Florida pushing to remove potential felons from voter rolls

[kskiska]

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - (KRT) - The state's push to remove thousands of "potential felons" from voter rolls is causing angst among local election officials, who worry about inaccurate information, unfair results and yet another round of election-year lawsuits.

Orange County Elections Supervisor Bill Cowles, who has almost 2,200 potential felons to verify, said computer data supplied to counties by the state is riddled with problems, including wrong names and criminal charges that may have been reduced.

Under state law, it is county election officials, not the state, who must verify convictions and notify people who would be dropped from voter rolls.

"You have to sift through it all - and that comes down to us," said Cowles, a Democrat. "We become the one who needs to face the voter."

State officials have identified nearly 50,000 voters as "potential felons" who could be stripped from voter lists - many of them Democrats and minorities who could swing an election in a state where Republicans and Democrats are roughly equal in number.

more…
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/8670508.htm

[NMDemDist2]

1. deja vu 2000 all over again n/t

[SidDithers]

2. Is a potential felon someone who might, someday, become a felon?

Because, then, lots of Republican CEO's should probably be taken off the voter lists.

Sid

[GoddessOfGuinness]

3. Don't forget the most powerful potential felon of all...

Dumbyass himself.

[maggrwaggr]

4. yeah, it's "preemptive" voter purging

welcome to GWB's America

[ecoalex]

5. Felons purging Felons

The jokes about Florida are true, by the history , and we see with brother jeb in command, a legal voter is a dubious one, if you happen to be of color. republican stereo types are the norm is an enclave of demagogues. An estimated 10,000 plus were disenfranchised the last time around. Ole Kathy Harris did her republican duty to subvert the Florida results, so help her god. and Party. The same will not happen again this time, as there will be a landslide =)

[Mithras61]

28. You need to read "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy"...

by Greg Palast. the REAL number is much closer to 100,000 than to 10,000 that were disenfranchised. The purge list alone that was given to K. Harris had 57,000 names, with an estimated 95% error rate. That's in addition to those who were otherwise disenfranchised by Jebbie.

[MidwestTransplant]

6. Somebody needs to file a lawsuit quick.

[BiggJawn]

7. Didn't they make a movie about this?

What was it called? "Minority Report" or something like that?

[no_arbusto]

8. Precrime, it works

</sarcasm>

www.precrime.org

[bluestateguy]

9. I would have lawyers on call on election day

and NAACP observers in minority precincts all over the state. Hidden cameras to verify any problems as they occur. If need be, some kind of an improvised act of civil disobedience should be orchestrated for election day.

[Mithras61]

29. Don't forget the machines that count the ballots...

In Florida, the counters in precincts that are black majority districts simply "eat" ballots that are "spoiled" by multiple votes or stray marks (like the ones that marked the box for Gore and wrote in a vote for him as well), but that in majority white precincts these ballots are spit out by the machine so they can be "fixed" so the machine will accept them. In 2000, FL failed to count some 179,855 ballots. In the "white" precints the "spoilage" rate was 1 in 500. In "black" precincts it was 1 in 8.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Will they purge Noelle?

--bkl

[truthisfreedom]

11. potentially, it's a felony to vote the Democratic ticket. potentially.

[jamesinca]

12. What is a "potential felon"?

Is this somebody who intends on committing a crime but has not? Boy this sounds like some Sci-Fi movie that was just out.

If the correctional system was actually rehabilitating these people it would not be a problem to let them vote. Since the system does not try to fix the problems, only educate the people how to be better criminals they don't want them voting. Imagine if a person who has supposedly payed his debt to society was allowed to vote and determine who the judge was going to be in town, or the DA etc.... They don't rehabilitate anybody so they don't want them as part of the voting process plain and simple.

[OneBlueSky]

13. people who look like they might commit a felony in the future . . .

in other words, blacks and other minorities . . .

[elperromagico]

14. Great. It begins again.

[soup]

15. Trying to figure out how this works

Potential felons - Is this (loosely) based on arrest records - rather than court records of conviction?

The article mentions criminal charges that may have been reduced. So they're not waiting for conviction? Or is this list post-conviction / pre-appeal?

Didn't Florida implement some sort of provisional voting for 2004 if someone showed up at the polls and found their name no longer on the roll?

-----

Is Accenture (I think that's the correct company name) still compiling the list?

Memory says they were hired after an argument between K. Harris and the county supervisors over who was responsible for paying for the list. In spite of new laws saying it had to be handled by the state, the job was (illegally) contracted out to Accenture(?) by Harris when they couldn't reach an agreement over who was to pay for it.

I'm thinking that was for 2002. Is it still handled through that company in 2004? I thought HAVA dictated a centralized state voter roll database? Did Florida apply for a waiver/ extension on that like they did over the compliance for accessibility?

Accessibility - there's another big one.

and Just thought of something else - wasn't a lot of money spent by the state on a computer system to coordinate all this?

