A judge has denied Charlie Crist's motion for longer voting hours in Broward County.
Finally, the motion said "the delay and confusion caused by those EVID malfunctions compounded county-wide confusion related to recent re-precincting."
The motion was denied by a Broward County judge shortly before 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Broward County leans Democratic. Turnout has been below 40 percent. That isn't good for Crist. The Crist campaign plan was to get out the vote in Broward County.
Tea Party Activist Tom Tillison Supports Voter Suppression
The least shocking news ever is that Orange County, Florida tea party activist Tom Tillison supports voter suppression. Money quote from Facebook.
I'm a white Republican, of course I advocate for voter suppression. Haven't you been paying attention! LOL
That Tom Tillison. What a jokester.
Fun fact: Tillison wrote a hysterical post on how Satanists were helping Charlie Crist's campaign against Rick Scott.
In what is a shock to no one who wants voter reform in Florida. Sen. Jack Latvala, (R-Clearwater) chair of the Florida Senate’s Ethics and Elections committee, latvala-senates-elections-bill-temporarily-postponed/has postponed a bill for online voter registration. The bill would also clarify what sites could be used to drop off absentee ballots. Latvala told TBO.com that he " didn’t want to deal with it today." What an inspiring work ethic from the Senator.
Latvala was vague on when the bill would come up again.
“When you see it on the calendar again, it’ll be coming back,” he said after the meeting. “I’m just not sure what we’re doing with that yet.”
Don't hold your breath on this bill coming before the Ethics and Elections committee again. Republicans have been fighting against online voter registration since the early "Rock the Vote" days. Republicans have fought against being able to register to vote when you get your driver's licence or state ID. Republicans are trying to keep young and poor people from voting. Remember Florida State Sen. Mike Bennett's bizarre and racially tinged rant that voting should be made harder.
“Do you read the stories about the people in Africa? The people in the desert, who literally walk two and three hundred miles so they can have the opportunity to do what we do, and we want to make it more convenient? How much more convenient do you want to make it?” he said. “Do we want to go to their house? Take the polling booth with us?”
“This is a hard-fought privilege,” he added. “This is something people die for. You want to make it convenient? The guy who died to give you that right, it was not convenient. Why would we make it any easier? I want ‘em to fight for it. I want ‘em to know what it’s like. I want them to go down there, and have to walk across town to go over and vote,” he said.
Gov. Rick Scott shorten early voting in 2012. Here is Lawrence Fishburne visiting voters standing in an outrageously long voting line in Florida. How exactly did these long lines stop voter fraud?
Mike Bennett, Supervisor of Elections, for Manatee County, and Republican commissioners has eliminated voting locations. It will comes as no surprise the the majority of voting stations were eliminated in a Democratic leaning district.
Democratic County Commissioner Michael Gallen's District 2, which includes most of Palmetto and central/east Bradenton, has the largest percentage of closed polling places.
"I do have concerns about the closings of the precincts, especially in District 2, where 50 percent will be closed," said Gallen.
During his time in the Florida Senate, Bennett publicly advocated for making voting more difficult. Bennett also brought up a racial component by mentioning "Africans."
“Do you read the stories about the people in Africa? The people in the desert, who literally walk two and three hundred miles so they can have the opportunity to do what we do, and we want to make it more convenient? How much more convenient do you want to make it?” he said. “Do we want to go to their house? Take the polling booth with us?”
“This is a hard-fought privilege,” he added. “This is something people die for. You want to make it convenient? The guy who died to give you that right, it was not convenient. Why would we make it any easier? I want ‘em to fight for it. I want ‘em to know what it’s like. I want them to go down there, and have to walk across town to go over and vote,” he said.
We might want to make voting easier because we are America. For the record: Politifact ruled that Bennett's statement that Africans have to "walk two and three hundred miles" to vote is a pants on fire lie. Bennett vows to ad more voting sites if there are long lines during the 2014 election. I'm not counting on it.
"The Tom Perkins system is: You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes. But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"
Tom Perkins, billionaire venture capitalist.
I disagree with Perkins' views on voting. In his defense, he showed integrity in refusing to doctor Hewlett-Packard's SEC 8-K filing. This led to a criminal investigation on HP HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn.
Damn. This is a great ad. Say what you will about Charlie Crist being opportunistic. (You won't get any argument from me.) But Crist delivers a powerful speech about the right to vote on the University of Florida campus. I hope the ad draws more attention to the voter suppression tactics of the Rick Scott administration.
