Beach Peanuts

GOP Seeks To Give Rick Scott More Power Over Election He's In Danger Of Losing

"No Pressure"

I touched on this briefly in a post yesterday, but it's a revelation so blatantly appalling that it really deserves it's own post.

It surfaced when Secretary of State Ken Detzner informed the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee that on election day last November, some elections supervisors management was so poor that it could have led to Rick Scott actually removing them. Detzner told them:

“Without pointing any fingers, and without calling out names, I would say that there were situations, both in the general election and prior to that, that the administration of an election in a county came very, very, very close … to a decision to have somebody relieved of their duties.” 

This led to a proposal from Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla. (R-Lines Were Long And I Helped By Sponsoring HB1355). Never mind the "coulda', woulda', shoulda' "no finger pointing suggestion" from Detzner, the Miami Republican thinks that removing a election official should become a promise, rather than a threat:

Targeting five counties that saw the worst problems during the 2012 elections, Florida legislators are considering giving Gov. Rick Scott and his administration broader power to remove elections supervisors or put them on probation.

Some critics say the move is an attempt to scapegoat supervisors for long lines caused mainly by legislators, who shortened early voting and lengthened the ballot with 11 proposed constitutional amendments.

The proposal came from Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a Miami Republican who sponsored the 2011 election bill (HB 1355), signed into law by Scott, that critics say made voting more arduous last year. Diaz de la Portilla’s latest measure would require supervisors to issue reports to the Florida secretary of state three months before an election, attesting to their readiness.

Because a governor who currently has an approval rating of 33 percent, faces a difficult reelection, and trails his would be Democrat Charlie Crist opponent by 14 points, can never have too much power over the election process. Am I right?

Seriously.

Never mind that he and the Republicans used their "power" (and some they shouldn't have) over the last election by purging voter rolls and changing the election laws, and successfully disenfranchising many of those voters. They still lost.

Never mind that the Detzner Pointing Fingers Listening Tour on "what went wrong" with the election was really just a cosmetic effort.

They know very well what went wrong. They had a plan that worked as intended: HB1355, but it didn't work well enough. No matter how many times Rick Scott says "he did the right thing" we know he was warned of the problems that would ensue, had the chance to change his mind and didn't, signed the bill into law anyway, and when he had the chance to merely extend voting hours when those lines kept growing on election night, he said no.

So now when there's the honest chance to really fix what is clearly wrong, the Republican solution is to give him even more power over the election process?

What's wrong with this picture? Because he can't simply declare himself King Of The Swamp he's creating, this is the only alternative?

Sure looks like it. Because if they throw up all those roadblocks, but the voters insist on exercising their right to vote, and would probably prefer to elect one of the pythons currently slithering around in the Everglades rather than hand Lord Voldemort a second term, the next natural step would be the potential threat of firing an election official if they don't perform to Scott's liking? 

Because we've already heard that the election from hell "wasn't the fault of the Republicans, Detzner, or Scott." We've seen the "proposed changes" that would supposedly put many of the pre-HB1355 procedures back to what they were. But those are just proposals, and we've got a long way to go before 2014.

When Scott faces an even worse chance of being reelected than he had as an unknown candidate, except for his history running a company that broke new records for Medicare fraud, the incentive to really "fix" the system is very low.

Or very high, depending on your definition of the word "fix."

 

Florida Enjoying National Recognition As Ground Zero Of Election Disasters (Again)

Nah. Just Kidding.

Well, it's been quite a week for elections, scandals, and national attention highlighting Florida as ground zero for voting disasters, and it's only Tuesday!

It's hard to keep up, but here are just a few of the highlights so far:

Former beer lobbyist, and present Secretary of State Ken Detzner just came out with his "recommendations" (wink, wink) to "restore voter confidence." In his report, he listed several things that need to be addressed. Voters will quickly notice that many of those items are basically the very same "potholes" that the Florida legislature and Rick Scott dug in the road to the Florida ballot box last year. In other words, had they not made all those changes intended as voter suppression in the first place, we wouldn't have had all those problems on election day. That was the point, after all.

Sadly, nowhere in those recommendations does it say we should rid ourselves of said governor, SOS, nor the lawmakers in question, which at this point is the best option in the minds of Floridans. But they don't pay attention to what the voters want, so we're stuck with their wasted efforts to investigate themselves, while trying to point the finger elsewhere.

Of all those recommendations, Gov. Rick Scott put out a press release yesterday that apparently means he's ignoring all but three of them:

“This report details three key reforms our state needs to improve our election system and restore voter confidence. It recommends changing current law to shorten the length of the ballot, add more days for early voting – from eight to 14 days, including the option for supervisors of elections to open polls on the Sunday before Election Day, and increase the size of voting locations to better accommodate voters."

