Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
Reports by the Miami Herald and by Democracy Now report that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has “ordered Florida…to end a controversial voter purge that’s primarily targeted Latino, Democratic and independent-minded voters” (see video below) may not be technically accurate.
Both refer to the two-page letter submitted by T. Christian Herren, the chief lawyer of the DOJ’s Voting Rights Division, to FL officials which suggested that the purge, ordered by Republican Gov. Rick Scott under the unsubstantiated pretense that the state had thousands of non-citizens registered to vote, violated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because FL had not sought preclearance for the new voter roll purge either from the DOJ or a federal court. Herren, as the Miami Herald article observed, demanded that FL officials “advise whether the State intends to cease the practice,” but stopped short of issuing an actual “order” that FL immediately cease and desist.
Election officials across the state have confirmed that the Governor’s purge list includes hundreds, if not thousands, of legally registered U.S. citizens who are improperly identified as “non-citizens” to be removed from the rolls.
Only five of Florida’s 67 counties are “covered jurisdictions” under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That means that while Supervisors of Elections in some counties had vowed not to carry out Scott’s purge, others, like Seminal County’s Republican Supervisor of Elections Mike Ertel, signified their intent to carry out what amounts to a new form of GOP “caging lists” in which those voters who do not respond to official letters in a designated fashion are automatically purged from the eligible voter rolls. On Friday, an attorney from the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, representing all 67 counties, sent a memo to officials recommending they do not carry out the scrub as called for by the state.
The DOJ letter to FL also noted that the voter roll purge across the entire state appears to be in violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which bans the removal of voters from the rolls in the 90 days prior to a federal election. Florida is set to hold its federal primary election on August 14th, making May 16th the last legal day for the type of voter roll maintenance the state now claims to be carrying out.
Even assuming that Herren’s letter to the state amounts to a DOJ “order,” it may not be enough to stop what The Advancement Project estimated in its May 17 letter to Herren [PDF] could ultimately produce an illegal purge of as many as 180,000 otherwise eligible voters based on a flawed, eleventh hour pre-election effort to match voter rolls against the FL driver’s license data base.
After receiving the letter from the DOJ, Florida Dept. of State Spokesperson Chris Cates said they intended to continue with their purge anyway. “Bottom line is,” Cates told Think Progress, “we are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot.”
The purge has already ensnared U.S. citizens like Bill Internicola, the 91-year old, Brooklyn-born, World War II veteran and Bronze Star recipient who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and Archibald Bowyer, another 91-year old WWII vet who has been citizen since the age of 2, and who received his letter from the state warning he would be purged just as his wife had died.
Cates has marginalized such incidents as “a handful of people [who] have been inconvenienced.”
To halt the purge, groups like the ACLU and the DOJ may need to initiate a federal lawsuit in which they seek yet another preliminary injunction, like the one issued late Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Hinkle in League of Women Voters v. Browning [PDF]. That ruling, as we reported on Thursday, spoke to a different aspect of this year’s GOP voter suppression effort in FL. Hinkle’s ruling ordered an official federal injunction on the draconian restrictions imposed on voter registration workers by the FL GOP, which had earlier led to groups like the League of Women Voters of Florida being forced to cancel their voter registration drives for the first time in some 70 years.
Florida has until June 6th to official respond to the U.S. Dept. of Justice.
Video of Democracy Now segment on the DOJ’s response to the FL purge follows…
Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). Follow him on Twitter: @Cann4ing.
The DOJ and FBI should do whatever is required to protect the voting rights of Floridians or any American citizens. Those who are breaking the law, violating those rights, should be arrested.
As I see it, Since Gov Scott is wilfully violating Federal Election Law, the Federal government has two possible remedies available to it to rectify the situation.
1. Arrest Gov. Scott on Federal Criminal Charges of Election Tampering.
2. Simply Invalidate the Election IN Florida in toto for ALL Florida Federal Elective offices. That would allow the Executive Branch to Appoint the entire Fla. Congressional delegation as well as any Fla. Senate seats up for election. The legal precedent dates back to Reconstruction.
If Scott wants to disenfranchise minority and Dem voters in a national election, the Federal govenment has the right to invalidate that election and appoint their own people to office as well as indict Scott for election Tampering.
Hola! I’ve been following your weblog for some time now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Kingwood Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the good work!
Injunction likely required? You got that right!
However, I’m not sitting on a hot stove waiting for said injunction NOR any intended effect from one IF it were issued.
From recent article from Raw Story:
“Florida says it will defy an order from the US justice department to stop purging its voter roll of people the state claims may not be American citizens.”
http://tinyurl.com/ct7rafa
Re John Puma @4:
Like the Miami Herald and Democracy Now, Raw Story appears to have mistakenly interpreted Mr. Herren’s two-page letter as an “order.” At best, the DOJ is in a position to “demand” that FL officials stop purging their voting rolls. Except with respect to the six counties who are subject to Section 5 of the VRA, the DOJ does not have the power to simply “order” FL officials to cease and desist.
