida had "no authority" to deny civil rights to those who had them restored in other states. After the election, the state changed its policy.

State officials told DBT to use broad parameters to identify as many likely felons as possible, despite warnings that this would disenfranchise legitimate voters.

County elections supervisors were told not to discount names on the list, even if they didn't match.

Records used to create the felon list were sometimes wrong. A state database of felons wrongly included dozens of people whose crimes were reduced to misdemeanors. Furthermore, clemency records were incomplete.

Skeptical of the list's accuracy, elections supervisors in 20 counties (including Palm Beach) ignored it altogether, thereby allowing thousands of felons to vote.

Since the election, the felon purge has become a public-relations nightmare for the state.

Civil rights groups saw it as a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise black voters: Blacks accounted for 88 percent of those removed from the rolls, though they make up only about 11 percent of Florida's voters.

The list was a major issue in post-election hearings before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and it's being challenged in an NAACP lawsuit.

But a review of state records, internal e-mails of DBT employees and testimony before the civil rights commission and an elections task force showed no evidence that minorities were specifically targeted.

Blacks make up nearly 89 percent of the felons convicted in the state, according to the FDLE, so any purge of felons would include a disproportionate number of blacks.

Records show that DBT told the state it would not use race as a criterion to identify felons. The list itself bears that out: More than 1,000 voters were matched with felons though they were of different races.

DBT officials say they aren't to blame for snaring legal voters.

They simply followed the state's orders, handed down by officials who were too cavalier about the felon purge. James Lee, a spokesman for ChoicePoint, said his company will never again get involved in cleansing voting rolls.

"We are not confident any of the methods used today can guarantee legal voters will not be wrongfully denied the right to vote," Lee told a group of Atlanta-area black lawmakers in March.

Clay Roberts, director of the state Division of Elections, said legislation signed this month by Gov. Jeb Bush should provide more safeguards for legitimate voters.

The state will soon create a new voter database accessible to local supervisors and using more reliable court data to identify suspected felons.

"The benefit of the doubt is going to go to the voter," Roberts said. "If the supervisor cannot be absolutely sure they are felons, they should leave them on" the rolls.

Input always imperfect

Some problems with the felon purge were inevitable. Computer databases are never perfect; they're only as accurate as the people putting information into them.

So state officials were left with two unpalatable options: Use strict guidelines in identifying felons and risk losing some, or use broad guidelines and risk catching non-felons in the net. The state chose the latter.

Even so, the number of voters wrongly disenfranchised by the felon purge appears to be far less than the "thousands" its critics have claimed.

Though DBT developed the list, it was up to the 67 county elections supervisors to use it.

The supervisors wrote warning letters to the suspected felons, giving them one to two months to appeal before they were dropped from the rolls.

Several supervisors said they ignored "possible" matches that were obviously wrong.

Many counties didn't use the list at all.

Ultimately, less than half of the names on the DBT list were purged, state records show.

"There were names on the list that I knew were not felons," said Babs Montpetit, the elections supervisor in Union County. "One was a youth director in our church."

Said Leon County supervisor Ion Sancho: "If you weren't careful, you would disenfranchise people."

People like Matt Frost.

The 33-year-old Tampa businessman and Gore supporter was linked by DBT with a convict named Chadwick Chowanetz. Based on this "match," the Hillsborough County elections office sent Frost a letter saying he couldn't vote unless he could prove the list wrong.

Frost, whose only brush with the law was a misdemeanor reckless driving charge, appealed to the state. When he received notice that his polling precinct had changed, he assumed he had been cleared.

On election day, Frost went to his new precinct only to be told he couldn't vote because he was a felon. "Right in front of a bunch of people," Frost said. "The more I'm going to protest, the more it looks like I've got something to hide."

Embarrassed, Frost walked away - but not before grabbing an "I voted" decal. He couldn't take the shame of going home without the little sticker on his shirt. "God, it was humiliating," he said.
...







<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/f_4kJHphEpE?version=3&feature=player_embedded" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="360" width="640"></object>


<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jMN_2Fc3Tfo?version=3&feature=player_embedded" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="360" width="640"></object>

Not saying that Dems are saints as Kath mentioned a while back
"Democrats are for any 'reforms' that will garner votes: Motor Voting, not purging registration lists for dead, moved, and felons. They argue against military ballots and for online voting... "

But the democrats in Illinois and Louisiana seems to have the crown. But Republicans seem better at it in some places.

[DragonStryk72]

Exactly! So, why the suit by the DOJ?

You know, this administration more and more reminds me of this moment in the movie Liar Liar, where Jim Carrey's character jumps up "Objection!"

Judge "On what grounds?"

Carrey: "Because it's devastating to my case!"