A federal judge on Wednesday extended voter registration until Oct. 18 in the battleground state of Florida, due to the disruption and damage from Hurricane Matthew.
During a hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker agreed to extend the deadline for six more days. He had already extended the Oct. 11 deadline one day, after the Florida Democratic Party filed a lawsuit last weekend, following the hurricane's brush with Florida's east coast.
Walker said in an order issued shortly afterward that he acted swiftly because "no right is more precious than having a voice in our democracy."
"Hopefully it is not lost on anyone that the right to have a voice is why this great country exists in the first place," wrote Walker, who set the deadline at 5 p.m. on Oct. 18....
...Democrats late last week asked Republican Gov. Rick Scott to extend the deadline, but Scott turned down the request and said people have had enough time to register. Scott brushed aside questions on whether his decision was related to his staunch support of GOP nominee Donald Trump.
In court, however, attorneys for both Scott and the state's chief top elections official offered no defense of the existing deadline and did not object to an extension. Most of the hour-long hearing before Walker was spent discussing how long to extend voter registration.
Walker said he did not believe that Scott had authority to use his emergency powers to waive the deadline. But he also pointed out that Florida law already allows the governor to suspend or delay an election if there is an emergency.
"There is a gap in Florida law that renders (the deadline) constitutionally untenable," Walker said.
Yesterday a judge disagreed with Scott and ordered a one day extension and set a hearing on perhaps extending it further:
A federal judge in Florida late Monday ordered the state to extend the deadline for registering to vote by one day and set a hearing on whether to extend it even further.
Under Florida law, voters had until Tuesday, Oct. 11, to register to vote. But Judge Mark Walker said in view of the disruption caused by Hurricane Matthew, the state should have extended it to Wednesday.
The order came in response to a lawsuit filed Sunday by Florida Democrats. They said when Gov. Rick Scott ordered evacuations as the hurricane headed for the state, he forced voters "to choose between their safety and the safety of their families on one hand, and their fundamental right to vote on the other."
The state Democrats had asked the judge to extend the registration deadline by a week, until October 18. He set a hearing for 10 a.m. Wednesday on that request.
Walker said Florida law gives the governor authority to suspend or move an election date due to an unforeseen emergency. Given that, the judge said, "it is wholly irrational in this instance for Florida to refuse to extend the voter registration deadline.
"It has been suggested that the issue of extending the voter registration deadline is about politics. Poppycock," Walker wrote.
"This case is about the right of aspiring eligible voters to register and to have their votes counted. Nothing could be more fundamental to our democracy."
While Rick Scott has posted an extensive list of updates on hurricane recovery, cleanup, and government resources, his list makes no mention of the voter registration deadline extension.
Is This Man's Incompetence The Problem Or The Goal?
Florida's voting procedures have a long history as being a joke, but the utter incompetence and suppression tactics coming from the current Secretary of State is no laughing matter.
The man in charge of running elections in Florida simply doesn't appear to be interested in his job.
The latest example of this is the proposed implementation of online voter registration that other states have easily transitioned to, which not only saves money, but guards against the risk of voter fraud, which we're told by the GOP, absent of facts, is rampant and must be stopped at all costs.
Lawmakers are currently trying to implement online registration by 2017, a deadline they already pushed back from 2016. The plan also has unanimous support from the state's supervisors of elections.
Yet SOS Ken Detzner, who claims he's all about "voter integrity," opposes the idea. Worse, his excuses don't pass the laugh test. In fact, they're astounding.
Yesterday he showed up voluntarily to explain why he thinks online registration is a bad idea.
Among the reasons the biggest joke of an SOS since Katherine Harris is opposed to online voter registration:
Detzner contended that not much planning or “thought” has gone into mandating online registration.
Legislators called him on this excuse, pointing out that they've been discussing this issue for two years. Detzner, of course, has been SOS since 2012. Given that elections are kind of his job, you would think he might have heard about these discussions. Perhaps he was too busy trying to bump eligible voters off the rolls when he was helping Rick Scott implement a voter purge to notice.
That botched voter purge brings us to his next excuse for opposing online voter registration:
Fla. Sec. Of State Detzner now saying flawed search for non-citizen voters is part of reason he's fearful abt online registration
If you're citing your own office's voter purge screw-up as a reason not to implement online registration, maybe Secretary Of State isn't the job for you? After all, if you can't be trusted with guarding the integrity of voter databases and information, then yes, you probably shouldn't be trusted to implement online voting registration, which leads to this little item that almost flew under the radar:
Elections officials, meanwhile, were livid to learn that Detzner released private data on more than 45,000 voters — including judges and police officers — and didn't alert them immediately.