Of course, Scott claims he wants to be fair, and that improvements need to be made. Never mind that he was asked to make one of them on election night as people were still waiting in line AFTER the election was called. Thanks for nothing, Sherlock.

To add, he says "I have also asked Sec. Detzner to continue to work with those counties who need additional assistance or support to improve their systems, outside of statewide election law changes."

In regards to those changes, Detzner spoke at a panel in the State Senate today, and pointed the finger not at himself, the legislature, or the Governor, but the local supervisors themselves.

Secretary of State Ken Detzner told a Senate panel Tuesday that in “certain areas” the poor handling of the 2012 election could have led Gov. Rick Scott to consider removing local election officials from office.

“…it came very, very, very close, in my opinion,” said Detzner, who would not name names while speaking while addressing Senate Ethics and Elections subcommittee."

While he was busy pointing the finger at straw elections officials, another change was proposed. Giving Detzner even MORE power to suspend supervisors of elections:

State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said he wants to consider giving the secretary of state the power to suspend supervisors of elections. 

Detzner, who would not make that decision, said it would give the secretary of state “unprecedented authority.” He released proposed election reforms Monday that largely mirrored those already recommended by state election officials.

Matthew Fox, the panel's top attorney, said that adding that power would be tricky.

"As you know, the suspension power is exclusive within the province of the governor," he said. "We would have to be very careful not to step on the governor’s authority."

Yes, that's just the problem. Detzner should be granted even more power so he can cut to the chase and fire people without all this pesky investigation nonsense the next time voting problems come up. The main concern being not to step on the toes of King Voldemort, who is bound to benefit from said changes in 2014. He would likely lose the election if it were up to the silly voters, and well, he can't have that.

Literally can't have that. The voters don't like him and can't wait to vote him out regardless of his shallow attempts to win them over with empty slogans.

While Scott, Detzner, and the plotting Republicans in the Florida legislature go about their days in self-inflicted denial, their incompetence and attempt to rival the 2000 election debacle has not escaped notice elsewhere in the country.

Today the New York Times has a nice little graphic of voting wait times that occurred on election day. To find the wait time comparison to Florida's, you'll have to scroll, scroll, and scroll some more, all the way down to the bottom to see that Florida went way beyond the national average of 14 minutes. It also shows that those who had the longer waiting periods were, of course, black, Hispanic, Democrat and Independent voters. If you were a Republican, chances are you sailed right through!

You're welcome. Love, the GOP.

Charlie Pierce, over at Esquire.com sums our problems up well when he refers to us as "the World's Greatest Democracy" where "we run out elections on blueprints apparently drawn up by the Marx Brothers." He quotes Republican "Mensa" member, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who recently said that while it's "ridiculous to stand in line for a couple of hours just to vote," he also thinks it's ridiculous to "make a political issue out of it." (Were Grassley from Florida rather than Iowa, he would fit right in perfectly down here, wouldn't he?) 

Pierce ends his piece with this:

And it shouldn't be necessary to point out to anyone over the age of four that leaving things up to the states in this regard is a bad idea at the moment, and looks even worse in historical retrospect, especially with conservative lawyers right now gearing up to try and get the Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act. Because, as we know, the country's far beyond all that nasty stuff that happened in the 1960s. That's history, which doesn't count any more.

If only that were true.

With Gov. Run Florida Like A Bidness, Secretary of State Chug-A-Lug, and the Kings of not so transparent anymore Gerrymandering in charge of the next election, let's just say we might have stood a better chance with the Marx Brothers.

But with this crew? Not so much. 

Can Rick Scott Proposed Voting Changes Be Trusted?

After "reviewing" what went wrong in Florida during the November election, Rick Scott came out with so-called recommendations on what needs to be changed. 

Here's a shocker: Scott now claims to see what everyone else saw long before it was time to cast a ballot, and before he and the Republican leaders and lawmakers knowingly changed the election laws that caused the entire disaster.

But are these changes enough?

From his statement:

“I asked Secretary Detzner to meet with election supervisors following the November election to identify specific ways we can fix the problems we saw in some counties with long lines and delayed reporting. Our ultimate goal must be to restore Floridians’ confidence in our election system. I asked Sec. Detzner for a report with specific election reform recommendations, because I want to ensure we do whatever possible to improve our election system from the statewide level. “In short, these reforms need to address the three major areas I have previously outlined. We need shorter ballots. We need more early voting days, which should include an option of the Sunday before Election Day. And, we need more early voting locations. From my briefing with Sec. Detzner today, I believe all these reforms are strongly supported by the input and experiences of local election supervisors and others that the department met with for ideas on improving our current system – a system clearly in need of improvement.

“The detail of these three overarching reforms will include, but is not limited to, the following:

* More Early Voting Days – Increase the number of days available for early voting. We should allow Supervisors of Elections the flexibility to offer anywhere between eight and 14 days of early voting. Hours of operation should range between six and 12 hours a day. This should include the Sunday before Election Day, allowing Supervisors the option to accommodate the needs of their community as they requested in committee meetings this week. This would also allow the greatest access to early voting ever in Florida history – at up to 168 hours.

