It worked for them in 2000, so they're going to do it again. I'm talking about the motherfucking Florida GOP and Gov. Rick Scott (R), suppressing likely Democratic voters by purging them from the rolls. David Dayen of FDL quotes from the Tampa Bay Times (I selected a slightly different quote):
Bill Internicola was born in Brooklyn 91 years ago and received a Bronze Star for fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, but, according to the state of Florida, he may not be a U.S. citizen.
Internicola received a letter in May from the Broward supervisor of elections stating that it received "information from the State of Florida that you are not a United States citizen; however you are registered to vote." The letter was part of a controversial state-led effort to rid the voter rolls of noncitizens. Similar letters were sent to 259 Broward voters.
Internicola said he was "flabbergasted" by the suggestion that he wasn't a citizen. He called the county's election office and said: "Are you crazy?"
...The quote is from the Tampa Bay Times. Among national newspapers, apparently only the NYT is giving the general issue significant coverage. (Dayen, as he almost never does, goes off on a tangent about whether a veteran's vote should be more sacred than a non-veteran's; I'm not going to follow him there.)
When George W. Bush stole Florida by unleashing a rowdy mob of Bush supporters against the recount effort in 2000, a number of people said that we should not talk open rebellion on the first occasion of vote suppression. Back then I said "fuck that shit," but I am not from Florida. OK, it's happening again... big surprise, eh? What are you going to do about it, Floridians? Ted Deutch (D-Boca Raton) and Alcee Hastings (D-Miramar) call Gov. Scott's voter purge efforts "misguided"; I am inclined to much stronger language.
How far can we let them go? How many presidential elections must we let them steal as a matter of interparty comity? I say it again, 12 years later: "fuck that shit!"
Jesus, that is low. I hope that there is a huge amount of blowback on this
ReplyDeleteNot yet, jams. Indeed, there's hardly any reporting on it outside some local news sources in Florida.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, I suppose it's not news that the GOP suppresses votes whenever it can. For another, most media outlets in the US are owned by conservative sources, and their news reporting, like that of a newspaper, reflects the owners' politics.
The US, after a decent if bumpy beginning over two centuries as a more-or-less democracy, is on a straight path to hell. I haven't a clue how to stop the descent.