Sen. Bill Nelson calls the Rick Scott administration for voter suppression on the floor of the Senate. Scott appointed Secretary of State Ken Detzner. The result has been Detzner frustrating both Republican and Democratic Supervisors of Elections officials. The long lines of the 2012 election made Florida a joke. Detzner declared mission accomplished during his listening tour.
On restoring early voting times: "When you look at the turnout, which was larger than it was in 2008, that obviously speaks to the point that people were satisfied with the current law. People responded, reacted and turned out in greater numbers."
Florida voters were anything but satisfied. Now Detzner will not allow the the Reitz Union on the University of Florida campus to be used as a voting site. According to the Center for Research and Information on Civic Learning and Engagement, President Barack Obama easily won the youth vote by 67 percent to 30 percent. The youth vote helped Obama win Florida. The Republican controlled state legislature wrote the language that no educational facility can be used for early voting. This was merely to suppress the youth vote. Republicans have gave up on trying to win the youth vote.
Ken Detzner Suppresses Early Voting at University of Florida
:"I just can't understand why they feel the need to be so restrictive about where people are allowed to vote ... This is strategic. They're worried about young people voting."
Lori Edwards, Polk County Supervisor of Elections.
Edwards was speaking on Secretary of State Ken Detzner denying the University of Florida student union being used as a early voting site. Detzner gave this reason.
"The Reitz Union is a structure designed for, and affiliated with, a specific educational institution," says an advisory opinion from Maria Matthews, director of the state Division of Elections, which is run by a Scott appointee, Secretary of State Ken Detzner. "The terms 'convention center' and 'government-owned community center' cannot be construed so broadly as to include the Reitz Union."
The Republican controlled state legislature reject having "educational facilities" as voting sites. Edwards is right. Republicans have given up on young voters and simply want to suppress the vote.
State Senator Jeff Clemens sent this letter.
I write you to express my concern with a misinterpretation of statute from a bill that passed through the Florida legislature last session, as it relates to voting at community centers.
The bill we passed, which later was signed into law by the governor, was very clear in stating that a "government-owned community center" is an acceptable location for early voting...
The Reitz Union is government-owned, as the University of Florida is a public insitution founded and funded by the state of Florida. The Reitz Union is also (a) community center, obviously.
There is no ambiguity in the statute, nor is there any in the public nature or purpose of the Reitz Union. The statute is crystal clear, straightforward and with no room for misinterpretation.
As a member of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee that formulated this bill, I ask that you immediately re-evaluate your unlawful decision to not allow voting at the Reitz Union..."
Sadly, the complaints of Clemens will fall on deaf ears.
We need stronger fedral voting laws to stop this kind of voting suppression.
Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam talks about speeding up the clemency process for Florida convicted felons to have their voting rights restored. One idea floated by Putnam is not having nonviolent offenders having to come before the clemency board to get their voting rights restored.
"I don't think that going all the way back to full, automatic restoration is the way to go," he said. "But for certain classes of crimes, I think an expedited restoration process is appropriate. For more violent classes of crimes, I think they should still have to come before us. I like the fact that people show interest in it and affirmatively decide to seek their restoration. But I'm open to ideas on how to improve that process."
Why not propose that? "I haven't built the better mouse trap yet. We've just talked about ideas for a better mouse trap."
Putnam claims that he doesn't want to do the policy of nonviolent felons getting their rights restored without having to go through an extensive review process. The real reason Putnam is saying that is because Charlie Crist allowed nonviolent felons to apply to have their rights restored without having to go through the clemency board. What Putnam is proposing is essentially the same as the previous policy former Gov. Charlie Crist implemented. Putnam just won't put forward a sound solution because it was originally Crist's idea.
"I don't think that going all the way back to full, automatic restoration is the way to go," he said. "But for certain classes of crimes, I think an expedited restoration process is appropriate. For more violent classes of crimes, I think they should still have to come before us. I like the fact that people show interest in it and affirmatively decide to seek their restoration. But I'm open to ideas on how to improve that process."
Does Putnam even know what the difference is between his clemency policy and that of Charlie Crist?
Florida is one of four states to deny felons their voting rights. The others are Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia. Disenfranchising felons hasn't proven to deter crime. It does keep young black males from voting.
In three Southern states the numbers are more stark: In Florida, 23 percent of the voting-age black population can't vote because of a felony record; in Kentucky it's 22 percent; and in Virginia it's 20 percent. Taken together, one in five blacks living in those three states is disenfranchised.
Florida, with 1.5 million disenfranchised ex-felons, leads the nation.
It is 2013 and we are still fighting Jim Crow-style laws.