* More Early Voting Locations – Work with Supervisors to allow more and larger early voting locations to help reduce wait times, long lines, and to better convenience voters.

* Shorter Ballot – Reduce the length of the ballot, including the description of proposed constitutional amendments. “I appreciate the secretary’s work in support of our goal to give all Floridians confidence in the fairness and accessibility of our election system. We must continually push to make improvements, and I look forward to working with the Legislature on a bi-partisan bill to implement these reforms this session. I also appreciate the Legislature and the Supervisors of Elections for their feedback in committee meetings this week. As the Legislature continues its work, I look forward to working together to craft legislation that will ensure successful elections by making these important statewide reforms.”

But not so fast.

From Progress Florida:

Scott's latest proposal doesn't necessarily implement any additional early voting hours from what we saw last year. To avoid a repeat of last year's election fiasco, when voters endured unforgivable wait times of up to eight hours, we need to have at least 14 days AND 12 hours per day of early voting for all Florida voters. Voters should have the same access to the ballot regardless of what county they reside in.

Finally, by mandating the last Sunday but allowing for early voting to continue to be limited to eight days, the first Saturday before the election could be eliminated in many counties. In 2012, nearly 250,000 people cast votes on that first Saturday before the election - one of the highest volume days of early voting."

Scott and the Republicans in the legislature haven't given Florida voters any reason to be trusted before, so it remains to be seen what actual changes will come out of all this.

But one thing's for sure, everyone will be watching them very closely.

GOP Consultant Admits Long Lines At Polls "Help Our Side"

 

Voter Suppression? Sure, ID Laws, Long Lines, Whatever It Takes

 

While Florida's Secretary of State Ken Detzner and Governor Rick Scott continue to suggest that those long lines on election day were signs of a good turnout and a "really good election," it's obvious to most everyone else that they were part of a package created by them along with Republicans in the legislature to suppress the vote. Some Republicans have even said as much, like former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer, who said there were meetings conducted to suppress the black vote, and that the GOP used "phantom" voter fraud as a marketing tool to change election laws to make sure the high Democratic voter turnout in 2008 for President Obama wouldn't happen again. 

Now a Republican political consultant who was paid to do "data consulting" for Mitt Romney publicly stated that tactics to produce long lines at the polls as we saw in Florida, and voter ID laws are part of what his "side" does to suppress the vote in their favor.

The consultant, Scott Tranter, who owns Vlytics, the firm that received more than $3,000 from Romney for his work spoke at the Pew Center Monday, where he said this:

"A lot of us are campaign officials -- or campaign professionals -- and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that's voter ID, sometimes we think that's longer lines -- whatever it may be," Tranter said with a laugh.

In reaction to Tranter's remarks, Michael McDonald, of the George Mason University Election Project was taken aback and said he couldn't quite believe he said what he did. McDonald also spoke of another in the audience, who reacted by saying "Well, at least he's honest." (You can see the video here.)

Immediately after the election, when Governor Scott said that he "did the right thing" by refusing to extend voting days and hours because of the long lines, apparently he was "being honest" as well.

To Scott and the Republican Party, long lines and voter suppression are absolutely the right thing to do if they want to win.

Tranter is only the latest to speak out in public to admit it.

Florida Elections Chief Begins His "Not Listening Tour" On Election Problems

 

Talk All You Want, He's Not Listening

On Monday Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner began what's being phrased as a "listening tour" of elections offices where there were problems in the November elections, but from early reports it
sounds more like window dressing. Before he even toured the problem areas, he still made the same claims he's made before, this time absurdly saying "We had a really good election." 

He began in Hillsborough County, where there were few problems, reasoning that he would "learn benchmarks that could be applied elsewhere," but when officials there suggested the same changes that advocates have called for, they were all but rebuffed:

Hillsborough County election officials articulated some of the same points as voter rights advocates when asked Monday how to solve long lines and improve the democratic process at Florida's polls.

Return early voting to 14 days, from eight during this year's general election, they advised. Don't tamp down voter registration by placing additional restrictions on third-party groups. And don't limit early voting sites to libraries and government buildings.

The response from Department of State interim general counsel Gary Holland, on at least that last point: "Talk to the Legislature."

"I was a little taken aback by that," said incoming Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer. "I was like, I thought that's why you were here."

So it would seem this is really a "not listening tour." Should anyone really be surprised?

That wasn't all. Detzner said he would "take what he learned to the legislature," but will that mean anything? After all, the changes Hillsborough elections officials, advocates and Democrats have called for were mostly in place before the Florida lawmakers dismantled them just in time for the 2012 elections, combined with the voter purge Detzner and Rick Scott conducted. That was the point. It's clear to just about everyone that the goal was to make voting harder to attempt to thwart what would be a favorable turnout for President Obama.

