Last week, I may have seemed harsh, pinning the assault on election protections on the miserable Republican majority in the Florida legislature, lead by Miami-Dade public officials like Alex Diaz de la Portilla. According to yesterday's New York Times editorial, my view has company. The Miami Herald would do well by its readers, and the nation, to disclose who exactly in Miami-Dade county is behind this nasty work: de la Portilla had company and we can guess who. (Please click, 'read more'.)
April 19, 2009
EDITORIAL
Suppressing the Vote in Florida
Since 2000, Florida has been synonymous with badly run and undemocratic elections. This distinction has not come to it by chance. Many of the state’s election officials and legislators work hard to keep eligible voters from casting ballots. The Florida Legislature is at it again, threatening to pass new rules that would make it harder for eligible voters, especially those from minorities and those who are poor, to register and vote.
Republican state legislators, who are behind the latest bills, want to make it illegal for anyone to get within 100 feet of a line of voters. That provision would criminalize election protection programs, in which nonpartisan volunteers make themselves available outside of polling places on Election Day to ensure that eligible voters know their legal rights and are able to cast ballots.
The legislation would also impose onerous and unnecessary rules on voter registration drives, including a requirement that registration forms must be turned in within 48 hours. Grass-roots voter registration drives play an important role in getting poor and minority voters registered. If this legislation passes, however, many groups may stop registering voters rather than risk jail sentences or fines.
The elderly, a sizable voting bloc in Florida, would also be hard hit. They would no longer be able to use photo IDs issued by retirement centers or neighborhood associations at the polls. That would be a serious hardship for the many elderly people who do not have driver’s licenses.
Another provision would require election officials to purge voting rolls more frequently, a sore point in Florida, where an improper purge of the rolls before the 2000 election removed many eligible voters.
Republican leaders seem to be trying to push the legislation through quickly, with a minimum of public attention or comment. If they succeed, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is already threatening to challenge parts of it in court. It is doubtful that significant parts of it, like the prohibition on giving legal advice to voters in line, could survive a constitutional challenge.
Florida legislators should not need a court to tell them not to interfere with the right to vote.
9 comments:
Please keep up the stellar work you are doing on this important story.
Anyone doing any work on election day knows exactly who this is targeting and why. It is shameless.
What has happened to the Diaz de la Portilla boys? Miguel was a decent commissioner then went to work for the overdevelopers. Alex wants to take away my voting rights.Renier has not been a stellar school board member. Maybe we have had enough of dynasties.
m de g
Just wrote my state rep the following email (not that it will do any good, but feel free to copy and mail to yours):
I rarely write my elected officials but this piece of legislation so turns my stomach that I am taking the time to ask you, as my elected official, to oppose the proposed election law changes currently making thier way through the House and backed by Miami representative Alex Diaz de la Portilla. The last thing this state needs to do is disenfranchise more voters and make the state less democratic, which is what these changes are certain to do (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19sun2.html). These changes seem to be more about protecting political power than expanding democracy and people’s right to vote. If anything Florida should be moving towards same day voter registration, not away from it. Most of these changes are cynical, self serving, and un-American.
A constituent has spoken, I hope you listen.
Look at them! The Republican Party is nothing more than a freak show. The tan fellow from sunny Ohio Boehner and soporific Mitch McConell. Take the man's pulse, he may have passed away a couple of years ago. Opie from South Carolina Lindsey Graham and his backwater governor, Mark Sanford, who actually thought he could get away with refusing stimulus money. The governor from the Republic of Texas Rick Perry wants to secede and take the rest of the white Texans with him. And trailer trash from Alaska was going to be an old man's heartbeat from the White House if McCain had his way. Letterman pegged Rush, "an Eastern European gangster", and O'Riley, "a goon". He hasn't bothered to mention the weepy Beck.
A good part of the Bush Administration will soon be confined to life within the borders of the US. Outside the country they will be subject to arrest for war crimes and torture. They'll need to pray that Obama and Holder never grow a spine and make them wanted here too.
The Republicans will go the way of the Whigs. They will never again be a viable contender in national elections. They will devolve into a Southern-based white supremacist splinter group. But for now we still have to deal with the remnants of this dying group in Florida and their desperate attempts to hold on in the Legislature. Won't work, they're history.
They are only history if all of us sign up new voters and make sure they get out to vote. We must rid ourselves of these horrers.
This dangerous bill...
* concentrates all power in the Secretary of State
* hurts voter registration efforts
* hurts petition-gathering efforts
* imposes arbitrary fines
* forces people to vote on provisional ballots, if they have changed their address recently
* limits the number of voter IDs, hurting the elderly, poor, and disabled
* expands the "no solicitation zone", keeping needed information from voters
* increases purging of voter rolls right before elections
* sweeps away local ordinances and voter protections
* opens the floodgates to lobbyist spending on elections
_____
FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATOR HERE:
House list of representatives: http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/representatives.aspx?SessionId=61
Senate list of senators: http://www.flsenate.gov/Legislators/index.cfm?Tab=legislators&CFID=129871154&CFTOKEN=38926163
>>> Also call and email the Senate President, House Speaker, and Governor Crist:
(Phone calls are better than email)
1) Senate President Jeff Atwater, 850-487-5100 VOTE NO on ELECTION BILL SB956
2) House Speaker Larry Cretul 850-488-1450 VOTE NO on ELECTION BILL PCB-EDCA 09-08
3) Governor Crist 850-488-4441 VETO the consolidated ELECTION BILL if it gets to your desk
Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com
atwater.jeff.web@flsenate.gov
See the full bills at www.flsenate.gov (type in 956, and click on the pdf for committee amendment 294434).
and the House version (see the bottom of page 10 particularly) at
http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Documents/publications.aspx?CommitteeId=2473&PublicationType=Committees&DocumentType=Proposed%20Committee%20Bills%20(PCBs)&Session=2009&SessionId=61
Article published Apr 21, 2009
Bill to change election laws is drawing criticism
By Stephen D. Price
Florida Capital Bureau
Calling a proposed elections bill payback for a Democrat taking the presidential race in the Sunshine State, Democratic lawmakers and civil-rights group are asking legislative leadership to scrap an attempt to change elections laws.
"This bill should be called an anti-voting bill," said Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, at a news conference Monday. "We are going to stop this bill dead in its tracks. We want people to have the right to vote."
In part, the bill (SB 956) would require voters to use provisional ballots if they have moved within 30 days prior to an election, prevent anyone from getting within 100 feet of a voter line, limit the existing list of acceptable identification for voting, prohibit voters from receiving legal advice while in line and requires initiative petition signature forms be submitted to supervisors of elections within 45 days of signing.
Last week, the bill passed the Senate's Ethics and Elections Commissions, split along partisan lines. Democrats complained the bill with the elections-related changes was a shell until the seventh week in session.
Republicans said the bill attacks voter fraud. The bill was put together as a normal review of elections laws and was a collaboration of Republican leaders including working with Gov. Charlie Crist's office, said Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, a Miami Republican and the bill's sponsor.
Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho said the bill was a response to the fact that, "The Florida election of 2008 was too accessible."
Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat, said the bill will make it more difficult for Floridians to vote.
"The legislative process is supposed to be open, inclusive," Rich said. "This bill puts up barriers for voting, especially for seniors and those with disabilities."
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