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Florida voting law may disenfranchise thousands

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The state will start enforcing a law that penalizes voters if their names are misspelled in voter registration records and government databases.

Voting rights advocates are alarmed over the Florida Secretary of State's September 8th decision to enforce the state's "no-match, no-vote" law, a voter registration law that previously blocked more than 16,000 eligible Florida citizens from registering to vote, through no fault of their own, and could disenfranchise tens of thousands more voters in November.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning's last-minute decision to implement the law in the final month before the registration deadline will post a significant hurdle to eligible Florida citizens hoping to vote in November. It will disenfranchise voters who do not send or bring a photocopy of their driver's license to county election officials' offices after voting, even though these voters will have shown their driver's licenses when they went to vote at the polls.

"This 11th-hour decision is an ill-advised move to apply a policy the state has never enforced in its current form, at a time when registration activity is at its highest," stated Beverlye Neal, director of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, a plaintiff in a lawsuit that challenges Florida's matching law. "The Secretary's decision will put thousands of real Florida citizens at risk due to bureaucratic typos that under the 'no-match, no-vote' law will prevent them from voting this November," said Alvaro Fernandez of the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, another plaintiff in the case.

"Voters who do everything right, who submit forms that are complete, timely, and accurate, will suddenly find themselves unregistered when they go to vote, just because someone somewhere punched the wrong letter on a keyboard," said Myrna Pérez, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. "The no match, no vote policy is unjust and unnecessary, and Florida voters will pay the price this fall," stated Jean-Robert Lafortune, president of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, another plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The law at issue bars any Florida citizen from voting a valid ballot if the state cannot validate their driver's license number or the last 4 digits of their Social Security number, no matter how much identification the voter is able to bring to the polls. The process starts with an attempt to "match" voter information to other government databases, an error-prone exercise that often fails. For example, the Social Security Administration reports that 46% failure rate when trying to match voter registration applications. State officials admitted in a recent challenge to the law, Florida NAACP v. Browning, that typographical errors by election workers are responsible for most of the failures.

If the state fails to match the voter registration records, many eligible voters who submit registration applications before the October 6th deadline to register may not be notified of the matching failure until they go in person to vote. There, they will be forced to cast provisional ballots, and that provisional ballot will only be counted if the voter submits a photocopy of his or her driver's license or Social Security card within 48 hours after the election, even if they already showed their driver's license at the polls.

"The most senseless part is that the state creates these errors, and then makes it unnecessarily hard to fix the problem," said Myrna Pérez of the Brennan Center. "If the state insists on enforcing this misguided matching provision, it should at least make it possible for voters to show their driver's license at the poll and validate their registration then and there. To have registered, brought your ID to the polls, and still be told you can't vote -- all because of a bureaucratic error -- is ridiculous."
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goldenways

30 responses // Florida voting law may disenfranchise thousands

  •  

    People are idiots...

    mookster_07
  •  

    The conservatives are pulling every string in every state to muck up the election. They don't really care about all U.S. citizens, just the rich.

    recommended by merasyad
    justright
  •  

    I say we bomb Florida!

    No, wait, that's not a communist state, that's a part of the United States.

    We need to film, perform exit polls and have voters (willing) sign petitions for when this election lands in the Supreme Court again.

    The Criminal party is soooo obviously attempting to steal this election.

    What to do? People must act NOW or it will be much, much worse in November.

    VoyagerFilms
  •  

    Can you say, "Jeb Bush approved"?
    I knew you could.

    huntre
  •  

    At least this time around it's gaining more media attention. Perhaps people will finally realize that the elections are rigged. That seems like a step in the right directon to me. Knowing is half the battle.

    cantucwearebrothers
  •  

    Are you ready for the Revolution. I've got my boots. Let's give them something to remember!!!!!!!!!!

    amirct3
  •  
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAr4PKwo5Kg

    I just posted this on current, but in case it doesn't get seen, this is a very important video to see, its only a few minutes long, be prepared and know what you can do if you are not allowed to vote. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy Jr share ways to "steal back your vote".

    recommended by Vierotchka, goldenways
    SeaJade
  •  

    whats the point in voting if youre going to get prosecuted for a small error and if you cant even tell who youre voting for?

    satanskidney
  •  
    http://freedocumentaries.org/index.php?ct=6
    Image...