-----

I have so many questions, scattered in so many directions.

-----

and while I'm at it - Where in HELL does this woman come off making a statement like this (from the article):

It took almost two years and "a lot of pushing" to regain the right to vote for Cindy Adkinsof Seminole County, who won executive clemency. But she worries she could show up on a state list and be stripped from voting again.

"Even though I've re-registered, and I have my voter card, once you're in the spin cycle, you're always beat up," said Adkins, a longtime Republican. "I think I will always be blacklisted."

She said she's had trouble landing a good job since she was convicted of felony drug charges.

"I'm from a good family," she said. "But just because I got a little screwed up in the `80s, they treat me like I'm trailer trash."

Boo f'ing hoo, Princess. Welcome to the real world.

[dbt]

16. One potential felon in particular needs to be purged:

Fellow by the name of Jeb Bush.

:evilgrin:
dbt

[farmbo]

22. Don't forget the biggest (literally) Fla felon of all... Rush Limbaugh

Any doubts that this system will somehow create an exception for this REAL felon while dissing out thousands of "potential" felons most of whom will fall into the suspect category of ...humm, lets see...BLACKS!

[DoNotRefill]

17. WTF is a potential felon?

sounds like somebody who hasn't been convicted yet....

[soup]

18. *sigh*

Thinking of putting the Supervisor of Elections Office on speed-dial.

I need to call on Monday and find out.

My 20-yr old son was arrested a couple of weeks ago for felony 'driving on a suspended license' because the state apparently hasn't updated their computers since he reinstated his license in February. The computer showed him still listed as having a suspended license.

So, since he was arrested on a felony charge and hauled off to jail on a felony charge and had to be bailed out of jail for this felony charge and now has to appear in court in June on the felony charge - does that make him a potential felon? Has his name now been added to the 'potential felon' list?

I've got a few choice words for how many things are handled here in FL:
Yes, they begin with the letter F.
No, the word isn't Felon.

[DoYouEverWonder]

19. The simple solution would have been

to get rid of this ridiculous law that bans 'potential' felons from voting. The people in the state of Florida had four years to change the voting laws but not much as been done about it during that time. Of course, the repugs are going to continue to use this to their advantage. Should we expect anything less?

[SharonAnn]

27. The legislature in Florida is Republican, IIRC and they had no

reason to want to "correct" the problems with erroneously purging minority voters.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

20. Not to rain on anyones parade...

but it seems to me that "potential felon" does not mean "has not commited a crime yetm but may". Rather it means "may be a person who commited a crime before but has re-enrolled"

In other words, they are doing what they did in 2000: they are saying "A Joe M Smith was convicted of a felony five years ago, and we THINK this Joe M Smith may be that person."

Worse still, they may be trying to purge ALL "Joe M Smith's" on the assumption ONE of them HAS to be the felon, but they don't know which one.

[Darranar]

21. Does it matter?

It's still illegal and undemocratic...

[LiberalFighter]

32. Can't be that difficult to determine who the real felons are.

They have the following info that they can match:

• Name
  
• Date of Birth
  
• Drivers License or last 4 digits of SSN
  
• State of Birth
  
  If they can't match based on the above then there should be no voter purge.
  
  If they followed their law then it would help if the courts forwarded information about felony convictions to the last county of residence.
  
  On edit
  Any felony purge should only involved residents that were convicted within their state boundaries.
  
  Hmmmm
  
  Now the SCJ ruled that recounting the ballots in the last election was illegal because of not treating all the ballots the same.
  
  What about the purging... are they obtaining felony convictions from all the states or just a few selected states? Which states are they obtaining the records? Do any of those states have different laws regarding the voting status of felons?

[playahata1]

23. What do they mean by "potential felons"?

I guess they are pushing to make it A CRIME for African Americans and other people of color to vote in the state of Florida. <<sarcasm and anger and disbelief>>

I am black, a registered voter, and live in (Duval County) Florida, so I could be on that list. I am still pissed off about 2000.

[Darranar]

24. Not again.... n/t

[bluestateguy]

25. I would suggest some election day civil disobedience

If the state of Florida is going to pull this shit again I would suggest that Floridians be prepared to take action on election day to fight these totalitarian measures. Filing lawsuits and doing academic "studies" months after the election will accomplish nothing.

[Lindacooks]

26. Why doesn't somebody sic the ACLU on them?

These criminals can't be allowed to get away with this unConstitutional act of purging the voter lists. Seems like the perfect thing for the ACLU to sink their teeth into.

[cap]

30. actually in heavily Democratic districts

run by Democratic election officials, they could insist on verifying that the individual in question is a felon by calling the individual and verifying that there is no mistake in identity!

If someone is to be purged from the list, then let the official publish their name in the paper and let people call in if there is a mistake. Have minority organizations monitor the list and get people to double check their names!

[NashVegas]

31. Call the Pre-Crime Unit

geeez