But Detzner appears to be ignoring that inconvenient reality. These were his responses to suggestions yesterday:

On restoring early voting times: "When you look at the turnout, which was larger than it was in 2008, that obviously speaks to the point that people were satisfied with the current law. People responded, reacted and turned out in greater numbers."

Not much to add to this, accept to point out that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There was a large, and I might add, determined turnout because voters already knew officials in Tallahassee were doing everything in their power to keep them from voting.

On the law governing conduct of third-party registration groups, which was later eased by a federal judge: It allows elections officials to identify those who commit fraud, he said.

Again, voter fraud is nearly non-existent. There's actual math to prove it.

And on the state's troubled scrubbing of ineligible voters from registration rolls: He said those identified are given "due process to give them notice and ample time to have themselves be removed or be prosecuted."

Due process....for actual eligible voters who were purged and have to go through the process of proving they were eligible all along? As for those who were properly purged from the rolls, there's actual math there too, and there were so few it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Still, there was one thing Detzner picked up on and claimed he would look into. Technological issues due to the "lengthy ballot" and those long amendments. Do we assume that means amendment written in full which voters will have to spend time reading before voting will still be around in the future? Just need to beef up issues processing those endless ballots? 

Detzner summed up his findings in a repeat from what he said when the election was over:

"We had a really good election."

On what planet? Given his "responses" I doubt many will be confident in "positive" changes being made when this so called "listening tour" is over. Detzner appears to be listening only to the voices in his head, not those of people who actually want to make the system work for voters. After all, the next election in 2014 will be a tough one for Republicans in that their candidate for Governor is quite possibly the worst on record. The majority of Floridians are counting down the days until he's out of office and hoping the state will still be afloat by then. Detzner and his Republican crew will have a lot of hurdles to overcome.

It's foreseeable that the turnout to oust Scott will be enormous, and short of entirely doing away with the democratic process altogether and appointing Scott as emperor, what can we possibly expect then?

Whatever the Republicans try, the national spotlight will be on them. Make no mistake, we'll all be watching.

Related articles

Investigate Thyself: Rick Scott's Vicious Circle Of Incompetence

SOS Detzner: Apparently You People Don't "Get" The Genius Of Florida's New Voting Procedures

Florida GOP Plays Election Kabuki While Democrats Push For Real Reform

Sen. Barbara Boxer Files LINE Act To Limit Voting Lines, Wait Times

Sen. Barbara Boxer Files LINE Act To Limit Voting Lines, Wait Times

 

 Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

While Rick Scott and Ken Detzner take their time "investigating" what went wrong on election day, others aren't waiting around for them to act. Democrats and advocacy groups have pushed for reform, and now U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has filed a bill to limit long lines and wait times in states where people stood for hours waiting to cast their votes.

“It is unacceptable that many Americans had to wait in line for five, six or seven hours to cast their ballots. The LINE Act will help ensure that every American has an equal chance to vote without enduring hours-long delays at their polling places.” 

Voters in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and other states waited in line for up to seven hours to cast ballots. Some voters were still in line in the early hours of Wednesday morning, long after the polls had closed. During his election night speech, President Obama promised that fixing the problems that led to these delays would be a top priority.

The LINE Act (or the Lines Interfere with National Elections Act) would require the Attorney General, in consultation with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), to issue new national standards by January 1, 2014 regarding the minimum number of voting machines, election workers, and other election resources that are necessary to conduct Federal elections on Election Day and during early voting periods. The bill explicitly states that the goal of minimum standards is to prevent a waiting time of more than one hour at any polling place. 

Senator Boxer’s bill also would require states where voters endured long lines to implement remedial plans to fix the problems before the next federal election. Under the legislation, the Attorney General working with the EAC would identify states that had a substantial number of voters who waited more than 90 minutes to vote in the 2012 election. Those states would have to comply with a remedial plan to ensure voters would not face similar delays in the future. 

In addition to the legislation, Senator Boxer sent a letter last month to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging them to address the long lines and Election Day dysfunction faced by voters across the country by recommending nominees to the Election Assistance Commission. 

After claiming confusion over what caused the problems in Florida, and four weeks after the election, Scott and Detzner have set their acceptable time limit to four hours or less, and pointed fingers at everything from the media to local election officials as possible causes.

What they won't say is that election laws passed by the Republicans in the legislature and voter purges had anything to do with it, an obvious reason to everyone else. Still, this looks like an early sign that Scott and Detzner have no intention of changing the law that cut voting hours, days, and polling places among other things, although some in the legislature have talked about possible changes to the laws.

As usual, since Scott took office, it's often been others like Democrats and Sen. Boxer or the courts who have to step in where he won't. Let's hope this is the beginning of true election reform.