    Just a hint : Before you export democracy, try having it at home !

    ELECTION FRAUD DOCUMENTARIES
    http://freedocumentaries.org/index.php?ct=6

    “It’s enough that people know there has been a vote. Those who vote decide of nothing. Those who count the votes, decides of everything” - Joseph Stalin

    WhiteNoise
  •  

    Remember this is the Florida bible belt, where right-wing Christian believe that they have the divine right to lie.

    tomofnorthcal
    1 response to this
  •  

    Also remember, that when government is involved, it is going to be screwed up. And the democrats are all about government being involved in things. You figure it out.

    bigunsuno
  •  

    The Reps will stop at nothing to win. Do not under estimate their connections, power & seemingly endless funding from special interest groups that have too much at stake. Fortunes to be made by war profiteers controlling oil production & upending the economy at the expense of the middle class while laughing all the way to the bank.

    darkhorsejim
  •  

    Fight this tooth and nail.

    Florida is a corrupt place. You all know this.

    Call your officials every day.

    Pressure them relentlessly and make this a story.

    iloveravi
  •  

    Florida: Disenfranchising voters since 2000...

    UrbanGypsy
  •  

    When you have no record or issues to run on, and youre corrupt with power and greed, this is what you do.

    Republicans were able to steal this state, and the election in 2000, when they were out of power nationally. Who knows what laws theyve quietly passed, what loop holes theyve opened up in the eight years since.

    In a fair fight, Obama/Biden would be a sure thing. Just how Al Gore won, and how Kerry won. And to anyone who wants to challenge Kerry's true victory, a victory (Bush's) run on lies, intimidation, and massive voter fraud at local, state, and national levels is not legitimate.

    ClayCreature
  •  

    Just the fact that Fark.com has a category named Florida speaks volumes.

    I'm working on the brevity thing, really.

    extremepain
  •  

    There is no reason for voter registration to be this complex. Why can't someone driver's license double as their voter registration.

    This why people need to focus on local and state politics, and not just the presidential race.

    sambass
  •  

    god hates florida so much that god sends them hurricanes as retribution

    satanskidney
  •  

    All I know is that if i'm not able to vote, someone's getting an ass whoop'n.
    Hmmm, since i'm white my names pretty easy to spell... Sucks for minorities doesn't it? Joshuavierre Santos-Gonzales.

    McGaspa
  •  

    This story is horrifying! The GOP (the Gold & Oil Party) have already subverted poor old Florida and turned it, politically, into something very close to a banana republic. Let's make DAMN SURE they CAN"T pull this kind of sh#t in our other states! If they try to, make as big a ruckus as you can - alert your local & national media, get active on the Internet, tell EVERONE you know and tell them to tell EVERYONE they know! As a last resort, get as many voters in your state as possible who feel they've been disenfranchised to get a class action suit going against whoever did it to them!

    TheTruthteller
  •  

    o my dear.....T_T

    FrankOmazing
  •  

    Holy moley Bible Belt! Wasn't Jim Crow outlawed a long time ago?

    simonedward
  •  

    The Florida Governor Jeb Bush might have said, "Umm what? Wait, you mean my brother's friend might actually lose this election if people my state's school system systematically disenfranchised can vote? We need to bring back the literacy test that this state had during Jim Crow! Now we can pull a 2000 again!" Keep in mind that this is pure speculation on my part.

    simonedward
  •  

    Does anyone else get the feeling that the GOP is just toying with us?

    Honestly, i'm starting to think that they're just letting us believe that something is possible just so they can close the door on us at the last second. At which point, Karl Rove will laugh hysterically.

    mako2424
  •  

    How convenient that large numbers of voters charged with some sort of technicality will not be able to vote.

    This is the same conservative crap coming down the pike as 2000 and 2004.

    We live in a country with a government that deals out corruption, divisiveness and subversion!

    Is it any wonder that our nation is in its current state?

    One small thing we all can do as individuals- be involved in every wap possible for the election and

    boycott products that come from Florida, Texas etc.
    Im serious if the tens of thousands of us stopped buying
    their produce, food stuff etc. it will hurt them.
    And if all the liberals statring thinking this way they will fell it! Pass it along! But products from blue states! Ido this at the market- it just feels right!

    rube
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