In what looks like admission that the 2000 voter scrub which excluded mostly black Democrat votes was even worse than I thought (good Lord), it appears that not only were they going to pull the same stunt in 2004 had they not been pressured, they actually were excluding Hispanic felons from the scrub list, because in Florida, they tend to vote Republican.
The glitch in a state that President Bush won by just 537 votes could have been significant -- because of the state's sizable Cuban population, Hispanics in Florida have tended to vote Republican more than Hispanics nationally. The list had about 28,000 Democrats and around 9,500 Republicans, with most of the rest unaffiliated.
"Not including Hispanic felons that may be voters on the list ... was an oversight and a mistake," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "And we accept responsibility and that's why we're pulling it back."
NY Times article
"Not including Hispanic felons that may be voters on the list ... was an oversight and a mistake," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "And we accept responsibility and that's why we're pulling it back."
A mistake. Sure it was. The incredible audacity. Coming up with a felon list that would include blacks and excludes Hispanics. Somebody had to actually work on that.
[W]hen voters register in Florida, they can identify themselves as Hispanic. But the potential felons database has no Hispanic category, which excludes many people from the list if they put that as their race.
Just an honest mistake.
The purge of felons from voter rolls has been a thorny issue since the 2000 presidential election. A private company hired to identify ineligible voters before the election produced a list with scores of errors, and elections supervisors used it to remove voters without verifying its accuracy. A federal lawsuit led to an agreement to restore rights to thousands of voters.
The new list was released July 1, with officials saying Gov. Bush's administration was simply complying with federal election law. Problems with the list were quickly detected.
State officials have said there are people on the list who are not felons, and elections workers have flagged more than 300 people listed who might have received clemency.
The new list was released July 1, with officials saying Gov. Bush's administration was simply complying with federal election law. Problems with the list were quickly detected.
State officials have said there are people on the list who are not felons, and elections workers have flagged more than 300 people listed who might have received clemency.
Read Greg Palast's account of the choice of private companies, and just exactly what went down. It will blow you away. (A detailed accounting is in Palast's excellent book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.) Not only was the Supreme Court installation of The Thief in Chief a Constitutional outrage, the 2000 election was unarguably stolen at the polls in Florida.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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