Investigate Thyself: Rick Scott's Vicious Circle Of Incompetence

It's just another week in Florida where every day dawns with a new disaster, thanks to Rick Scott. Lately we've been hit with more than our share, which makes it hard to keep up.

(Photo by DonkeyHotey)

First, let's start with a short review on how Scott began his quest to destroy Florida, shall we? 

The man who thought he was running against Obama rather than other gubernatorial candidates immediately launched his War On The President, and subsequently his War on Floridians who want health care, which he began while privately fighting against the health care act negotiations and continued long after he was elected and the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare" was passed and signed into law. He claims he's willing to comply with the law now that he has little choice, (big of him) while political hack Attorney General Pam Bondi pretends that Supreme Court decisions she once crowed about mean nothing if she loses them. (Apparently law, and her job description confuses her.)

While losing the health care battle, Scott turned away stimulus money that Florida was due to get for it's planned high speed rail project, like every other modern metropolitan area in the world, because OBAMA! The faux-fiscal Scott claimed it would cost Floridians way too much money, when in fact, after the money went elsewhere, studies showed it would have made a nice profit. Killing a plan that was years in the making also cost the state lots of jobs, which the "Jobs Governor" ignored, also because, again OBAMA! Nope. Governor Koch Scott chose to let Floridians choke on gas fumes while spending the better part of their days in gridlock, while planning to charge them for their trouble in the future by turning them into toll roads. You're welcome.

Those were just the beginning, and a warm up for the future. While the Captain of the Titanic has managed to nick a few smaller icebergs, he's still able to maintain on course aiming for the big one that says 2014 on it. He still has two years to go, and Floridians being unable to impeach him, it's anyone's guess what will be left of Florida by then.

Which brings us to November of this year when Scott and his fellow Republicans did their level best to keep people from voting in the 2012 election, because that was their only feeble chance to help defeat President Obama. Like everything else, Scott failed at this too, but not without mucking up the election process and making the pregnant, hanging, and other various chad species from the 2000 election debacle seem minor by comparison. Unfortunately for Scott and the GOP, voters were so determined to thwart a stolen election that they stayed in line for hours and voted even long after the election was called for Obama. Scott has well earned his spot on the Worst Governors In History list and Floridians showed him those polls aren’t “skewed.”

Scott immediately feigned surprise when the election proved disastrous and pretended he had no clue as to why it did. After officials finally finished counting the votes days later, Scott said he would “sit down with” his Secretary Of State “to look at how we can improve.”

That went down about as well as Scott’s implied ignorance when SOS Ken Detzner doubled down on Scott’s laughable excuse and added several of his own, which you can see here. Under the pretense that Scott will have Detzner “investigate” himself to search for the mysteries behind the voting mess, which everyone already knows to be anything BUT a mystery. It was in fact HB 1355, the 2011 election law Republicans in the legislature pushed through that paved the way for voter suppression. After Democrats and advocates didn't wait around as Scott and Detzner were "pondering" what could have possibly gone wrong, they called for a investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Meanwhile, Keystone Election Cop Detzner has now "dispatched a team of experts" to Miami-Dade to "investigate" which will probably result in pointing the finger at local election officials rather than directly back at himself, Scott, and the responsible lawmakers.

You see, that's how it works here in Florida. It's a pattern.

1. The legislature takes something that's fixed, pens and passes a law to break it.

2. It breaks as expected, causing a mess that falls like dominoes.

3. Scott pretends he's shocked at the result, stomps his feet and demands to know what caused it.

4. Scott appoints a task force composed of the likely suspects to investigate themselves.

5. Investigation shows nothing went wrong, and that he and his GOP buddies are just plain awesome.  

6. Taxpayers pay the price of the bad law, while also footing the bill for the "task force."

Sound familiar? Well, it should. It happened with a Scott appointed Stand Your Ground task force, which just weeks ago found little "wrong" with the law and reaffirmed it to be a great law, and "fine as it is." On that task force was the man who wrote the law, with lots of help from ALEC, Dennis Baxley. (Baxley also has his hands in the election law cookie jar, among others, as well.)

Recall also when a task force was appointed to investigate abuse, neglect and deaths in Florida's assisted living facilities in 2011? That investigation, conducted by some who were in the ALF industry themselves found that in spite of "burns, beatings and deaths" in ALF's, what was really needed was less transparency and regulation. In a quote from an advocate on the task force's findings:

“[Providers] are probably doing cartwheels right now,” said Brian Lee, a resident advocate and director of Families for Better Care.

Those are merely recent examples. Even when there's no task force involved, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to spot blatant incompetence resulting from policies and actions from Scott. He works on the behalf of business and special interests, and often appoints to key positions, and then loses, individuals who never should have gotten the job in the first place. Down here we just call that "Tuesday."