Unlike the DOJ, a U.S. District Court Judge can order FL to stop the purge. While such an order can be appealed, unless an injunction were stayed during the course of the appeal, any FL state official, including Gov. Scott, who willfully violated the order could be jailed for contempt of court.
That’s why it is important for the DOJ to immediately seek a federal court injunction.
Thanks, Ernest, for the clarification.
My mention of Raw Story hardly means to portray it as the final word … in anything. (In this particular case the RAW article was from directly from the UK Guardian. No, I do not take the Guardian as the final word, either.)
But, aside from using “order” instead of “demand” the story accurately notes that Florida has until Wednesday to respond to the DOJ and, as of now, it intends to defy the DOJ “demand.”
The gist of my comment was: given Florida’s history in voter suppression and Scott’s as a miserable criminal, I have NO reason to NOT believe such predictions of intended defiance. I acknowledge that defiance is not yet criminal.
I fully agree that “it is DOJ to immediately seek a federal court injunction.” It simply has to be proven to me that the DOJ has the spine to do so.
The most potentially significant item I have seen was the announcement that all 67 Florida county election supervisors have said they will obey the DOJ “demand” to suspend Scott’s voter purge. http://tinyurl.com/74knxj5
I say, potentially, because this may simply be a ploy to momentarily distract the DOJ.
There IS a federal court ruling on a portion of a recent Florida law regarding draconian burdens placed on 3rd party voter registration. I don’t know if an injunction has been issued in that case.
Shut ’em down.
Every time they bring up a bill for ‘voter id’ ram in an attachment for mandatory voting, Australian model.
That’ll shut ’em up
Florida has been screwing up elections by criminal activity since 2000.
They gave us Bush II who gave us pure hell on earth.
Shut these scum bags down yesterday!
Injunction, yes! SPINE, yes!
The over-&-over again unbelievable pattern of election errors, & vote manipulation we have seen over the past few decades IS unbelievable; we’re not that gullible.
My question remains how do you discipline justices, like the Supreme Court, that refuse the high-integrity obligation of their positions? Failure to impeach justices when they prevent or preempt democracy-in-action (i.e. Bush v Gore and the prohibited legal vote-count) is where the problem lies.
I was very pleased to hear an excellent report on a local radio news show on this story (Here & Now on WBUR, one of our public radio stations): http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012...r-registration. Host Robin Young interviewed Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald.
Just a couple days ago, my brother who lives in Collier County Florida (Naples) reported to me that his local Naples paper is reporting that their own county elections supervisor has decided to continue the “review” of the rolls, despite the DOJ, until specifically forced to do otherwise. So yes, there needs to be an injunction.
I cannot speak for others. However, I can speak for myself. I know there are some people who will think that I am a democrat due to what I am posting. However, that is furthest from the truth. The truth of the matter is, I do not condone any type of election fraud whether it is committed by Democrats -or- Republicans.
I believe the United States and/or any State within the United States has the constitutional right to purge their election role in non-election year wherein it will not have an effect on any upcoming election. However, I do not believe that the United States and/or any State within the United States has the constitutional right to purge their election role just prior to any upcoming election if it deprives even one eligible voter of their lawful right to vote. This is due to the fact, that election fraud cannot be prevented by any State who purges their election role to eliminate election fraud and at the same time commits election fraud themselves, by depriving eligible voters of their lawful right to vote.
The following is something one might want to think about.
Article XV. Section 1. of this nations constitution states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Now consider what Abraham Lincoln had to say about our nations constitution and how we as Americans can loose of our freedoms “Liberty”
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”
“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
BEWARE:
There are some of our elected officials both in the federal government and our local state government who no longer honor their oath of office as set forth in our nations constitution. Thus, they no longer longer represent us, the people.
I wonder if our elected officials under stand that their is a difference between sending a letter out to someone whom they expect may not be an eligible voter and requesting them to provide evidence that they are indeed an eligible voter. -versus- Them sending a letter out to someone informing them that they have been removed from the voter role and demanding that they provide evidence that they are indeed an eligible voter prior to being allowed to vote.
I also wonder if we, the people, really understand the difference when our elected officials make a formal request for us, the people, to provide them with information pertaining to our lawful right to vote. -versus- Our elected officials unlawfully removing our names from the election role without our permission and then demanding that we, the people provide them with the information pertaining to our lawful right to vote prior to having our names re-instated on their election role.
It should be noted that when the word “Servitude” was used in Article XV. Section 1. of this nations constitution (which grants the right of citizens of the United States the right to vote) it was making reference to “a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one’s course of action or way of life.” It should also be noted “Hitlerism imposes servitude not only on the body but on the mind and even on the spirit.”