Detzner's office acknowledged that the security breach on so-called high-risk voters — who should have been exempt from disclosure — included judges, police, firefighters, prosecutors, public defenders and crime victims and their family members, among others.
By law, those voters can choose to keep private information that's generally public on the voter rolls, including birth dates, home and email addresses, party affiliations and phone numbers if provided.
"Their safety has been compromised," said Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards.
Detzner's office said it gave the data to 15 individuals or groups that asked for copies of the statewide voter database, and cited a malfunction in automated software which it says has been fixed.
The secretary of state quietly announced the problem on March 31 and posted a news release on the agency's website, but neither the news media nor election supervisors were notified.
The release said all 15 recipients of the data have been told to disregard, destroy and/or return the information while it works to notify the affected people. The state did not identify who obtained the information.
Detzner's office called the released information "non-confidential" but election supervisors said that is wrong. Supervisors noted that the form provided by Detzner's office for high risk voters is called an "identification confidentiality request."
"This information is confidential by Florida statute," Edwards said. "We were not notified."
It seems SOS Detzner's office can't be trusted with private voter data, and we've already seen it can't be trusted to guard voter integrity.
The problem isn't that we shouldn't have online voter registration in Florida. The problem is we shouldn't let our current SOS have anything to do with the process of implementing online registration.
This also begs the question: Why is this man still on the job? Unfortunately, the answer may well be that this is why he IS still on the job. Rick Scott doesn't want it to be easier to vote in Florida, so by his standards, Detzner is just the man for the job.
This may be the first time I've ever agreed with a Republican in the legislature, but to quote Sen. Jack Latvala:
People will recall President Eisenhower's farewell speech for his warning about the dangers of an emerging military-industrial complex.
It far overshadowed another powerful message in Eisenhower's January 1961 address - his appreciation for cooperation between Congress and his Administration during his eight years as President. But that point has become particularly relevant these days.
"Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation," Eisenhower said.
"The Congress and the Administration, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together."
It is troubling to contrast the former Republican president's view with the Republican norm today. Compared with the growth and relative well-being of the middle class in Eisenhower's day, today's trend is one of increasing income inequality between the rich and well-off and everyone else.
Eisenhower could say - as he did in his address - the nation avoided war during his tenure (despite crises in the Middle East and the belligerence of the Soviet Union). The United States remains at war today after more than 20 years of bloodshed, with some arch Conservatives in Congress seemingly eager for more.
Today, the Republicans' quest to separate themselves from nearly everything President Obama supports stands in contrast to what the Eisenhower Administration and Congress achieved to lead the country through an era of prosperity. But rather than Eisenhower, Republicans worship former President Reagan, whose rope-a-dope military budgets successfully dared the Soviet Union to keep pace and led to its demise, but whose trickle down/supply side economics has failed the majority of Americans today.
Yet wealthy business interests and the elected extremists they bankroll can rely on a voting bloc that amazingly supports candidates and policies that adversely affect their own self-interests.
One example involves a disconnect between health care politics and one's odds of facing serious medical problems. The American Cancer Society predicts the lifetime risk of developing cancer for men is slightly less than one in two and for women a little more than one in three. It predicts 1,658,370 new cancer cases and 589,430 cancer-related deaths in 2015 in the United States. Think back and into the future for several years and millions of people have been, or will be at risk. And that just involves cancer.
Do opponents of the Affordable Care Act or creation of a more inclusive, more equitable national health insurance system, get it? Instead, they vote to maintain moneyed health industry interests, while some embrace an ideology of excessive individualism, such as those at a 2011 Republican Presidential campaign debate in Tampa who shouted out support to let people die in lieu of enacting a better national health insurance program.
Until the majority of Americans make political decisions in their own self-interest, let alone combine self-interest and a long-term vision for the nation's well-being, the solution to issues involving the middle class and the poor can be captured in two words: Keep worrying.
But some leaders have not given up on the notion that if a majority of people would turn out and vote, that could advance the interests of the many over the few.
President Obama focused on the impact of the lack of voter turnout, which reached a 72-year-low in 2014 mid-term elections at 36.4 percent of eligible voters casting midterm election ballots in his recent South Florida Town Hall meeting on immigration:
"In the last election, a little over one-third of eligible voters voted. One-third! Two-thirds of the people who have the right to vote ... stayed home. I'm willing to bet that there are young people who have family members who are at risk of the existing immigration system who still didn't vote.
"Why are you not participating? There are war-torn countries, people full of poverty, who still voted 60, 70 percent. If here in the United States of America, we voted at 60 percent, 70 percent, it would transform our politics. Our Congress would be completely different. We would have already passed comprehensive immigration reform."
