Florida's most unwanted

[teach1st]

St. Petersburg Times, 12/28

Imagine living in a place where some law-abiding citizens have to prove they are not hiding a criminal past, or even have to agree to be fingerprinted, just to exercise their right to vote in an election. If you are reading these words, there is a good chance you live in that place - Florida.

The seeds of the problem lie in the state's Constitution, which says even felons who have served their sentences cannot vote unless they have had their civil rights restored. That is an unnecessarily complex process that can take years to complete. Leading up to the 2000 presidential election, state officials compiled a now notoriously inaccurate list of felons that also included thousands of eligible voters.

(snip)

After the 2000 fiasco, the Division of Elections agreed to improve the accuracy of its felons list as part of a lawsuit settlement. The state spent $1.6-million on the process, but even Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who now oversees the division, admits the information will never be perfect because "there are just too many opportunities for a mistake to be made."

(snip)

So a substantial number of voters find themselves in a difficult position, once again. The state recently filtered the felons list and found 12,000 names that may not belong there because of bad information. More than 2,100 are in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/28/Opinion/Florida_s_most_unwant.shtml

[gator_in_Ontario]

1. I found it interesting

that in the 2000 election, the counties that had "problems" such as hanging chads, and eligible voters turned away at the polls were those which tended to vote Democratic. The county I lived in, St. Lucie, tends to vote repug and we had no such problems. We also used the good old-fashioned piece of paper where you color in the circles...really hard to get confused at that. Florida was used to steal that election..and not even very subtly. I'm just glad my dad wasn't alive to see this....but he did see things coming. He saw the Patriot Act, though he did not call it that. And I would say, "not in America, dad...no way...". How wrong I was.

[TeacherCreature]

2. I think your 2002 governor's election was also stolen

First I think Reno would have won the primary if not for the problems in Broward county. Then the general election had to have been rigged like in GA and MO. I think there is something ugly and dangerous going on and it has the stink of the bush family all over it.

[gator_in_Ontario]

3. Of course

that was step one. If Lawton Chiles had only lived to run again!

[Eric J in MN]

4. The decent thing to do would restore eveyone to the list who was

The decent thing to do would restore everyone on the blacklist generated with criteria the programmers themselves warned were over-broad.

Then if there is solid evidence someone doesn't have the legal right to vote, put that on a new list.

Restore everyone put on a "suspected-felon" list based on the 2000 project, and start over.

[JewelsforDennis]

5. You can do so much more...

visit that site and also start organizing in your own state. I've organized with a group of people in Maryland. We are working hard and might be successfully by following California's decertification in our state. We will be in state legislative session in January working hard. www.truevoteMD.org
Make it happen in your state. Visit Victoria Colliers site www.votescam.org and go see Dave Dills site . Get working people!!!