No kidding.

Today the most recent example of this? Scott's "jobs czar," the executive director of Scott's Department of Economic Opportunity was forced to resign after only eight months on the job. (The second one to resign amid contention.) The reason for the resignation of Hunting Deutsch, whose agency also distributes unemployment benefits to the jobless in Florida? Well, it seems he was himself collecting unemployment benefits for 91 weeks over a two-year period from 2009 to 2011 when he was traveling in Europe with his wife. 

Like I said, it's Tuesday.

Of course, as is often the case, when controversy erupts it's often hard to find the Governor. He either won't comment, or he's not around. So today, on the day when the director of his Department of Economic Opportunity resigns, where is Scott? He's MIA on a so-called three-day "trade mission" to Colombia to bolster economic development with Latin America.

Of course. Where else would he be?

And the vicious circle continues......

Florida GOP Plays Election Kabuki While Democrats Push For Real Reform

After last Tuesday's election, Manatee County, Florida  got a new Supervisor of Elections.  State Sen. Mike Bennett (R-Bradenton) won that office easily because of his expertise and experience after serving 12 years as a legislator in Tallahassee.

It was during that time when, in 2011, Republicans in the Florida legislature passed strict new election laws, and Bennet used his "expertise" to play a roll in changing those laws. Here is part of a speech he made just before the law's passage:

"Many people don’t even know where and when they’re supposed to go vote," he added. "Voting is a privilege. How easy should it be?"

“Do you read the stories about the people in Africa? The people in the desert, who literally walk two and three hundred miles so they can have the opportunity to do what we do, and we want to make it more convenient? How much more convenient do you want to make it?” he said. “Do we want to go to their house? Take the polling booth with us?”

“This is a hard-fought privilege,” he added. “This is something people die for. You want to make it convenient? The guy who died to give you that right, it was not convenient. Why would we make it any easier? I want ‘em to fight for it. I want ‘em to know what it’s like. I want them to go down there, and have to walk across town to go over and vote,” he said.

Yes, this man who thinks exercising your right to vote should be harder, is now in charge of elections in Manatee County.

This is just one in a boatload of tone-deaf, arrogant excuses to "tweak" election laws in the state. While the very laws Florida Republicans put in place made it extremely hard to vote, they now want voters to believe that they are puzzled by the confusion last week at the polls, and arrogantly claim they have no idea what could have possibly gone wrong.

This attempt to insult the intelligence of voter while taking away their rights has become symbolic in Florida in the wake of the election. The state is once again a laughingstock thanks to these lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott. Luckily the fact that Florida botched another election and was the last to count the votes didn't matter. This time.

Now suddenly Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner are playing "election reform kabuki" pretending that last week's disaster had absolutely nothing to do with them. They actually cite things that contributed, like having less days to vote and long ballots with never ending Amendment language written in, as if these were never before imagined revelations.

Wrong.

Everyone foresaw this conclusion, including the Republicans who caused it, no matter what they claim. It was disaster by design.  Worse, Democrats in Florida tried to do something about those very problems, in the form of Amendments to the new strict voting law (HB 1355) before it was passed, but every one was shot down by Republicans. Here are those Amendments proposed by the Democrats:

Amendment: A981135, April 19, 2011 
Sponsor: Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando 
Proposal: Would have limited to 75 words the ballot summaries of proposed constitutional amendments—which took up several pages this year and are widely believed to have caused much of the chaos during the elections. The amendment would have also placed limits on Legislature-proposed amendments, eight of which were soundly rejected by voters on Election Day.
Excerpt: “The ballot must include a statement expressing the chief purpose of the proposed legislation, in clear and unambiguous language not exceeding 75 words in length, and a statement of the economic impact of the proposed legislation.”
Result: Failed in a party-line 78-37 vote, with top Republicans like HB 1355 sponsor Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, and incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, voting against it.

Amendment: AA 536956, May 2, 2011
Sponsor: Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa
Proposal: Would have mandated more early voting locations and allowed local supervisors to have early voting in more precincts. Sec. Ken Detzner now says that the lack of available early voting sites caused much of the chaos and long lines.
Excerpt: “In any general election in which a candidate for President of the United States appears on the ballot, the supervisor of elections shall designate at least one early voting site for every 40,000 registered voters within the county.”
Result: Amendment Failed.