Progressive activists in a number of states have begun efforts to register more voters, against the tide of politically created obstacles to vote. One noteworthy effort, the "90 For 90 Voter Registration Project" in Virginia, has a goal to register at least 90 new voters in each of Virginia's 2,550 precincts.
It draws inspiration and the numbers 90 from Dr. William Ferguson Reid, a Virginia physician who turns 90 years old on March 18 (Wednesday). Wills Dahl, the author of a Baltimore Post-Examiner profile last month on Reid, characterized Fergie as a civil rights icon, appropriate for a man whose 1967 election as the first African American winning a seat in Virginia's General Assembly in the 20th century is but one of myriad achievements.
"So much money is involved in politics today, our only salvation is to get people to realize this is a war and our only weapon is to vote," Reid said in an interview Saturday with Beach Peanuts. "The Koch brothers are spending more than $800 million to influence the next election, but they have only two votes, the same two as you and your husband have. It is the only way to fight back."
Reid said the 90 For 90 movement began when he was asked what he'd like for his 90th birthday. It's gained momentum from his friends and a number of candidates vying in Virginia's off-year elections, with June 9th primaries. Adding nearly a quarter-million voters would seem to be a daunting goal with such short deadlines, but that's where Reid's experience, intellect and energy pay off.
"I have an advantage because I have been involved in politics since 1955 (creating a Virginia group called the Crusade For Voters), so I can see things from a long perspective" Reid said.
"It's not just about the next election. We can't do it overnight. Each election should be a dress rehearsal for the next one."
Guest blogger Ted Jackovics collaborated with Martha Jackovics on this post.
If you've paid attention to the new and improved voter suppression tactics in Florida, especially since Rick Scott bought the governors office, you probably remained skeptical when his beer lobbyist turned Secretary of State Ken Detzner halted the second voter purge recently, after the first one managed to remove legitimate voters, a veteran among them, and was ruled illegal after the fact. I was certainly skeptical. After all, there are lots of other ways to bend the rules and make it harder to vote without an all out purge of the voter rolls, but I have to say this one would have never occurred to me:
"Are you a voter in Miami Dade County? Were you aware that as a matter of policy, voters are prohibited from using restrooms at polling places? Hard to believe, especially in light of the extraordinary lines, but rather than making the restrooms accessible, the County has decided to make all restrooms off limits to voters.
That's right. Even if you're an eligible voter in Miami-Dade, you can vote, or use the restroom, but you can't do both and expect to keep your place in those long lines. Because those long lines weren't enough of a deterrence on their own, as we saw when voters waited hours in line in 2012 even after the election was called.
Earlier this year, the Miami-Dade County Elections Department quietly implemented a policy to close the bathrooms at all polling facilities, according to disability rights lawyer Marc Dubin. Dubin said the policy change was in “direct response” to an inquiry to the Elections Department about whether they had assessed accessibility of polling place bathrooms to those with disabilities.
“I was expecting them to say either yes we have or yes we will,” Dubin said.
"Please note State statute does not mandate that the rest rooms in the polling location be ADA compliant. As we discussed at the meeting in order to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not treated unfairly, the use of rest rooms by the Voters is not allowed on election day."
Simply close restrooms to everybody, and therefore eliminate that whole "reasonable accommodations for the disabled" issue altogether. After getting beyond the ugliness of that idea, there's more:
But those with disabilities are not the only ones who would suffer disproportionately from this policy. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis found that blacks and Hispanics waited almost twice as long to vote as whites in the 2012 presidential election. Another analysis found that this “time tax” also impacted young voters. And this would be one of a number Florida voter suppression policies that have a particular impact on the elderly.
There are so many ways to make sure that those less inclined to vote for you aren't able to vote at all, and just when you think Rick Scott and his beer buddy have thought of them all, they surprise you with a new one.
What kind of person has a light bulb go off in their head for a new way to keep people from voting as a result of an inquiry over accessibility to restrooms for the disabled? It doesn't get much uglier than this.
Surprise! After voters in Florida approved the "Fair Districts" constitutional Amendments to prevent coordination between the Republican Party and Florida legislators in 2010 over redistricting, they did it anyway, through the use of private email accounts.
This information came to light yesterday after the Associated Press requested the documents after they were presented in a court hearing last week.
Florida’s legislative leaders appear to have authorized their staff to use private email accounts, secret “dropboxes” and to engage in “brainstorming meetings” with Republican Party of Florida consultants in attempting to draw favorable political districts, despite a constitutional ban on such coordination.