Jim Defede Interviews Ileana Ros-Lehtinen On DOMA & Voting Rights
Jim Defede interviews Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on the Supreme Court's decisions on the Defense of Marriage Act and the Voting Rights Act. Ros-Lehtinen is one of the few elected Republicans that strongly backs gay rights. Ros-Lehtinen wants Congress to pass ENDA. There is little chance that Ros-Lehtinen can get anything done on ENDA in the dysfunctional House of Representatives.
Ros-Lehtinen told Defede that Congress should have hearings on a possible new Voting Rights Act. Ros-Lehtinen admits that racism still exists in pockets of America. However, I don't see her having the same passion for a voting rights hearings that she has demonstrated with gay rights.
Michael Steele lays into his own party for their racially derisive policies towards minorities. The Republican Party has lost the black vote and is working very hard to permanently lose the Hispanic vote.
“I’m going to be real honest with you, the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they’re going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats,” Ken Emanuelson said.
Emanuelson made the comment at a Battleground Dallas meeting. Texas GOP chairman Steve Munisteri started Battleground Dallas to counter the efforts of former Obama campaign staffers starting Battleground Texas. The demographics in Texas are changing. The state's Hispanic population is growing and Democrats know that. Republicans countered by creating Battleground Dallas. The result has been a tea party activist alienating black voters. We now see that Emanuelson is doing a serious backtrack.
"What I meant, and should have said, is that it is not, in my personal opinion, in the interests of the Republican Party to spend its own time and energy working to generally increase the number of Democratic voters at the polls, and at this point in time, nine of every ten African American voters cast their votes for the Democratic Party," he wrote on Tuesday.
That nonapology isn't any better. Emanuelson's walk back unintentionally does explain the mentality behind the voter suppression laws passed in red states. These laws do nothing to reform voting. The laws do create longer lines and a teacher treated like a criminal for attempting to register first time voters. Republican want people to have proof of both a driver's licence and voter ID card when casting a ballot. Yet they refuse to back a national motor voter bill. Why have people be able to register to vote when they get their driver's license? That would make voting too easy.
Flip Flop Alert: Rick Scott Now Supports Early Voting
Gov. Rick Scott's interview with Soledad O'Brien did not go well. In addition to getting hammered for dodging questions on gun control, Scott was asked about Florida's restrictive voting laws. Scott is suddenly a fan of extended early voting.
The outcome of these decisions was quite obvious. Florida, which four years earlier was a model for efficiency, became once again a late-night TV joke,” Crist said pushing for national standards on voting laws and longer early voting days.
“People are frustrated in our state,” Scott told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien Wednesday. Scott said changes in size of polling locations, length of ballots and the number of early voting days are needed.
“I complied with the law. We had an election bill that was passed my first year in office by the legislature, it was approved by the Justice Department,” he said. “But we do need change.”
Scott's flip flop has nothing to do with a love for the Democratic process. The latest Quinnipiac poll finds 52 percent of Florida voters believe Scott deserve a second term. Former Gov. Charlie Crist has been hammering Scott on early voting. This doesn't mean Scott intends to change the early voting laws. Scott realizes he is vulnerable on the issue.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner is not doing a lot of listening on his listening tour. Detzner is on a listening tour to hear Floridians and bring back reccommendations to the Florida legislature. This comment by Detzner suggests he has been wearing ear plugs.
On restoring early voting times: "When you look at the turnout, which was larger than it was in 2008, that obviously speaks to the point that people were satisfied with the current law. People responded, reacted and turned out in greater numbers."
People turned out to vote despite voter suppression. Detzner would have you believe that the laws enhanced voting. Increased voter turnout is because of the Obama campaign's GOTV.
Proof the the listening tour is a sham. Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer told the Tampa Bay Times Department of State council Gary Holland wasn't interested in listening.
Return early voting to 14 days, from eight during this year's general election, they advised Don't tamp down voter registration by placing additional restrictions on third-party groups. And don't limit early voting sites to libraries and government buildings.
The response from Department of State interim general council Gary Holland, on at least that last point: "Talk to the Legislature."
"I was a little taken aback by that," said incoming Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer. "I was like, I thought that's why you are here."
Minutes after the noon deadline passed, attorneys for West headed to the St. Lucie County Courthouse to request an emergency hearing on the issue. It is not known if a hearing has been scheduled.
Florida law does allow an exemption to the deadline in an emergency and West’s attorney are expected to argue that the exemption applies.