Amedment: AA 910767, May 5, 2011
Sponsor: Rep. Richard Steinberg, D-Miami Beach
Proposal: Give local elections supervisors more flexibility to expand early voting if they felt it was necessary to prevent lines. This year, that power was held exclusively by Gov. Rick Scott, who chose not to use it despite pleas from top officials and lengthy lines that stretched for hours. In Miami-Dade, Broward and other counties, local supervisors wishing to expand early voting had to find a loophole in the law by allowing in-person absentee voting after the early voting period ended. In Miami-Dade County, this strategy led to even more long lines and chaos, with people shouting “Let us vote!”
Excerpt: “The supervisor of elections may expand early voting hours and locations during the early voting period if she or he determines that the current early voting hours and locations are not sufficient to provide electors an opportunity to vote early without unreasonable delays.”
Result: Amendment Failed

Amendment: AA 227265, May 5, 2011
Sponsor: Rep. Richard Steinberg, D-Miami Beach
Proposal: To ensure that early voting lines would not be prohibitively long, given the fact that HB 1355 cut the number of early voting days from 14 to 8. The amendment required county supervisors to have adequate staffing and locations for a smooth early voting process. Some top backers of HB 1355 have blamed local elections supervisors for the election day problems. 
Excerpt: “County supervisors of elections shall provide sufficient staffing, equipment, and locations to limit early voting wait times to less than 25 minutes.”
Result: Amendment Failed.

Sound familiar?

So Rick Scott tries to avoid answering questions about HB 1355 which he all but signed under cover of darkness and refers them to Detzner while saying he "did the right thing," and Detzner claims election day was a success, among several other excuses, and many in Florida are left with the feeling that Republicans really have no interest in fixing the mess they made. Not really.

Luckily others are stepping up to try and salvage what's left of voting procedures in Florida:

Advocacy groups like Progress Florida, the Advancement Project and Florida New Majority Education Fund, League of Women Voters, the NAACP and AARP are pushing for real reforms.

Lawmakers and elected officials, both past and present, are proposing real solutions, like former Gov. Charlie Crist, Former Tamps Mayor and former Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Pam Iorio, and Democratic state Reps. Darryl Rouson and Dwight Dudley of St. Petersburg.

Let's hope we do get real reform. Florida voters have spoken and they will no longer put up with the sorry excuses from Rick Scott, Ken Detzner, and election supervisors like Mike Bennett, for his view that real Democracy means making it that much harder to vote. 

SOS Detzner: Apparently You People Don't "Get" The Genius Of Florida's New Voting Procedures

Or At Least, That Was The Original Plan

You know the old saying "Two heads are better than one?"

Well, as with many other things in Florida, like counting, that doesn't apply here.

The arrogance and the empty "excuses" given by former beer lobbyist Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner in a CNN interview today for the voting mess that he, Rick Scott and Republicans caused are stunning.

After spending the past year crafting voter suppression in Florida, and implementing it with mixed results (it didn't deliver the state to Romney in spite of all the problems it caused voters), now they actually expect you to believe it's news to them that this disaster happened.

Really. I wish I were joking.

Detzner actually seems to believe that we all live in an alternate universe along with them, that reality is highly overrated. To accept his explanations, we would have to believe that he and his co-suppressors were blindsided by election laws they changed and policies they put in place specifically in order to keep people from voting wasn't their doing. It defies reality and is an insult to the very voters he, Scott, and Republicans clearly hold in contempt.

Again, it's stunning.

Everything that they have been criticized for, and everything the public and the media repeatedly called on them to undo when they were busy suppressing the vote caused problems as they were intended. Detzner's and Scott's solution? This, for starters:

Scott has since acknowledged the state’s election procedures need to be reformed.

Ya' think? Yes. Those would be the "procedures" THEY JUST PUT IN PLACE to screw up the vote.

Oh, but there's more. How about this one:

It's the local supervisors fault.

Or: All those long lines and voting after 1:45 in the morning and cutting the hours for early voting?

Detzner says that was "flexibility" in action. That was "a success."

Here's another one:

The ballot was really long.

Really Sherlock? And why do you suppose that is?

Or how about this one?

“We were following the law,” Detzner said.

Why, yes you were: Those would be the laws that the powers that be on Planet GOP (That includes you, Mr. Secretary.) wrote, enacted, and put in place.....to make it harder, and in some cases, impossible to vote.

You cannot make this stuff up.

Detzner ended the interview with this:

“I can say that it was a learning experience but we’re listening to constituents ... We could have done better, we will do better. This problem is going to be solved.”

"We could have done better." THAT, you will find in the future over at Wikipedia under the reference to "understatement." (Or if you prefer fantasy, over at Conservipedia under "Freedom" or...."Act Of God" maybe? Who knows? If you're fact-averse, you can take your pick.)

Also, who might those constituents you're listening to be, exactly? Because the Who's down in Who-Ville who were telling you this LONG BEFORE the election were clearly ignored.

I can hardly wait until they "get to work" on this one. Given the fact that Rick Scott is up for reelection in 2014, how will the voting problems be solved exactly? Doing away with voting alltogether, followed by a coronation?

Because as I see it, that's about the only way Gov. Voldemort could possibly remain in office.

And while we're on the subject of the "brilliance" of the Wizarding World over at the Guv's office in Tallahassee, you'll recall that in yesterday's episode, Scott said he would sit down with Detzner to "see what we could improve?"