The allegations arise from a lawsuit challenging the Senate and congressional redistricting that include emails showing how top deputies of Senate President Don Gaetz, House Speaker Will Weatherford and several of Gaetz’s consultants were in frequent contact with consultants who drafted and analyzed maps. Redistricting is done every 10 years to redraw boundaries of legislative and congresssional districts to ensure equal representation.
The emails show that just a month after voters approved the amendment banning all coordination between the party and lawmakers in 2010, Rich Heffley, the RPOF political consultant who served as a close advisor to Gaetz, called a redistricting “brainstorming” meeting to be held in the chairman’s conference room at RPOF headquarters in Tallahassee.
Heffley listed the expected participants, which included Weatherford’s redistricting chief of staff, Alex Kelly; Gaetz’s redistricting general counsel Andy Bardos; Gaetz’s district aide Chris Clark, and the political consultants running the House and Senate 2012 Republican election campaigns: Frank Terraferma, Joel Springer, Andy Palmer, Marc Reichelderfer, and Pat Bainter. Also attending: the lawyers advising the House and Senate on their redistricting efforts, George Meros and Ben Ginsberg.
In one example (below), in an email from January of 2012, a Republican official writes to a consultant about changes that could "entice Mica to run against Adams," meaning GOP Rep. John Mica and GOP Rep. Sandy Adams. Mica did run against Adams, defeating her. The email also mentions that "[GOP Rep. Gus] Bilirakis will cry."
We knew it was bad, but, well, the votes are not in.
The Orlando Sentinel and a professor at Ohio State University, Theodore Allen, analyzed the data and have estimated that at least 201,000 people in Florida gave up on voting due to the long lines during the November election. At least:
His preliminary conclusion was based on the Sentinel's analysis of voter patterns and precinct-closing times in Florida's 25 largest counties, home to 86 percent of the state's 11.9 million registered voters.
"My gut is telling me that the real number [of voters] deterred is likely higher," Allen said. "You make people wait longer, they are less likely to vote."...]
[...In Florida, he concluded, the lost voters appeared to favor President Barack Obama. Of the 201,000 "missing" votes, 108,000 likely would have voted for Obama and 93,000 for Republican Mitt Romney, he said.
This suggests that Obama's margin over Romney in Florida could have been roughly 15,000 votes higher than it was. Obama carried the state by 74,309 votes out of more than 8.4 million cast.
After the 2012 election, Florida's Republican-created fiasco gained national attention and had officials and voters alike saying "I told you so." In spite of their efforts, President Obama won reelection without Florida. Still, many voters were disenfranchised, while others endured long lines, wait times, and countless other roadblocks. After the votes were finally counted, Rick Scott laughably claimed none of this was his doing, but sought to place blame on others, and "vowed" to make changes to election procedures. This move to fix things in time for his own hopes for reelection is, of course, not lost on anyone. Still, his proposals are vague and have more than a few critics.
Just days after the election, Democrats in the U. S. Senate unveiled plans for a bill to address many of the voting problems not only in Florida, but nationwide.
“The sight of countless Americans standing in line for hours to vote this past Election Day should remind us that our election system needs to be fixed,” Senator [Sheldon] Whitehouse said. “The FAST Voting Act is an important first step, providing incentives for states to take common sense steps to make voting easier for everyone.”
“We cannot permit voter suppression and intimidation, which persist in long lines, ballot shortages, machine malfunctions, bully billboards, and intrusive ID requirements,” Senator Blumenthal said. “Voting is a fundamental aspect of the electoral process that should be protected at all costs, and the FAST voting Act seeks to do exactly that by providing states with resources to reform their election processes.”
The bill was originally introduced in November 2012, just over a week after an Election Day that saw extraordinarily long lines and a myriad of voting issues in more than a dozen states, including Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia, South Carolina, Montana, Tennessee, Hawaii, Arizona, Rhode Island and more.
The FAST bill authorizes a federal program that would award grants based on how well applicant states are able to improve access to the polls in at least nine specified ways, including:
Providing flexible registration opportunities, including same-day registration;
Providing early voting, at a minimum of 9 of the 10 calendar days preceding an election;
Providing absentee voting, including no-excuse absentee voting;
Providing assistance to voters who do not speak English as a primary language;
Providing assistance to voters with disabilities, including visual impairment;
Providing effective access to voting for members of the armed services;
Providing formal training of election officials, including State and county administrators and volunteers;
Auditing and reducing waiting times at polling stations; and
Creating contingency plans for voting in the event of a natural or other disaster.
The program also requires an assessment of steps the state has taken to eliminate statutory, regulatory, procedural and other barriers to expedited voting and accessible voter registration.
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.”
(Photo of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse by Martha Jackovics)