That exemption defines emergency as “any occurrence, or threat thereof, whether accidental, natural, or caused by human beings, in war or in peace, that results or may result in substantial injury or harm to the population or substantial damage to or loss of property to the extent it will prohibit an election officer’s ability to conduct a safe and orderly election.”
I enjoy conservatives suddenly questioning if voting machines make errors. Of course they do. I have written about voting machine irregularities before. I don't want West anywhere near public office. I do believe West has a right to a recount. That said, when the recount strengthens Murphy's lead it is not a good sign for West.
We should have experts check to see if the voting machines are working properly in the Murphy-West election. That does not mean supporting West's insane idea of impounding the ballots while a recount is being done.
Joe Scarborough Dismisses Early Voting Suppression
Joe Scarborough is one of the most insufferable people on the planet. Which is why Scarborough is has a morning show. That same morning show gets its ass kicked in the ratings by the dreadful Fox & Friends, but that is another story. Scarborough comes off so condescendingly to his co-host Mika Brzezinski. Scarborough attempted to stop Brzezinski from talking about early voting problems in Miami-Dade county. Scarborough then rants on about how attempts to suppress votes are nothing but conspiracy theories. Fellow Republican Christine Todd Whitman knows much more about voting than the uninformed Scarborough. Whitman has harsh words for the way early voting has been handled in Florida.
"I don't know what went on in Florida, but I do have to say that in this day and age, it's inexcusable that in this country, we have anything like this going on." she said. "I've led delegations around the world to watch voting and this is the kind of thing you expect in a third-world country, not in the United States of America."
Whitman is a trained election monitor. I wonder if Scarborough thinks she is a conspiracy theorist. More likely, Scarborough would just put fingers in his ears and keep screaming "Benghazi." I have questions about Benghazi myself. However, I rarely get paid to be a journalist. Scarborough does. I don't expect Scarborough has the intellectual tools to do investigative journalism. It will never occur to Scarborough to travel to Egypt or spend hours trying to get documents leaked to him. Scarborough will just shout "Benghazi" like a little boy throwing a temper tantrum.
Side note: why does Mika Brzezinski put up with Scarborough?
Update: People outside the Miami-Dade county polling station chanting, "Let us vote." Perhaps their minds would have changed if Scarborough lectured them on how their votes weren't being suppressed. Never mind that the polling station temporarily shut its doors.
"It's a terrible shame... People have fought and died for our right to vote, and unfortunately our legislature and this governor have decided they want to make early voting less available to Floridians rather than more available ... It's hard for me as an American to comprehend why you don't make democracy as easy as possible to exercise for the people of our state. It's frankly unconscionable."
Charlie Crist, speaking on Gov. Rick Scott's refusal to extend early voting.
BREAKING: Early voting in Miami-Dade closed earlier than promised with 180 people still in line.
Call the Miami-Dade Board of Elections at 305-499-VOTE and demand they let everyone vote!
SHARE this with everyone you know!
People are calling the Miami-Dade office and getting a voice message.
Ion Sancho Not Happy About Florida Early Voting Changes
Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho is not happy about the long lines of early voters. Sancho lays blame on the Florida legislature.
"According to some of the legislators, that would let 'the wrong kind of people vote,' '' Sancho said.
Sancho is dealing with 90 minute long lines. He design described the situation to The Tampa Bay Times as "a mess."
"This is what happens when you make it not accessible by design,'' Sancho said. He said that the Republican-led legislature has intentionally limited early voting sites to libraries and supervisors of elections offices in an attempt to "suppress access."
Sancho gained national recognition by proving that Diebold machines could be hacked. He takes the right to vote seriously. I wish the same couldve said about some members of the Florida legislature.
Sen. Bill Nelson wrote to to Gov. Rick Scott and asked him to extend early voting. Scott has already said that early voting will end today.
Nov. 3, 2012
The Honorable Rick Scott Office of the Governor The Capitol 400 South Monroe St. Tallahassee, Florida 32399
Dear Gov. Scott:
Reports are that early voting has reached record levels and that long lines have formed at many of the early voting sites.
Combined with too few polling locations and a lack of adequate parking at many of them, an untold number of Floridians may be deprived of an opportunity to vote.
You should be doing everything in your power to make sure everybody has the chance to vote, and that their vote is counted. Instead, Gov. Scott, you are allowing people to be turned away and jeopardizing the credibility of Florida’s election.
You should act in the interest of all Floridians to be able to cast their ballot and not for partisan reasons to suppress the vote.
To ensure the maximum participation in this election and to provide the means for every citizen to vote and have their vote counted, I request that you issue an executive order extending early voting hours at least through Sunday.