Memo to Scott: What's to improve? (See above references to "Detzner said," "success," and "flexibility.")

Rick Scott tried to dazzle the press again with his utter incompetence yesterday when he provided a brand new explanation:

"We did the right thing."

Well sure, if the right thing means voter suppression, but I don't think that's what Scott meant. You see, in Rick's world he ALWAYS does the right thing. He's never wrong. It's just the rest of us who seem to have a problem with his sheer genius, his stellar impersonation of one who governs. In other words:

Why were you standing in line at nearly 2:00 in the morning?

Why did you feel the need to vote in the first place?

Don't you have better things to do like.... going to work oops, I mean standing in the unemployment line, oh, wait...

Of course, since "doing the right thing" by making it harder to vote doesn't even pass the laugh test as an answer for the media anymore, the only answer left when they won't accept the really dumb one is this one:

"____________________________________________________________________"

Un-effing-believable.

Watch for yourself:

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

 

Florida Voter Roll Inaccuracies: Woman Declared Dead For The Second Time

And Must Be Eliminated

In spite of the odds that voter fraud is less likely to occur than the chances of being struck by lightning or seeing a UFO, that hasn't stopped Republicans in their suddenly earnest, last-minute-before-another-election-interest in weeding out loads of phantom non-citizen voters from rolls all across the country.

Here in Florida it's almost become a cottage industry, especially now that Republicans have alienated nearly every type of voter except for mostly older, white males and millionaires and billionaires who happen to run large corporations and donate boatloads of cash to Republicans.

Now suddenly as another Presidential election is upon us, the Republicans have once again managed to find another bad candidate in Mitt Romney, a man who most Republicans don't even like, nor can they relate to. (I mean, can anyone relate to Mitt Romney other than his family?) Now that all the stages of grief have worn off, the race to disenfranchise as many voters as possible who they aren't likely to win over is on.

In Florida, Rick Scott and his latest Secretary Of State, former beer lobbyist Ken Detzner have been purging their hearts (?) out, despite obstacles like eligible voters.

They recently got what they refer to as a "victory" when the Department of Homeland Security gave them access to the SAVE list to compare to voter rolls as they continue with their purge. Rick Scott has been promoting the purge as if it's a campaign in and of itself, so much so that the Republican Party Of Florida is sponsoring the promotion with party funds. That pretty much shows this is anything but a "non-partisan" effort. Why would they spend money to purge likely Republican voters?

While they act as if there are roving gangs of people sneaking around in broad daylight pulling the wool over poll workers eyes and committing rampant acts of voter fraud, we all know better. But that of course hasn't stopped Rick Scott and his gang of investigative "geniuses" who can't spell much better than they can identify ineligible voters correctly.

Here is the latest example from the so-called efficient Rick Scott team of voter roll sleuths, a woman from Orange County who was declared dead by her Supervisor of Elections for the second time just last Friday, the very same day that she received her absentee ballot in the mail.

From The Orlando Sentinel:

Connie Smith is not dead, and she has a signed-and-sealed state certificate to prove it.

But that's not always enough. State and Orange County elections officials keep bumping her off voter rolls, because they think she is dead....]

[...Constance S. Smith, 61, of College Park, had been left for dead before; she got a similar letter in 2008.

She said it took her six months to clear that up, even as other government agencies picked up on word of her demise. The Florida Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles invalidated her driver license. Then the Social Security Administration asked her family about reports of her death.

Ultimately, she had to get the Florida Department of Health to send her a "non-death" certificate she could show other agencies. It states there is no record of her death.

Four years later, Smith wonders if she needs fresher proof....]

[..State officials told her that the 2008 mix-up was traced to the death of a Constance Simmons Smith in Miami, who had the same date-of-birth as Constance Slate Smith of College Park.

Linda Tanko, deputy supervisor of elections for Orange County, said the error this year may have been initiated by the Social Security Administration, which shares its data with the Florida Division of Elections, which put Smith on the so-called "death list" it sends to counties with instructions to purge the names. The Division of Elections did not respond to inquiries about Smith's case.

"We certainly apologize. I've already taken the steps to get her straight on the books," Tanko said. "But I'm only as good as the next death list that comes down" from Tallahassee.

Those lists have been criticized as inaccurate before.

An therein lies the problem. "But I'm only as good as the next death list that comes down" from Tallahassee.

It's not ineligible or non-citizen voters that are the problem. There aren't enough of them found to make a difference.

It's the information on the lists that come from Tallahassee that are the problem. "Mistakes or errors" are too easily made, and in cases like Connie Smith's above, once you've been bumped from the rolls, or declared dead twice, those mistakes aren't easily corrected. A factor not likely "overlooked" by those doing the purging.

At least, not easily corrected in time to vote in November....